I thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in regards to the way the bill is drafted, I believe that we have to look at more than gender. We have to expand it to include other concepts in the bill. If we are going to do something, let's do it right here but don't piecemeal something for the sake of piecemealing. I think that we have other inequities in the North that we have to consider. We've had an Affirmative Action Policy in place for years and what we are seeing is that it's not working and we also have policies ensuring that we have pay equity. Pay equity is one step in many steps we still have to take. There are still inequities in this government, especially when it comes to the way the people are paid to work for the government. We can't just look at gender.

We have pay equity. Pay equity is one step in many steps we still have to take. There are still inequities in this government, especially when it comes to the way people are paid to work for government. The problem also includes race and other aspects of this government. I feel that I have been pounding myself against the wall for almost eight years in this House because of policies we have.

We have the Affirmative Action Policy. It has not done anything looking at the statistics of this government. How many people are we really seeing moving up the ranks in this government? A lot of people in this government, especially when you look at aboriginal people, their wages, because of their education levels and other levels that are there, are lower than those of people doing a similar job because of that component.

If we are going to look at gender, I suggest we also look at other aspects such as aboriginal contracts in this government. For the sake of timelines and trying to beat the clock because something might happen in Ottawa, as an aboriginal person, you are probably better off being protected under your rights in Ottawa than you are with this government. If this government is going to ram this legislation through for the sake of one aspect, I would suggest we take our time, do it right and look at how this change to the Public Service Act will include all aspects of the rights of employees of this government.

So, for the record, I will not be supporting this motion on the basis that there was an original motion that had an aboriginality clause which was presented by this government and is no longer there. I feel that this government is letting the aboriginal people down for the 99th time in the 99th year.