HERI Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON CANADIAN HERITAGE

COMITÉ PERMANENT DU PATRIMOINE CANADIEN

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, May 29, 2001

• 0905

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Clifford Lincoln (Lac-Saint-Louis, Lib.)): This is a meeting of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, which is meeting today regarding an order of reference from the House of Commons dated February 27, 2001, to cover the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2002.

[Translation]

This committee meeting is pursuant to an Order of Reference from the House of Commons dated February 27, 2001, relating to the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2002.

[English]

We're very pleased to welcome today the Honourable Hedy Fry, Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and the Status of Women.

Before I give the floor to Ms. Fry, I should mention that some members made comments to me that I take in good stead. I think they were called for and very appropriate. I apologize that maybe I was too lax in allowing questions to go on too long. It left some members with not enough time to ask questions. So today I'm going to insist on keeping time.

I was checking with the clerk regarding estimates. The tradition has always been, because estimates involve figures and so forth, that we allow the first run of ten minutes each person, while the second run is five minutes. So we would go to the Canadian Alliance and the Bloc Québécois first for ten minutes, two Liberals for ten minutes, and then Mr. Hearn and any other member of the opposition. Then there will be rounds of two Liberals, and then rounds of five minutes.

With this, I'd like to turn the floor over to the Honourable Dr. Fry. The floor is yours.

[Translation]

Hon. Hedy Fry (Secretary of State (Multiculturalism) (Status of Women), Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

Thank you for inviting me. I am pleased to be here this morning to present, discuss, and share with you the major issues and priorities for the status of women in Canada and multiculturalism programs.

As the Prime Minister has stated:

Canada has become a post-national multicultural society....Canadians have learned that their two international languages and their diversity are a comparative advantage and a source of continuing creativity and innovation.

[Translation]

Canada is a most inclusive country, where equal opportunities are available to all Canadians and all regions.

[English]

I would like you to look at the changing face of Canadian society. Canada is a dynamic society. Over a generation the role of women in Canada has changed dramatically. And over a decade the ethnic and racial dimensions of Canada have changed the face of our society at an unprecedented rate. About 43% of Canadians reported in the 1996 census have at least one ethnic origin other than British, French, or aboriginal. These percentages are higher in our larger cities, 69% in Toronto, 66% in Vancouver, and 33% in Montreal. And in medium-sized and rural areas it's about 28%.

The number of visible minority Canadians has doubled in ten years to 11%, and in fact we now project estimates that by the year 2006 visible minority adults will have increased by 20%. Two-thirds of our visible minority populations are under the age of 34, and the demographics show a fundamental change is taking place in the ethnic landscape of Canada's largest cities in particular. The impact of this on the life of the city is manifold and complex. How we harness the positive components of this diversity and minimize the negative is going to be central to Canada's success and to its social cohesion.

The Government of Canada has pledged:

to acknowledge and engage the parts of our society that are less advantaged

and

to help Canadians to strengthen the bonds of mutual understanding and respect, to celebrate their achievements and history and to exercise their shared citizenship.

That was said in the Speech from the Throne on January 30.

• 0910

The Government of Canada's pledge to “acknowledge and engage the parts of our society that are less advantaged” is an extremely important statement, because diversity in Canada has now assumed an open-ended definition, according to the Canadian Human Rights Act. It reflects the changing nature of our society and has evolved to include more than race, ethnicity, language, aboriginal status, and religion, now including sexual orientation and disability, for example.

But whatever component of diversity we consider, gender cuts across all, because 51% of our population happens to be women. Canada's concept of gender equality, therefore, recognizes the flip side of that coin, that in fact the women of Canada are as diverse as the rest of Canada, and that there are multiple barriers on top of gender that are caused by language, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, and indigenous status. In fact, this language has now been accepted around the world, because Canada has introduced it to those international fora. So it is now accepted at the OAS, at the Francophonie, at the Commonwealth, at the United Nations.

So our approach, when we look at how we engage the parts of our society that are less advantaged and how we strengthen the bonds to celebrate and exercise shared citizenship, should be about enhancing economic, social, cultural, and political participation for all Canadians.

As opposed to an assimilative model, Canada's integrative approach has maintained a tolerance and respect for individual identities without compromising social cohesion. More than 82% of Canadians agree that “the multicultural make-up is one of the best things about Canada”—that comes from an Ipsos-Reid survey—and 96% agree that “it is good that Canada has people of different racial backgrounds”.

Legislative frameworks, such as the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Canadian Multiculturalism Act, and the Unemployment Insurance Act, guide us in the development of appropriate economic and social policies to deal with our diversity and to meet the needs of our diverse people. But while equal rights of all citizens have been ensured under the law de jure, in order to achieve things de facto, which means in the reality of the lives of people every single day, that legislation must be supplemented by good public policy and by institutional change. In fact, we need to look at how we accomplish that.

One of the ways to accomplish it would be by gathering good data, such as the census data, and good information about our changing demographics; by researching how public policy affects the diversity of our peoples; by identifying the barriers certain groups face because of their differences; by working with communities to implement good public policy so it can be effective public policy that will actually result in change; and by giving to the communities the skills and the tools they need to circumvent the barriers they face.

As to the key advantages of a multicultural society, Mr. Chair,

[Translation]

multiculturalism has allowed us to develop particular skills as a society: flexibility, respect, and accommodation. These capabilities give us advantages both nationally and internationally.

[English]

Mr. Chair, as a nation we need to recognize that our greatest resources in the 21st century are human resources. How we can tap the full range of knowledge, skills, and creativity of all Canadian citizens, women and men, in all of their diversity, is central to productivity here at home in Canada. So too is how to expand our markets within Canada, how to look at the advantages this brings for tourism, for entrepreneurship, and for new products to serve that new and diversely expanding community. At the same time, we must see how to take the advantage and use it as we look at international trade and global competitiveness.

But not only do we look at this from an economic and social perspective, Mr. Chair. As we have learned to adapt to each other's differences and to look at the changes and understand each other, we've learned certain skills as a people. We have learned, in fact, how to respect each other, how to accommodate to each other, how to make room, and how to find common ground. That has given us very important skills as a people. We have learned the skills of negotiation. Those skills in finding common ground have helped us to find different ways to deal with conflict. That, Mr. Chair and colleagues, is a model for how the world can look at eventually dealing with issues such as conflict resolution and eventually at a 21st century of peace and human security.

• 0915

The Prime Minister said in his response to the Speech from the Throne:

We have pursued a flexible approach that recognizes the importance of individual and collective action and responsibility. We have learned the value of working together in common purpose in a federal system that permits diversity and experimentation.

[Translation]

We are aware of the advantages provided by our linguistic duality and our multicultural society. We have a deep commitment to democracy and human rights. We have become a model that is a source of inspiration for all.

[English]

If we look at the success stories so far within Status of Women Canada, in 1995 Canada launched a process in time for the United Nations convention in Beijing that looked at analysis of ways in which men and women are affected differently by legislation and public policy. That is called gender-based analysis, and it shows that differences in gender do matter.

Not only are we different as men and women anatomically, physiologically, psychologically, and in terms of our biology, but we also know, in terms of addressing income inequality and poverty, that the reality of women's lives are different. Overall, women's incomes are lower than men's, and for specific reasons. The presence of children has a greater impact on mothers' incomes than on fathers'.

Over the course of their lives, we have found that with Statistics Canada and federal-provincial-territorial governments, we have come up with some economic gender indicators that looked at total earnings, taxable total income, and income after tax. We have in fact found that in those three areas, there's a profound difference between men and women and how the tax system affects men and women.

That has allowed us to look at changes, because of gender-based analysis, in the Canada Pension Plan to important features such as the survivor benefits, the child-rearing dropout position, and full indexation of the tax system, because we see that women do better in after-tax income than before-tax income.

We know, for instance, if we help part-time students to finish high school and full-time students to go to university, those who have dependants, if we look at how the tax system assists them, in fact we are allowing more and more persons with dependants, the majority of whom are women, to be able to get the skills they need to have economic autonomy in this new society.

We have also found that amongst the partnering initiatives, we have been working with gender-based analysis across the board, horizontally, with every single department so that they can look at how their legislation, their policy, and their programs impact on men's and women's lives. In doing that, we have found the ability to work on some really important issues, especially, for instance—I'll give you an example with Industry Canada—where we have looked at the impact of e-business and the Internet on the ability to carry on small and medium-sized businesses in the 21st century. We have found that by addressing the issues of women and Internet policy, access, use, content, and capacity building, we have been able to allow women to participate more in the economic life of Canada and to look at how they can take advantage of trade outside the country by using the Internet differently.

It was Status of Women Canada's research directorate that first identified the need for a Government of Canada strategy to address trafficking in persons. As well, Status of Women Canada co-chaired the interdepartmental committee that coordinated Canada's position for the negotiations on the UN protocols on human smuggling and on trafficking.

So looking at how we worked with CIDA and other international bodies to bring about gender-based analysis that looked at, for instance, gender discrimination as a source or as a reason for refugee status when women are trying to come into this country to escape gender persecution in other countries, these have helped us to look at not only our national programs but also our international programs.

We have also worked very closely in Status of Women Canada with our federal, provincial, and territorial colleagues. As I said earlier on, we have worked now on two economic gender indicators that looked at the time spent working by women, both in the paid workforce and the unpaid workforce, and we've also looked at how private institutions trained women to be able to move forward into the 21st century. So we have looked at relative earnings and how we can shift those.

• 0920

This has been work done with Statistics Canada, and in fact it is the first done in the world. Many countries of the world have now been using our economic gender indicators to help them look at strategies for engaging women's equality in their own countries.

We have also worked on a project called the Metropolis Project, in which we looked at the gender impact within the larger cities of the world in which migration has been occurring at a rapid rate, how that is impacting on these inner cities and whether there is any difference within gender on these inner cities, and we have found it to be quite significant.

Canada played a leading role in Beijing in contributing key areas, such as the status of indigenous women, which, as you know, in Canada is probably the lowest economic-social-health status in all our country. We have taken the concept of indigenous women and indigenous men forward to the world stage, and in fact this has been adopted. We have now established initiatives within the Commonwealth, the OECD, and APEC looking at those kinds of issues.

Canada's national machinery for women's equality is being adopted around the world as we speak. We have now begun work looking at women's economic status in the Asia-Pacific countries in three areas: women's participation in small and medium-sized businesses; human resource development; and how we can get women into science and technology at a better rate.

Canada's multiculturalism policy is a winner for our gross domestic product. According to the Conference Board, Canada's ethnocultural groups represent a significant asset to Canadian businesses. Language skills, knowledge of foreign culture and foreign markets, and understanding of the natural trade links with overseas markets because of multiculturalism, where we have had people who have lived in Canada and not assimilated but kept this sense of identity and language and knowledge of the countries from which they came, has become a definite advantage as we move into looking at trade. Knowing that Canada depends for most of its gross domestic product on trade, this has been an extremely important advantage for Canada in terms of its own competitiveness.

Under the multiculturalism program, we have also been looking at how we work across the board with many other departments. We have seen with statistics from B'nai Brith and other groups that there has been a rise in organized hate group activity in Canada. As a result, we have been working very closely now for the last three years with other departments such as Justice Canada, the Solicitor General, and Industry Canada to set up a strategy to deal with hate activity and hate crimes and discrimination in Canada.

So we have come up with some strategies. For instance, when we looked at the use of the Internet, which has increased as a means of spreading hate in Canada, we have set up some strategies with Industry Canada and Justice Canada to help young people and children develop tools for the safe, wise, and responsible use of the Internet so that they can sift the information they get, so that they can judge that information and not necessarily take it for granted.

We've been working with the Canadian Mental Health Association to eliminate systemic barriers that language and culture bring to access to health care.

We have been working, for instance, with provinces. In Saskatchewan we've worked with the municipalities to look at how we train front-line workers, transit workers, and health workers to be sensitive to the cultural and linguistic needs of our diverse communities in Saskatchewan.

In Halifax we have been working with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to deal with some very divisive issues within the school in Cole Harbour, to look at black and white issues and race differences. We have helped the RCMP to fast-forward young black RCMP officers, who have become role models for the young black students. It has quietened down the region, and people have begun to build links and work together. So safety in society, social cohesion, is enhanced by recognizing these issues.

As we work internationally, we have been focusing on migration issues through the international Metropolis Project, which is a project made up of 24 countries around the world and their universities and academics, looking at how migration is affecting cities and how cities can develop to become safe, cohesive places around the world.

I also want to add that very recently, as recently as the last two or three years, and it has increased this year, countries around the world, especially in Europe, have been coming to Canada and asking us to go to their countries to discuss multiculturalism and how it has created cohesive societies and common ground. So we have been working with delegations from Denmark, the Ukraine, the Netherlands, Russia, Australia, the Caribbean, and Portugal.

• 0925

Most recently, the President of Portugal was here. He is looking at Canada's multicultural model to help develop in Portugal a way of dealing with immigrants and the multiplicity of diversity within Portugal, and looking at how that affects the European Union in general, to allow for a sound economic and social structure to be developed there.

Finally, we have noted that, in fact, in terms of racism, people are living in this new 21st century Canada. They are our multicultural society. But we've also known that they are the biggest targets for organized hate groups. So we have begun working with young people on our March 21 project, in which young people have been using music and the Internet—which are the two sources for spreading hate propaganda by the organized hate groups—to actually fight back and to create strong, cohesive youth groups in Canada. As a result of that, our Canadian youth have told us they want to participate fully in the United Nations conference against racism, xenophobia, and other forms of related intolerance.

Canada has pushed this agenda forward, and we are now having a youth component to the world conference on racism in August because of the work that Canada has done. Countries from around the world are now bringing youth delegations. These young people are looking at the diversity of the world in very different ways from the ways we have been learning to do.

I just want to give you a snapshot of women in Canada today, because I think it is important, my colleagues, that we recognize Canada is changing very rapidly.

Women now account for 46% of the paid labour force. They are the prime earners in almost 25% of dual-earner families. What we know is that this has created a pressure for women who now are working outside the home in the paid workforce, but who come back into the home and still need to do the caregiving work—looking after children, looking after seniors in the home, and looking after the sick and disabled.

This has created not only a pressure for women but also a vacuum and increased pressure on the social and health services within our country, because they now have to take care of that space that has been vacated by women going out into the paid workforce. That is a real challenge for us in terms of how we develop good public policy to deal with some of those issues.

Female, lone-parent families represent 18.5% of all families, and almost 60% of those families live in poverty.

We also know there are good-news stories. Women are leading 33% of all new small businesses, and nearly 25% of women-owned small businesses exported and took part in world trade in 1997. But we know that women trade differently, so we have had to look at how we assist women to do the kind of trade they need to do.

I want you to know that between 1979 and 1998, 89% of the violent crimes that have happened within the domestic violence circuit have happened to women. Of 1,901 spouses murdered, 1,468 were women.

In 25 years, women's situations have changed. We now find that homelessness is increasing among women. They are the invisible homeless, but they are homeless for different reasons than men are. Many women are homeless because they are fleeing violent situations, so a really important piece of women's homelessness is how they keep themselves from being found.

To have open shelters for women to just walk into is a difficult problem, because they don't want to be found. Sometimes they want to go underground and be hidden from the violent stalkers or people who are trying to find them. Therefore, creating open shelters is not the way to go.

So we have been working together with the homelessness secretariat and community organizations to look at how we deal with homelessness for women in a way that is sensitive to the confidentiality and security that women require. There also is the fact that as women move around with their children, they are very careful, because they do not want social services to take their children away from them. So there is an added component to the homelessness of women.

We also know that in terms of health, life expectancy for aboriginal women is four years less than for other Canadian women. And we know that in 1995, 6% of women had developed AIDS. Two years later, that had doubled. So the effect of a disease like AIDS or HIV on women is now moving forward, and we need to look at how we deal with the spread of this particular disease in women, which is very different from its spread in other sectors.

• 0930

In terms of violence, in 1997 the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics said that 88% of all spousal violence victims were women. Aboriginal women between the ages of 25 and 44 were five times more likely than other women in Canada to have a violent death.

These are startling statistics, Mr. Chair and colleagues, and I want you to recognize why we need to look at gender and how it has an impact on the lives of men and women in Canada today.

We know that in terms of violence, one to two women are killed a week in Canada, according to Statistics Canada results that came out in 1999.

And while we look at women in terms of small and medium-sized businesses, that they are increasing in terms of the numbers of businesses at twice the rate of men's, women are going there because it quite often helps them to be able to work at home and juggle this competing interest of trying to rear a family and to get back into the paid workforce. At the same time, access to capital is a real challenge for women.

We've been looking at women in terms of education, and women are in fact going into universities at a higher rate. They're finishing high school at a higher rate. And while women have the majority of university degrees, they lag behind in computer sciences and engineering, which are the skills that are needed in the 21st century. So women are not going to be able to take advantage of the high-paying jobs in the 21st century.

In addition, women make up only 33% of doctoral students and 26% of Canadian professors, and we noticed that only 10% of CEOs are women. In the communications industry, which is an important industry in the 21st century, only 12% of women are in high-ranking, decision-making positions.

So I'm trying to say that in the snapshot of women in Canada today, while women have been making strides, there is still a great deal of work to be done. Most of the statistics that I've spoken to you about come from Statistics Canada.

The Chair: Could you give us an idea of when you're going to be able to conclude?

Ms. Hedy Fry: About another five minutes, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Okay. Thank you.

Ms. Hedy Fry: What I've been trying to pinpoint is that while we see there are successes that are tangible in terms of women over the decade, we know we still face a number of challenges.

For example, women still earn an average of 73¢ for every dollar that a man earns in the full-time, full-paid workforce—if we consider that to be 30 hours a week or more. The point is, it used to be 60%; it's now 73%. The fact that there is still a wage gap is very significant, so we need to look at how we close that wage gap and at what things have created it.

We also need to look at how we work with the provinces, and Status of Women Canada is now on a working group with the provinces to look at new identities for victims of life-threatening relationships—in other words, women who are victims of violence in which they fear for their lives. We have begun to look at how we help these women to find new identities.

Let us look at a snapshot of Canada's multicultural society. I would ask you to look at the slide. We find that 50% of youth have one ethnic origin other than French, English, or aboriginal. More than 70% of those youth in Toronto and in Vancouver are in fact minority groups. The visible minority population doubled in a decade to 11%, and will double again by 2006.

Four university graduates arrive for every one lost to the United States, and we call that the brain gain. For every one Canadian who leaves Canada there are four university graduates coming into Canada. The problem we have to face is, what are we doing with those graduates? Are they working at the jobs for which they are trained?

We know that German, Ukrainian, Chinese, Italian, and Dutch origins have reported over 900,000 Canadians each—all over a million today in Canada. And of all the children entering Canadian kindergartens this autumn, one in three will have an aboriginal or visible-minority status.

As we look at early childhood development, we are looking at the fact that one in three children will be facing cultural and linguistic barriers that do not naturally make them ready for school. So we have to look at the diversity of the children when we look at early childhood development.

There are serious income, employment, and safety issues tied to ethnicity and race. Let me give you some figures that tell us what that means.

In B.C., 25% of Vietnamese youth are unemployed. In Alberta, 18% of Haitian youth are unemployed. In Saskatchewan and Manitoba, 23% of aboriginal youth are unemployed. In Ontario, 20% of Sri Lankan youth are unemployed, and in Quebec, 31% of Pakistani youth. In New Brunswick, 25% of aboriginal youth, in Nova Scotia, 25% of black youth, and in Prince Edward Island, 29% of Portuguese youth are unemployed. In Newfoundland, 35% of Métis youth also face unemployment. In my city of Vancouver, the unemployment rate of Serbian youth is 30%.

• 0935

So we see that in fact young people are facing unemployment rates that are larger than that of the average population because of language, ethnicity, or race. If these are going to be doubling and tripling in numbers in our cities, as your first slide tells you, more than 70% in Toronto and Vancouver, what does that mean for our cities, and the future of our cities, and the ability of people to feel hope that they will be able to have a job, that they will be able to participate in the good life of Canada?

When people don't participate, studies have shown us—for instance, from the Metropolis Project—that they tend to become hopeless, there is an increase in substance use, there is an increase in violence, and there is a decrease in social cohesion. Those are things I think we need to look at.

So some of the challenges we now face to inclusion, because of multiculturalism, are, as I said before, when we have, for every one Canadian who leaves Canada, four coming in with university degrees.... Foreign credentials becomes an issue we need to look at. And while we know this is a provincial jurisdiction, we need to work with provinces in human resource development, citizenship and immigration, and multiculturalism to look at how we assist those people to use their qualifications.

Immigrant underutilization costs an estimated $10.9 billion to Canada annually. We also know that in fact when we look at foreign and Canadian-born visible minorities, they have the highest levels of post-secondary education in Canada and yet the male visible minority migrants earn 15% less than non-visible minority counterparts.

Canadian-born visible minority males earn 9% less than non-visible minority males in Canada, and so the level of poverty amongst visible minorities is twice that of non-visible minorities in our cities in spite of having the highest levels of post-secondary education. And that pinpoints us to look at the issue of foreign credentialing and how we don't let this brain waste occur in Canada and how we therefore increase our productivity and our competitiveness.

I wanted to quickly give you some information here that in Toronto those falling between the income average are Ukrainians, Hungarians, Poles, Romanians, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, and Greeks as well as blacks. What I'm trying to pinpoint is that this is not a visible minority problem; this is a problem of language and ethnicity and of cultural differences, of people who come here with university education but are not able to use them. So I think those are some issues I wanted to pinpoint to you and to look at how it specifically affects youth.

How do we intend to meet the challenges? This is my final piece. Looking at how we deal with gender-based analysis and expand it to look at our institutions horizontally is a huge piece. How do we look at trade and its impact on women and how women are moving into trade? How do we look at the issue of trafficking in persons around the world? The White House tells us that there are now 2 million people trafficked around the world. We don't know, in Canada, what that means because our statistics tell us it's anywhere between 8,000 and 16,0000. So we need to develop that kind of statistical database. And how do we make partnerships so we can deal with some of these issues?

Those are some of the things we're looking at in terms of multiculturalism programs. The biggest challenges we are looking at here is how do we in fact look at a horizontal-based approach in which we will promote equality of opportunity, increased productivity, allow for credentials to be used, develop a skilled portfolio for persons who have different languages and ethnicity, and get this brain gain to work better for us.

Finally, when we look at some very important data, the Simon Wiesenthal Center has told us that there is an increase in hate activity and hate sites on the Internet. Over the period of about four years, this has increased from single-digit numbers to about 2200 Internet hate sites in North America. The multiculturalism department has taken the lead in working with other departments to look at the rise of organized hate groups.

So those are some of the things we're talking about. We have been looking at that under five headings. We have had some round tables, and I would be glad to discuss later with you about how, in partnership with the police, provinces and other departments, we are developing a strategy to deal with hate activity in Canada.

• 0940

Finally, we need to look at institutional change, credentialing, and creating a better awareness among everyone about how we deal with Canada in a different way.

In the 21st century our economic and social goals must be pursued hand in hand. Let the world see in Canada a society marked by innovation and inclusion, by excellence and justice, that can be a model for peace and human security in the rest of the world.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Thank you, Minister.

We established that, because there are estimates, there will be first rounds for parties of ten minutes each. That's the questions and answers, and we'll be monitoring it because people said I was far too lax before and let things just carry on.

We'll start with the Canadian Alliance. Mr. Harris and Mr. Grewal will split their time. We'll go on to the Bloc Québécois, Mrs. Gagnon, and then have two Liberals. We'll switch to Mr. Hearn. We'll go back to the Liberals and then there will be rounds of five minutes each.

Mr. Harris and Mr. Grewal.

Mr. Richard Harris (Prince George—Bulkley Valley, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Minister, we appreciate your presentation here today. However, there are some serious credibility questions that have arisen recently, which you're well aware of, that really bring a mistrust to us of any material or anything you say here. And until those credibility questions regarding your ministry and yourself, in connection, of course, to the cross-burning statements, are cleared up, then I think this committee and certainly many Canadians have a right to question anything that comes out of your office.

Now, you've repeated recently, and repeated constantly, that you received a letter regarding a cross-burning incident firstly from the mayor of Prince George. Then you later said, no, it wasn't the mayor of Prince George, it was someone else. You've maintained to date that indeed you did receive a letter about a cross-burning incident, but to date you have not produced this letter nor explained where in fact that letter came from. This leads many to surmise that in fact there was and is no letter about any cross-burning incident and there never was a letter from any mayor.

So I have to ask you directly, Minister, in order to clear up these serious credibility questions, was there ever a cross-burning letter, from which mayor, from which town, on which date, and will you table that letter?

Ms. Hedy Fry: I have already said that I made a mistake with regard to Prince George and I apologized to the people of Prince George on that issue.

Mr. Richard Harris: Yes.

Ms. Hedy Fry: Basically we are talking about a mistake with regard to Prince George.

In terms of the issue of the credibility of my statistics, they come from Statistics Canada, they come from the Centre for Justice Statistics, they come from B'nai Brith, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and from B.C. And I think we can—

Mr. Richard Harris: Minister, if I can interrupt, I asked you some direct questions. I'll go over them again. Yes, we accept that you made a mistake about the letter from the mayor of Prince George, but you've still maintained that there was a letter from a mayor in a Canadian city. You've maintained that to date, but you've never produced that letter or told anyone where that town was and who that mayor was. This leaves virtually every town in Canada wondering “Is it our town?” People are wondering what town it is. Was there a cross-burning incident, and what mayor wrote you this letter? You've never answered those questions.

I ask you, please, to clear this up and to try to re-establish your credibility, will you answer these questions directly?

Ms. Hedy Fry: I will reiterate that in fact when I said I made a mistake and apologized with regard to Prince George I did not make any other statements beyond that. I will repeat—

Mr. Richard Harris: Minister, I correct you, you have repeatedly said—

The Chair: Let the minister reply.

Ms. Hedy Fry: —I made no other statements beyond that. And having made no other statements beyond the fact that I made a mistake with regard to Prince George, that information with regard to Prince George and that particular incident was a mistake, and I apologized to them, I am—

Mr. Richard Harris: Minister, you have repeatedly maintained that indeed there was a letter and you've never produced that letter nor identified the mayor. You've repeatedly done that in the press and to date you have not repudiated that statement.

• 0945

Ms. Hedy Fry: Mr. Chair, I would like to respond to this question based on the results of my mistake with regard to Prince George and my apology. I think the issue here is that we are not talking about communities and about towns, we're talking about what was told to us by the Centre for Statistics, B'nai Brith, the Simon Wiesenthal, and the B.C. Human Rights Commission on the rise of organized hate groups that have been coming. This is available in all of that data, in the B'nai Brith audit for 2000. It talks about the rise in organized hate groups across the communities, across Canada, and around the world. This is a world phenomenon. The rise in organized hate groups is a phenomenon, because they are recruiting in the schools, and it is something about which we should be very concerned. Communities across Canada where organized hate groups have been going are in fact concerned about this issue and have been working to deal with this issue in a very positive manner.

So the issue is about the increase of organized hate groups and the hate group activity of these organized groups, not only within Canada but around the world. We have been working, not only in Canada but internationally, with communities to deal with these groups wherever they begin to rear their heads. All the data with regard to where those can be found are in the B'nai Brith, in Simon Wiesenthal, in the B.C. Human Rights Commission statistics. To focus on any one community takes the issue away from the fact that we are talking about a rise in organized hate groups in Canada and around the world that is of concern for all of us.

The Chair: Mr. Grewal, five minutes.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal (Surrey Central, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the best interests of the committee, I will put all my questions so that the minister can choose to answer the way she likes.

Mr. Chairman, with respect to the main estimates, where is, line by line, the list of recipients and amounts of grants and contributions doled out by the minister's department? During the briefing the assistant deputy minister insisted that they are there, but they're not here in the estimates. So 1999 and 2000 estimates marked the last time multiculturalism.... Every time they used to include those facts, but this time they are not there, so I would like to ask the minister what those figures are, what the minister is trying to hide, and why she removed the listing of those estimates.

Second, more than one-fifth of the files audited by the Auditor General had reporting imposed on them, and still these files lacked even a basic account. That's what the Auditor General said. In response to a question I asked during question period, the parliamentary secretary said the Auditor General approved, he's approving the progress already made.

Mr. Chairman, it is unbelievable that the minister's shop would put out such a large spin, without any credibility whatsoever. How will the minister defend those statements?

On February 15, 2001, an Ottawa Citizen editorial declared that you have escaped entirely any accountability for 56% of projects filed, examined by the Auditor General, that either failed to meet minimum standards or were rated as only borderline acceptable. This assessment was six years after a 1994 report by Liberal member of Parliament John Bryden, who said that in terms of grants, government money comes without strings attached. There seems to be no requirement to show how well the money was spent.

In fact, of all of the Auditor General's reports on spending, few are more abysmal than his observations on your department, according to the editorial. Is it true that the minister did not respond to the editorial?

The next question, Mr. Chair—

The Chair: You'll have to give her a chance if you don't want to exhaust your time with the questions.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: I will take only half the time, Mr. Chairman, and half the time the minister can answer the questions.

The Chair: Half the time is gone already.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: I will go quickly, Mr. Chairman. I have only two more questions left.

What is the real source, Minister, of your slur about the communities of Prince George and Kamloops? How can you assure this committee that you will not be treating the expenditures of your department, your estimates, with the same reckless exuberance you have shown in your inability to answer questions, even friendly questions from your own party, asked for the simple purpose of giving you a bully pulpit to espouse propaganda of your department?

And what explanations, Minister, do you give for your claim that you had a letter from the mayor from Prince George or from any other city? You have still not answered that question. I find it incredible that you didn't question or second-guess your question period speaking notes that talk about Prince George or any other city, that you didn't double-check to be sure cross burnings were actually taking place in Canada before you uttered those words. Did you actually believe there were cross burnings anywhere in Canada?

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Finally, Mr. Chairman—

The Chair: I'm sorry, this is just becoming.... You have to give a chance for the minister to answer, otherwise you'll take all your time.

Ms. Hedy Fry: Mr. Chair, to the honourable member Mr. Grewal, in terms of line by line, this is not there. I have just asked my deputy minister, and she tells me it isn't usual to bring it. But I will let you know that we have nothing to hide and we will be able to give you the line by line. We'll get it to your office or to anyone else who wishes to have that line by line. This is something that is readily available to you. I'd be delighted to do that.

With regard to the Auditor General and the files, as I had said to the honourable member at an earlier date, the Auditor General's report that he refers to is a report that was made almost a year ago. Since that report, all of the recommendations made by the Auditor General in his original report have been implemented by my department. Basically you will find that one of the things we think is very important about the Auditor General is he shows us the need to be looking at our management structures, to look at staff training, and to look at how we develop our processes on an ongoing basis and how to strengthen and tighten them. We have done exactly that. We think the Auditor General's report has assisted us in being able to put in place a deal of processes in our department to deal with strengthening the way we do some of our grants and contributions.

I think that answers all of the questions the member had asked.

The Chair: There's the question about Prince George again.

Ms. Hedy Fry: I repeat, I had said in the House of Commons that I made a mistake with regard to Prince George, and I have already said that—

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Mr. Chair—

The Chair: I'm sorry, Mr. Grewal, you've exceeded the time. I don't think it's fair to the others on the committee. You have a chance to come back after the end of the round.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: But what is the answer, Mr. Chairman?

The Chair: I'm terribly sorry.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: This is the second time we've had to ask—

The Chair: Yes, I know.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: —wasting time, Mr. Chairman. We still didn't get the answer. Which community was it?

The Chair: This is beyond my purview. It's for you to ask questions and for the minister to answer the way she wants.

Madame Gagnon.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon (Québec, BQ): These are two important portfolios: multiculturalism and the status of women. I would first like to comment on multiculturalism. According to what I have seen, under an appearance of flexibility and integration, when we speak of multiculturalism, it trivializes the fact that there are two societies living in Canada: the Quebec society and the Canadian society. I think you are telling those who support cultural diversity, those people who contribute to Canadian and Quebec cultures, that there is only one culture in Canada. Therefore, the Bloc Québécois cannot support such a policy, and we resent the lack of respect of the Quebec society in this speech on multiculturalism.

I believe that the multiculturalism approach minimizes the respect that should be given to cultural communities, because they are being used for economic purposes, when we speak of their relationship with, and not their integration into the two societies. We know that Quebec has a very different approach to multiculturalism, and when you say that multiculturalism is flexible and respectful, I have difficulty accepting that, when I see how Canada respects the various policies. In Quebec, we need only cite the Young Offenders Act. I wonder what message is being sent to cultural diversities in Canada. I won't be asking any questions, because I think you are aware of our viewpoint on multiculturalism and the fact that we have our own. I know that you do a good job, but we can agree to disagree on a vision of multiculturalism.

I will deal with the status of women. You know that a motion was introduced by the Bloc Québécois, because since 1993, since I have been here, in Parliament, the Heritage Committee has not been the appropriate place to discuss matters relating to the status of women, and since the death knell was sounded for the Advisory Committee on the Status of Women, it is rather difficult to determine what your department is doing. We know that there is no objective criticism.

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I know that you have undertaken a number of projects relating to the status of women and that it is something that you are quite interested in, but in a committee, it would be appropriate to examine, for example, the issue of parental or maternity leave. It would be interesting to see how parental leave, through employment insurance, has caused discrimination against women who could not qualify. We might have examined the impact on women that was caused by your department through the Employment Insurance Act, something which goes far beyond parental leave: the fact that they are penalized, that their jobs are not always stable, and the rest.

We should call witnesses to appear before the committee so that you might also have some leadership within your government and within certain departments where the status of women might affect their policies, including, among others, Human Resources Development. I would like to ask you, Madam Minister, if you are in favour of such a committee because, as you know, we will also be discussing the budget. How could we get such a committee off the ground? Would you be in favour of such a committee?

[English]

Ms. Hedy Fry: I think that would be something for this committee to decide. I would not want to infringe on the decision-making of the committee at all.

But I think that you are right in looking at women, the 51% who make up Canada, we need to look at issues such as poverty, gender-based analysis, and how it impacts on income distribution and on benefits, etc. We have been doing this within the department.

With regard to research, we have an independent research arm, made up of a committee of women from across the country who come from academia. They ask for the research papers on their own. They decide what issues they want to research. We have absolutely no input into that. Many of their research papers, which are actually available—and if you wish, I would be pleased to send them to you at your request—are actually quite critical of policies. They help to inform public policy. I have consultations with women's organizations around the country and nationally, who actually help us to implement public policy.

With regard to looking at critical implementation of public policy, there is in fact a group within cabinet that is now working with non-governmental organizations to look at how they can become a partner with government in looking at implementing public policy or looking at public policy before it is set up, so that we can have effective public policy.

That way of working with civil society—for want of a better word—is something that we're working on right now. But the gender-based analysis is clear. There are many departments now working on pilot projects to look at how we move the agenda forward.

With regard to parental leave, I think that expanding parental leave to the 50 weeks is a first step in an ongoing look at how we balance the concept of women in the paid workforce and looking after their families and their caregiving work at home for their parents and for disabled and ill persons. This is part of an ongoing project we're working on that takes gender-based analysis and looks at how we find better ways for women in Canada to balance those kinds of problems.

[Translation]

The Chair: Ms. Gagnon, you have a few minutes remaining.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: I have a question about parental leave. The Department of Human Resources Development has granted a lengthy parental leave to women who, first of all, will not be able to afford it and who, in many cases, will not qualify. Would it not be preferable to adopt the position taken by Quebec and transfer these funds so that women might be able to choose the length of the leave, as Quebec would like to do; the benefit scale that was suggested by Quebec could then be adopted, since it is much more flexible and much closer to what women are experiencing? I don't know.

In any case, since you want to help women, I would say that this flexibility does not exist, that it is not available through the bill that has been tabled by the Department of Human Resources Development. Do you not think that it would have been a way to gain a certain level of leadership within the party while offering more flexible solutions to women?

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There are women's groups who could have appeared before us in a committee so that members might be made aware of what they have to say. I know that you have your consultants with you, but I think that an understanding of women's issues must be complete, and other members must make an effort to understand what women's groups are asking for, as well as what Quebec and Canadian society wants. Thank you.

[English]

Ms. Hedy Fry: I think the provinces are and should be able to look at how they implement flexible ways of dealing with balancing, caregiving, and paid work. But I think that on the issue of a standing committee, as I said, it would be very presumptuous of me to state what this committee should do. I think it's up to the committee to decide.

But I also would like to suggest that every single standing committee should be looking through an agenda-based analysis lens at how all of the things that are done, whether they be in industry, in finance—and in fact the finance committee has looked at certain areas of gender-based analysis—or in health, in order to determine how they impact on women and men differently, because we know that they do. The tool for doing that is gender-based analysis. It is available. We would be pleased to share it with committees to look at it from their lenses on their particular issues. I think there is also that way of doing things, that is, each standing committee can adopt gender-based analysis on the issues that they're looking at specifically.

But it's up to you to have this debate, I'm afraid, Madame Gagnon, as to what you do within the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

The Chair: I'll move over to the government side. You have 10 minutes. Mr. Harvard asked me for the floor. You can share your 10 minutes—Ms. Bulte also asked to be heard—or you can carry on for the 10 minutes yourself, and we'll come back after it.

Mr. John Harvard (Charleswood St. James—Assiniboia, Lib.): I'd be more than happy to share it.

The Chair: So you'll share with Ms. Bulte.

Mr. John Harvard: Sure. I'd be more than happy to.

Thank you, Minister, for coming today. I'm glad to say that I share your values when it comes to multiculturalism. I'm glad to see that we're making some progress on the road towards greater equality and inclusiveness in the country.

In your presentation you didn't use the words “affirmative action”, something I support very strongly in principle. Does your department actually have a program that could be referred to as affirmative action? Or do you eschew that term for whatever reason?

Ms. Hedy Fry: Having discussed this at international fora, there are so many meanings for affirmative action that I don't even want to discuss it. Some countries believe that affirmative action is any positive proactive action that is taken to look at equality issues.

Mr. John Harvard: So you can say that we have it.

Ms. Hedy Fry: Others look at quotas. If we look at affirmative action from the definition that any positive proactive things we do to, (a), identify the barriers, and (b), look at how we remove them or help people to circumvent them, is positive action, then that is the kind of thing we try to do. If you look at quotas only as a source of affirmative action, some people argue that this tends to increase the stereotyping, that you say that these people would never have made it on their own—you had to lower the bar for them—and therefore it continues to maintain the view that the particular group will never make it unless you lower the bar.

Mr. John Harvard: I'm not suggesting quotas.

Ms. Hedy Fry: No, I know you're not.

Mr. John Harvard: But do we have something, though, that might be called targets, something to aim for towards equality and removing systemic barriers?

Ms. Hedy Fry: I think we should aim at least at looking at our demographics—what the breakdown of Canadian society is—and how that demographic is represented in all areas of economic, social and political life. I think it's interesting to note that if you take, for instance, new immigrants to Canada, who represent I think 12% at any one time, the percentage in the House of Commons is 19%, which is interesting. We've exceeded any kind of demographic target for representation of new immigrants within the House of Commons, but we haven't done that in, say, certain economic areas in terms of jobs and employment opportunities.

So we need to look at that—what's happening, what are the barriers. We need to work with the provinces and the trades and professions. That's the way we'll identify it, looking at the number of people, at the percentage of those who have skills. Are they utilizing their skills appropriately in this society?

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If we set the targets and say we will try to work according to the demographics of our population and create opportunity for people based on those demographics, then obviously if we exceed them that's great; if we don't, we have recognized it, as long as we get at least core representation of all the people in Canada. That's the basis of how we look at targets.

Mr. John Harvard: When you talk about this issue, you have to talk about our aboriginal communities because they have a long way to go. You just have to look around Parliament Hill. You don't see a lot of aboriginals. You can go to any of our ridings and go into shops, business places, and professional offices and so on, and you won't see very many aboriginals.

I think it's an undeniable fact that in our country we have either deliberately or not deliberately ghettoized them. They are in clusters.

In your department, do you work closely with Minister Nault or others to help break down some of those barriers, so some day we'll see a whole lot more aboriginal doctors, lawyers, engineers, economists, chartered accountants, or whatever, and not see them just working at menial jobs?

Ms. Hedy Fry: Yes. In fact, we work very closely with Minister Nault's department. When I was doing my consultations over the last nine months across Canada, we consulted specifically and separately with indigenous peoples of Canada, because they wanted to discuss how indigenous status created discriminatory values for them, in terms of employment, social participation, political participation, and participation in the civil service and other areas.

We are working with Mr. Nault on what the barriers are and what ideas are coming from the community. I think one of the most important things we've learned in the two portfolios here is that we may have great ideas on paper, but we need to work with communities that know what will actually work. We try to do that kind of from the bottom up and meet in the middle, so we work with them.

We've been working with indigenous communities on this issue, and with Mr. Nault, to look at some of those barriers created by indigenous status, and specifically to break them down for indigenous women, whom all statistics show have the lowest health and education and highest violence status in Canada.

Mr. John Harvard: I'll now cede the floor to Ms. Bulte.

The Chair: Ms. Bulte.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte (Parkdale—High Park, Lib.): Thank you.

Thank you for coming, Minister. I have a comment, more than a question. During your presentation you spoke about how Canada was asked to be a leader and was invited to Europe to show how our multicultural system works. I commend you on that; once again Canada is a leader.

I recently had the opportunity to attend the minister's cultural heritage meeting in Slovenia. In the briefing papers there was a wonderful paper, written by Artur Wilczynski, on the importance of multiculturalism. In your last slide you dealt with it very quickly. It may be worth distributing that paper to all members of the committee, because I think it clearly outlines just how important multiculturalism is. We also need to remember the role it plays in participation, prosperity, and human security.

So while your last line touched on it, I think it's so important that we realize how our society actually addresses those issues and how we are a role model to other countries. Certainly on the human security side, as the former Minister of Foreign Affairs has said, wars now happen within countries, not between countries, so we should use multiculturalism as a tool to deal with that and promote understanding. So if it's possible, Minister, perhaps you could have your officials distribute that paper, so we could all see it in the department. That's number one.

Second, I am going to follow up on Madam Gagnon's question on maternity leave. In the last session, when you came before the committee, you had statistics on self-employed women. It was quite interesting how many women were employed in their own businesses. The statistics were quite striking that we should be doing something to help those self-employed women.

Currently, if you're self-employed or own 50% of a business—perhaps you own 50% of your spouse's business—even though you're a full participant and collect a salary, you cannot collect employment insurance or any kind of paternity leave.

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We welcome the extension of this paternity leave and applaud it, but we're missing a great number of women who are self-employed, in their own businesses, or in those types of situations. I remember seeing statistics on how quickly this whole sector of self-employed women is growing. How are we dealing with that, and what is the department's feeling on that? It's always been a concern of mine, even in the private sector.

On the flip side of the self-employed—and then I have another quick question, if I may—you hear that women perform two-thirds of the unpaid work. There's a school that believes this is key to moving toward women's economic autonomy. What are we doing to address the unpaid work issue? Is your department doing anything to value it? If they are, how would that actually move toward increasing women's economic autonomy?

Ms. Hedy Fry: Those are very important questions, because they're part of understanding the differences in gender and how it affects people in their real lives.

Talking about self-employed women, we have been doing this kind of analysis, looking at the statistics we have. We have been working with key departments to identify ways we can look at benefits for women who are out there doing the non-traditional work, in employer-employee based situations, and what is happening, considering the increase in the number of women who are self-employed.

We're working right now, not only with other departments but with entrepreneurs themselves, on how we recognize that work and look at benefit packages for these groups. We have been looking at some research-based work on that, and what will work and what won't. I'm looking at some of the European models, for instance.

Second, you talked about the value of unpaid work. Canada was the first country to actually measure and identify, in the 1996 census, the amount of unpaid work done. We have now followed that up with some substantive questions on unpaid work, recognizing that work is done by both men and women, but that women carry the majority of that work; recognizing that work as caregiving work, in general, but also looking at some of the components of housework and other areas of unpaid work.

We have developed some models, looking at the various components of unpaid work, and how the tax system might be able to deal with that kind of issue. If you recall, in the budget of 1998, Minister Martin brought forward a tax credit for persons—persons was the word he used, and knowing that the majority of them were women was an important factor—who did the caregiving work for the disabled and the elderly at home. That was the beginning of looking at that. The work of doing that within the tax structure is an important one.

In fact, the federal-provincial-territorial ministers have started to do work on that. The economic gender indicator is a huge piece of identifying, qualifying, and quantifying some of that work. We have just recently found a very interesting piece of information that the amount of unpaid work done by women is decreasing. We don't know why. We think it's probably being shared by men in the family now, or maybe women are doing less of it because they're working more in the paid workforce. We don't know what's happening to that unpaid work—who's doing it. So the question then comes back to caregiving.

The other thing we've noticed, which is a new piece of information, is that young women between the ages of about 15 and 24—I hate using the term 15—are actually increasing the amount of unpaid work they're doing, in relation to their male counterparts in the same age group.

What does that mean for public policy? We need to look at that. We need to do some studies on what that means and why it is happening. Does it mean that in the future we're going to look at how families actually begin to develop themselves? Will this mean something for the birth rate in Canada? I don't know. That's the kind of work we have to do. We've developed the indicators to be able to do that work, and with Statistics Canada we're getting that information base.

All of the countries in the world are looking at that and using it as a basis for doing some of the work. So we're also listening to what other countries are doing using the same data.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Hearn, you have ten minutes.

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Mr. Loyola Hearn (St. John's West, PC): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, let me thank the minister again, and her staff, for coming this morning. Minister, I'd also like a copy of the line-by-line grants.... Perhaps all the committee could have one for discussion after.

I have just a couple of questions, Mr. Chairman. The minister mentioned, when she was dealing with statistics, that she had some concerns about some of the statistics she receives. I would suggest that she look at some of them carefully, because in the breakdown one of the things she mentioned was that 35% of the Métis youth in Newfoundland will be unemployed, and a lot of people might say, oh boy, all these young people unemployed in Newfoundland. The total number of Métis youth in Newfoundland, I would suggest, would be minuscule. We're probably talking no more than 35. So it's a very small population. The Métis population is extremely small. So when we throw out figures like that, we should be extremely careful because it might lead to the wrong impression.

The Auditor General, on a number of occasions, has expressed concern about the grants given out by your department, Minister, and the follow-up afterwards. I know that, because of the makeup of your department, undoubtedly you're lobbied constantly by different groups and agencies for funding for all kinds of reasons. How do you select the groups to fund, and how do you monitor the funding that is provided to these groups?

The other thing is that when we talk about trying to handle the diversity of multiculturalism in this country, I have some concerns that we can deal with some of the problems from afar. I'm thinking that most of them have been a federal responsibility and dealt with at the federal level.

I listened to Madame Gagnon. Quite often I think a lot of the concerns dealing with people who come into our country and who find themselves perhaps in a vacuum for a while could be addressed if more of the power and decision-making was at the local level, in cooperation certainly with the federal government, because there, if you had more responsibility, undoubtedly you could make these people feel much more at home.

And the other little issue, I guess, is dealing with aboriginal groups. I'm thinking specifically here of the Inuit in Davis Inlet. It's become a national problem because of the gas sniffing and so on. Here we have a community of approximately 100 families, give or take, who because of where they were located originally have had all kinds of problems, or at least that is supposed to be the major reason. They're now being moved a short distance to a place called Sango Bay, but the cost of the move equates to somewhere in the vicinity of $1 million per family. I'm not sure if just moving people solves all their problems, and I'd certainly like your comments or your perspective on that.

I'll leave it with that, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Hedy Fry: Thank you for those questions.

On the issue of statistics, what I was doing was trying to give very small thumbnail sketches in each province across the country. I think the point is that you can say that if we have 35% of Métis youth in a province like yours that are unemployed, then that would only represent a tiny group of people.

What we're trying to show, though, is that even if it's a small group of people, this is a group that is left out of the economic life and participation of Canada, and that the unemployment rate for Métis youth—not just in that province but across the board—is higher than for other youth. So aboriginal—in this case Métis—status has in fact created a barrier to those youths getting jobs.

The question then is, if you know that information, how do you look at that? What are the barriers? How can you help them to get the skills and the training they need to circumvent them? Are they dropping out of high school earlier? If so, why? What can you do? Because at the end of the day, if we're looking at productivity in Canada and we're looking at all of the productivity for ethnic youth and visible minority youth and other youth across the country, if you add them all up they become a large number of people who are not participating.

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Given that human resource development is the most important development in the 21st century, it is important that Canada is as productive as it can be, because all of the work done at Metropolis internationally, which is a lot of work done by academics, is showing that when groups of people, small or large, are left out, on the outside, and remain disadvantaged for whatever reason, they have a tendency therefore to become angry and to decide that they're not part of the quality of life. They begin to look at drugs. They begin to have agitation. Social cohesion and the safety of society is compromised.

So what we're saying is that all of these are linked to each other and that it is as important in a small province to look at a small number of people, regardless, because they all represent a piece of the Canadian productivity model. That's the first piece.

The second thing is, how do we select groups for funding? There are three big objectives within multiculturalism. One is identity and belonging. The second piece is civic participation in the economic, social, political, and cultural life of the country. And a third is access to social justice and access to the rights of Canadians. Under those pieces we have a criteria handbook. We do not fund groups because they are ethnocultural groups, so we don't say we will fund this association or that association. We fund them if they are doing work to advance that agenda. They have to then bring out their project that tells us how they're going to advance it. There is an evaluation piece built in.

As a result of the Auditor General's report, we have strengthened some of those processes. I think maybe my associate deputy minister, Judith LaRocque, might want to add to some of that actual process piece of doing that. When I answer your other question, I would be able to do that.

As to power at the local level cooperatively, I think that is important, and that is one of the reasons why, for instance, Human Resources Development Canada has been working very clearly, giving the provinces a lot of the lead in decision-making about where they do the work, how they do the work, and what are the groups most affected. The important thing is that if you don't collect the information and the data, you're not going to know this.

There's a tendency for us to then stereotype—only certain groups are having a problem. We have seen—and that's why I gave you the thumbnail sketch—groups that you would never believe are compromised and are not participating fully in certain areas. We've tended to only look at this as a visible minority or an aboriginal problem. It isn't true. Language is a barrier. Culture is a barrier. Ethnicity is a barrier. All of our studies are showing that. So we need to look, even at the local level, at how we do that and how we get that data and information.

Finally, on the question of moving people, I agree that moving people as a general response to a problem is not necessarily the right response. I think working with a particular group to ask them what would be the best way to deal with their particular issues is why we need to work with civil society all the time. We need to work with communities and ask, “What is it you think is going to work here?” because we don't have all the answers as government. Working with civil society before we make policy is a very important piece.

As I said earlier on, the cabinet has now developed a small, ad hoc committee that is working with groups to find out how we build that partnership to develop good public policy with communities themselves. I'm on that working group. It's very interesting to hear what groups are telling us that we need to do. So we're preparing that kind of new model.

Maybe Judith or Florence Ievers would like to add to the process.

The Chair: Yes. Maybe we can do that after because I would like to share the time with as many members as possible.

We'll now go to a round of five-minute questions individually. I have on my list Ms. Gallant, Mr. Wilfert, and Mr. Murphy.

Ms. Gallant.

Ms. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to the minister for being present here this morning.

I'd like to take the opportunity to invite the minister to return to this committee, as I know we in the official opposition have many questions for the minister. My structure of questioning is going to be three questions at once because there's been—

The Chair: As long as it's within five minutes. If the minister does not have time to answer, then your questions are unanswered.

Ms. Cheryl Gallant: Minister, there is a crisis in the management of your department. You are entrusted to administer taxpayers' dollars with due diligence, and this is clearly not happening.

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I refer to the Auditor General's report, in which he states:

In 1998 we found ambiguity surrounding the results expected from funded projects and a lack of due diligence in 30% of the cases reviewed.

Two years later there is no improvement, but there are the same serious problems. Your own audit report concluded that 19% of reviewed files did not meet even what your own department's minimum standard was, and a further 37%, in your department's words, were borderline acceptable. Worse, there is no indication that any of the identified shortcomings are being dealt with.

So, Minister, the Auditor General has made some serious allegations here. Do you deny that what the Auditor General is saying is true? If you do not deny his observations, please give the taxpayers of Canada one good reason why you shouldn't resign. That's question number one.

My next question pertains to the way in which your department distributes multicultural funding. Canadian Cultural Connections is a grassroots cultural exchange program born as a consequence of this government's mishandling of the 1995 Quebec referendum and a genuine desire to reach out to all Canadians. They are of the opinion that the way to unite this country must be from the bottom up, reaching out to all Canadians, a citizen-driven initiative, and must involve not only young people, but their families as well. Other than some start-up funds, this group does not seek taxpayers' dollars on an ongoing basis to fund their activities, and your department refuses to even consider an application from Canadian Cultural Connections.

So the second question is, why do you refuse to recognize the value of the private sector in promoting multiculturalism, particularly when it involves the family?

My final question is further to Mr. Hearn's question on funding of groups. Minister, the Canadian Alliance embraces Canada's multiculturalism diversity. For example, in my riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke we have a unique Kashubian culture. These Kashubes would like to share their heritage with fellow Canadians, yet your department does not recognize their existence because they don't fit the mould your department has created in its definition of multicultural. So the third question is, why is it that your department sets the definition of multicultural, rather than the groups themselves?

The Chair: Minister, you have two minutes to answer all these questions, which were partly long comments—that's what the member chose.

Ms. Hedy Fry: I just wanted to answer the first. As you said, the Auditor General said in 1998 he had set up a set of recommendations. His last report was done in the spring of 2000. We have since then put in place all the initiatives he talked about and all the processes. We have used, in fact, his recommendations to look more closely at how we develop better structures in the department, how we do ongoing staff training, etc.

At the same time, I would like to point out that in 1997 we had changed the objectives of the department, we had changed our criteria, and we had given communities three years in which to have a transition. That made it a little more difficult to make a move, when we had just changed them. So we were working with communities to help them cope with some of the changes. We have now, however, implemented everything he said.

You talk about the distribution of the funds. You said there was a group asking for money and we were refusing to give them grants and contributions. We refuse no group if they fulfil the criteria, if they meet the due diligence requirements and the processes in the department and have a strong evaluative framework. If you are suggesting that we follow the recommendations of the Auditor General, if this particular group will in fact meet the criteria and will fulfil the due diligence requirements, we will be able to look at that group if it requires funding under the objectives of funding departments.

We do not fund groups; we fund work those groups do in looking at civic participation, increasing the economic, social, political, and cultural life of the country, participation by groups, regardless of who those groups are, looking at identity issues, belonging issues, and social justice issues. Any group, regardless of whether they represent only two people in the Canadian mosaic, can come, if they're going to work under those objectives, and look for funding, providing they fulfil all the due diligence requirements that are necessary.

The Chair: Mr. Wilfert, Mr. Murphy, and Mr. Grewal.

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Mr. Bryon Wilfert (Oak Ridges, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

To you, Minister, first of all, it would probably be appropriate if you were to table the main estimates through the chair so that everyone on the committee could have those with regard to multiculturalism, and I would so ask.

Secondly, you have appeared before the Federation of Canadian Municipalities on a number of occasions. As you know, I was a past president of that organization, and I have in fact just returned from their conference. At one time, I was also the honorary chair of the anti-racism day....

I attended their race relations committee, among others, on the weekend, and one of the concerns is clearly the issue of a top-down approach in terms of the fact that we have immigrants coming to Canada, coming to cities and towns across this country, and not having the tools. Obviously some of these don't fall within your purview; some of them fall within the purview of the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.

But clearly, in terms of trying to create a more harmonious society in cities, you put out a lot of very nice material, except that a lot of it doesn't get to those who really need it. This is the message that I received, that there needs to be more consultation, bringing in mayors across the country to talk about some of the issues they have. They're looking for that.

That's probably more of a comment, but certainly if you have any comments on that, it would be appreciated.

Thirdly, when I read this material on Racism. Stop It!, it says here:

Terms such as ethnic or ethnocultural refer to the origins of all Canadians, regardless of whether they were born in Canada or elsewhere.

I find that absolutely offensive, to suggest that if I'm born here, somehow I'm an ethnic or ethnocultural. Of course, we had the big debate in Canada in the census as to whether or not we could even say we're Canadian. It has obviously been quite a debate among people in this country. Some would argue as to why the government should collect information on Canadians' ethnicity generally.

You have responded to some of that, but clearly there are some concerns in some quarters that it creates division. You talk about respecting our differences. The question is, what's the glue that holds all those differences together? I think that is extremely important, because we want to make sure that when people come to this country, they have a sense of nationhood and a sense of what it means to be Canadian.

It's very nice to be able to promote language, culture, and all that, from other parts of the world, and I don't disagree with a number of things you have indicated in terms of the international linkages, and so on. That I don't have any problem with.

I do have a problem in that, in my view, as a government, we do not talk enough about the glue that holds this country together. If we're going to promote our differences, that's very nice, except what are we doing to unite us?

When I see, sometimes, sporting events where sporting teams come from other countries and they are cheered by people who live here rather than the Canadian team, I think of the basketball team in Toronto at one time, the Canadian national basketball team, that felt that they were in fact the visitors rather than the home team.

So I think when we're doing this multicultural policy, we also have to have the other side of the equation. We have to talk about that glue as well. If we don't do that, then there is the identity issue about this country, which is extremely significant.

So I leave those comments and questions to you, Minister.

Ms. Hedy Fry: I think I'll deal with the FCM first. In fact, this is the first year I wasn't able to go to the FCM meeting and meet with that particular group.

We have been working with the FCM. In fact, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities was on my advisory committee when we travelled across the country to deal with the issues of looking at how regions are reacting to this and that racism is appropriate.

We in fact work with the FCM because we believe they are a very important group in terms of being the most local level of government. We work with them in many individual ways.

In other words, as I said earlier on, we've worked with Saskatchewan, the municipality there in Saskatoon, to look at how to assist them in sensitivity training for their front-line workers. We've worked with the City of Winnipeg when they were looking at how they dealt with some of the issues that had to do with newcomers to the country who were not integrating appropriately and to look at how they had access to health care.

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So we have been working with municipalities along the way, individual municipalities who speak to us completely.

I wanted to point out that when I go to the FCM and I come to your race relations committee, most of the mayors aren't there; only the ones who are really interested are there. So ideally, the ones who are interested carry this when they report to the FCM board. As a result, we have a relationship with individual municipalities who come to us with their individual issues and what they need to do, and we deal with that.

If it's going to be truly bottom down, it needs to be that individual municipalities come to us and say, this is our issue, not that, and we want to work with you on this issue. So that's how we've been doing that—

Mr. Bryon Wilfert: If I might just say, through you, Mr. Chairman, they're looking for maybe a more formalized mechanism.

And I would point out that this time they did have a good turnout. That was one of the messages, anyway—that more formalized communication. They do appreciate the fact that on an individual basis it has been done, but again, as a body, it's very important.

Ms. Hedy Fry: Yes, and we can explore that, thank you. We will explore how we do that. At the moment we work with the person who is the official who works through that group. We can formalize that more with the mayors, as they need to.

I think you commented that if you were born here, you were not an ethnic, and that you find that offensive. The whole idea of multiculturalism, in Canada and Australia—the only two countries in the world that have official multiculturalism policies and an official multiculturalism act—is the concept of integration, not assimilation.

In other words, you can continue to maintain the identity of your group, ethnicity, or whatever, because that's an integral part of who you are. Some groups choose to do this; you may not. So it's fine for you not to, but other groups tell us that they want to, very carefully, because they find that their ethnicity, their language, culture, and race, have created barriers for their integration, even sometimes after three and four generations of living here.

In fact, all of that research with the groups is telling us that this is a reality; there is some systemic and institutional change that is very necessary. So groups that work with us and identify those problems in their communities want to talk about it for as far back as three generations. Some are newcomers.

So the concept of integration is that the glue that holds us together is our shared citizenship, our common values, our belief in the rule of law, and a sense that we have a social responsibility for each other. The Prime Minister speaks about those very clearly when he talks of the Canadian way. But the Canadian way also says we can be Canadian and also maintain our other identities if we choose. They are not incompatible.

In fact, by maintaining over three generations a sense of your own origins, that has today, according to the Conference Board, given Canada and Australia a distinct advantage of people who still remember the language, the marketplace, and the culture of the countries that we're trading with. They can go, in a respectful way, and bring the language and the cultural sensitivity when Canada goes to trade with them. That is something that doesn't happen when groups have assimilated over time. I think we have found that very clearly.

The Chair: Could we move on?

Just before we move on, I want to pick up on what Mr. Wilfert asked, and Mr. Grewal before.

When you look at the estimates of this year, they refer to Status of Women as a line. It's a bit ironic after all you say about multiculturalism, because there's nothing to be seen on that. It's almost as if it doesn't exist in the ministry. There's not one word there in the estimates—not in the detailed estimates, not in the line estimates.

We would appreciate something being sent to the clerk to show us...I'm looking at parts I and II, for 2001-2002.

Ms. Hedy Fry: Yes.

The Chair: It's all buried in the general estimates of the ministry, I guess.

Ms. Hedy Fry: No, it's under the Canadian identity business line. It's under Canadian Heritage pieces.

The Chair: It's not in the detailed estimates, either.

It seems a bit odd, if it's a main policy of the department. Nowhere does the word “multicultural” show. We would like to have some details of what is spent. Maybe the deputy minister could send the clerk this information for the members.

Mr. Murphy, Mr. Grewal.

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Mr. Murphy, Mr. Grewal.

Mr. Shawn Murphy (Hillsborough, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, I have a comment and a question. I want to follow up first of all on a comment Mr. Hearn raised, about being careful with statistics. He indicated that a very small number of Métis families and youth live in the province. I believe he said...[Technical Difficulty—Editor]...extremely small number, and it wouldn't be 35. I just wanted to point that out, that sometimes statistics can be misleading.

Madam Minister, you indicated in your slide presentation, which was very helpful, that presently four university graduates immigrate to Canada for every one that goes to the United States. I don't have any statistical evidence, or any real evidence, to back this up, but you hear about or read media reports of doctors, people with university degrees, highly educated people, and people who appear to be qualified to teach at the university level driving cabs or working at McDonald's in all of our major urban centres.

Has your department done any analysis on this whole issue of foreign accreditation, and would you care to elaborate?

Ms. Hedy Fry: As you know, as a result of past work the Speech from the Throne talked about credentialing issues, foreign accreditation. And it's not only foreign accreditation for newcomers who are coming in as immigrants; it's also for people with degrees, people who have been living here for many years and who are underemployed or not utilizing their particular skills.

You gave the example of doctors. We have been doing in Canada a lot of work with Filipino caregivers, many of whom are nurses who came here to do the live-in caregiver program and now would like to become nurses and cannot. They find themselves blocked.

The important point about credentialing is that this is a provincial jurisdiction. The provinces have legislation that is responsible for trades and professions. Now, we have to work with the provinces, and I personally have been working with British Columbia, meeting with ministers in Manitoba, and talking to the minister in Ontario, to some small extent, about how we can work together on some pilot projects.

For instance, if that province thinks the issue of nursing is a big one for them, then we will look at how we work with them to deal with the credentialing issues of nurses, how we deal with their legislation and their trades and professions in their province to look at making room for and, if necessary, upgrading the training, six-month training or three-month or whatever is necessary, to be able to use the brainwaves we have.

So we're working on this. When a particular province is interested, we work with that province, because really the provinces have the jurisdiction. We see this as a productivity issue for all of Canada. That is why we are pushing that agenda, to see how the provinces will work with us.

In New Brunswick there has been some work in fact for the private sector to look at how we bring in people from across the world in terms of setting up entrepreneurships and working in the high-tech industry. They see this as a very positive move to make, to be able to develop a new set of entrepreneurs and a new set of innovative skills within their province to move its productivity forward.

So we've been working with not only the provinces but private sector groups as well to look at this issue in a real way. We've even been talking with the nursing association in certain provinces when they're interested in allowing us to do that. There's been some work done with the engineers in British Columbia, for example.

So there is work going on, but it has to be at the request of and with the agreement of the province, given that this is their jurisdictional issue.

The Chair: Mr. Grewal.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In a recent case, the deputy tourism minister in the Yukon had to apologize for a racist slur he made against a high-profile minority community. Do you know what? He was suspended for one month without pay and ordered to take sensitivity training.

Through you, Mr. Chairman, how can you, Minister, oversee these estimates on federal government multicultural spending when everyone in Canada knows you have some problems in terms of your understanding of various communities in our country? Many people feel that your apology doesn't suffice.

• 1045

Where in the estimates are the dollars that will be spent on your cultural sensitivity training? Shouldn't these estimates include an item to provide cultural sensitivity training to you and your fellow cabinet ministers as needed? Doesn't this make you feel like the cabinet has abandoned you, given your need for this kind of training and the tools you need to do your job?

Ms. Hedy Fry: I have a very simple answer, and the answer is no. I have been travelling around this country for years, more recently for the last nine months, meeting with people—with ethnocultural communities, with groups, with municipalities, with indigenous peoples—to discuss their problems, their concerns, their issues, and what is happening in their regions and nationally. In all of those groups, there has been a key sense that we have been able to work together, that we're moving in the same direction, and that we have been listening to the things they are telling us they should do.

I would point out, however, that in your particular party's handbook you felt that multiculturalism was something you didn't think was important, that it was up to people personally to move forward on those issues. I would think that is not in keeping with what I've heard from communities across this country, who strongly believe the government has a real role to play. In fact, 82% of Canadians believe, according to Ipsos-Reid, that dealing with racism and issues of discrimination forms an important government responsibility.

So I would say we are very sensitive to the needs of the communities out there. I meet with them regularly. I travel across this country and talk to them, and I know what they want. Perhaps one should consider whether there is a need to do that in terms of how you want to find out what communities really need.

I would be pleased to share my consultation results with you. I know you came to one of my consultations and clearly heard from the communities what their feelings are and what they consider to be important to them.

The Chair: One last brief question.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think the small Yukon territory is well ahead of Multiculturalism Canada in terms of dealing with the crisis, dealing with the issue.

Minister, why did you refuse to provide me, your chief multiculturalism critic in the official opposition, with the daily media clipping service provided by your department to you? I have asked your office repeatedly since the election—probably four, five, six times—and I asked the assistant deputy minister when he came to give me a briefing. He agreed that I would be given that service. Isn't it you who asked your department not to provide me with that clipping service?

When I used to be the critic for foreign affairs, and for CIDA and other departments, I used to get those clippings. Other critics are getting the clippings from other departments. Why did your department refuse to provide me with that clipping service?

Ms. Hedy Fry: Well, first and foremost, I think your suggestion that I have asked the department not to do this is completely wrong, Mr. Grewal. I will ask my deputy minister to answer your question about what the department's policy is on clippings. I don't have a clue that you even asked that question. This is the first time I've heard it.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: I think there's some sort of secrecy or something—

Ms. Hedy Fry: No, Mr. Grewal, I'm afraid there is no secrecy. This is the first time I've heard your request. Therefore, if you had spoken to an ADM, maybe the deputy minister would like to answer that question.

Ms. Judith A. LaRocque (Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Canadian Heritage): I know...[Technical Difficulty—Editor]...and I was advised it was not the policy of the department to provide clippings to members of Parliament.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Mr. Chairman, is it only the multiculturalism department that doesn't provide the clippings, whereas other departments do?

Ms. Judith LaRocque: No, sorry, it was the policy of the Department of Canadian Heritage not to provide the clippings, and the clippings are now provided not even on paper but electronically.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: It's easy to e-mail, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Would you check whether Mr. Grewal can be e-mailed the clippings, or is that a policy that...?

Ms. Bulte.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: Is it the position of the Department of Canadian Heritage not to distribute the clippings? It doesn't matter what the other departments do. That's a question then to be directed to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, because it's a policy decision that comes from the Minister of Canadian Heritage. As we all know, multiculturalism is just part of Canadian Heritage.

If you're looking for the estimates—just on a point of order here—they were probably presented last week, when the Minister of Canadian Heritage came, because, as you know, multiculturalism is part of Heritage Canada. I just want to make that clarification. The minister would have brought them with her last week.

The Chair: But we're just asking now about the line-by-line items on multiculturalism. I think the deputy minister has said she will provide this to....

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Mr. Grewal.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: I was promised that I would be provided with the clippings, just as I was provided clippings by other departments from time to time when I was critic in those areas. Plus, I was never told that this was a policy of her department. I was told that there was not enough staff to provide me with the clippings, and they were in the process of hiring someone.

The Chair: It doesn't matter. We'll find out if it's a policy of the department.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: But why the excuses?

The Chair: Order.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: Again, as a point of clarification and a point of order, I would respectively submit that if Mr. Grewal has a problem, he should take it up with the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

The Chair: We understand clearly. That's the position, and debate on this is closed.

You can take it up with the minister. You can ask her today in question period, and she will answer accordingly.

Ms. Bulte and Ms. Gagnon, and we'll close there.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: No, I just wanted to make those points.

The Chair: Madam Gagnon.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: My colleague, who is the status of women critic, could not be here this morning, but she asked me to take part in a briefing on the various actions undertaken by your department and told me that it was difficult to obtain a meeting. Would it be possible for you to meet with her within the next few days, since this is a new responsibility for her? She told me that she was having a hard time getting an appointment. I know that you will grant my request.

Secondly, in your estimates for 2001-02, there is an increase in the support given to women's organizations. How will you choose? Will you broaden your support or will you increase funding to organizations that are already supported by your department?

[English]

Ms. Hedy Fry: No, we don't choose groups that we fund. They submit projects to us for funding. We assess those projects based on the criteria and the processes, and usually do an evaluation on whether it would fulfil the objectives of the department. Then we fund them accordingly.

So as for any new group, we have been funding new groups who have come and we have not funded groups that have been there before because their projects have not met the requirements. So we have been introducing new groups at any one time. Any group that wanted to look at the issues of women's equality under the headings of the economic autonomy of women, violence against women, social justice, benefits, etc., are groups we would look at to fund.

We've been funding very new groups in e-business, for instance. We've been building alliances with women's organizations, entrepreneurs, looking at trade. So we've been moving into new sectors. As a person brings a project, we will look at it.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Can you set aside some time for my colleague?

[English]

Ms. Hedy Fry: Actually, I wanted to say that your colleague asked me, as far as I can recall about two months ago, for such a briefing, and I passed the message on to my department, Status of Women Canada, to meet with her. It's my understanding that for some reason they have never been able to get together. But it is absolutely open, and I would urge my department to work as speedily as possible. I think it's really important, extremely important, for critics to be briefed and to know the details of what we're working on.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Thank you.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much, Minister, for appearing here today and answering all kinds of questions. We really appreciate it.

Thank you as well to Ms. LaRocque and Ms. Ievers.

We're now going to have a very quick in camera meeting to go over these motions so that we can present a budget.

[Proceedings continue in camera]