:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I'm pleased to be here.
[Translation]
I'm very pleased to be here with you as part of this discussion. It's important for your committee, but it is also important for the Department of Finance. First of all, I want to express my regrets.
[English]
I'm terribly sorry that I wasn't able to make the last meeting with four of my distinguished colleagues to talk about the government-wide approach to gender-based analysis, but I'm very pleased that you took the time for me to have a chance to come back. As I think we explained, I had an urgent pre-budget meeting with my minister on a matter of great importance, so I could not avoid that.
I've handed out my speaking notes, so I will not walk through them in detail. I'd simply note that they flag a few areas. First, they describe the overall mandate of the department and where we've focused our efforts to date on gender-based analysis. Second, they highlight again some of the progress we've made, and then end off with some of the next steps we're planning to take in the department and in collaboration with our colleagues in the rest of government.
First, I think people know that the Department of Finance has several roles. One, we act as a central agency, rather like the Privy Council Office
[Translation]
and the Treasury Board. As an
[English]
central agency, we have a view in assessing the work of other departments as they progress through the cabinet committee systems, and in fact through budget preparations.
Then secondly, we have a whole series of programs we operate ourselves, of either a macroeconomic or framework policy nature, or structural policies that the Department of Finance manages. Typically, the broad macroeconomic framework policies are gender-neutral in enhancing overall economic prospects within Canada. We have focused our effort on a gender-based analysis of the structural areas.
Particularly we started, as we suggested earlier to this committee, on our tax policy initiatives, which have lent themselves well to gender-based analysis. The department has been conducting gender-based analysis for a number of years, and we have delivered on all the commitments we made to this standing committee's report, “Building Blocks for Success”.
I'm very pleased to have with me today Mireille Éthier, who is the senior chief for federal/provincial taxation within our tax policy branch. She supports the department's background of leadership and liaison on status of women issues. We've also appointed a champion amongst my executive committee, the general director for our tax policy branch, Serge Nadeau, and most recently appointed Louise Levonian, also at an ADM-level position, to champion the gender-based analysis within our organization.
Secondly, we had agreed to conduct pilot projects to train analysts in gender-based analysis, and we have done that. We had a full-day session within the tax policy branch.
Finally, there was an encouragement that the minister continue to have outreach with women's groups in pre-budget consultations, and of course the minister has done that this year.
So we think we've made some very good strides within the Department of Finance, and we see as next steps—again, in the representations made to you, Madam Chair, by the Honourable Bev Oda.... In terms of next steps, we've committed to list our best practices on our website for broader dissemination of ideas within our department and the broader government.
We've offered and we are offering training to other branches. I think we've built up a level of expertise within our tax policy branch. We're now going to be moving into other branches and we're setting up a training program to do that. We're also setting up a training program for all new staff, to sensitize them to our experience and the possible growth of gender-based analysis. That will be up and coming in our new curriculum for new staff in the department soon.
And we've committed to report progress on gender-based analysis in our annual departmental performance report.
I would just close by noting that in this last budget process we provided a gender-based assessment of over 90% of the ideas leading up to the budget that the minister considered for inclusion in the budget. The depth of that analysis is varied. I think it's very strong in particular on the personal income tax side, where we've been able to quantify results and give some good advice to our minister in making those judgments. What we're doing now is broadening that support to other branches. I think, though, we've made some very good progress in the last several years.
Again in the absence of my colleagues from other departments, we look forward to working with our colleagues in the rest of government on further progress.
Those are my opening remarks. Merci pour votre patience, madame.
:
Well, it's gender neutral. It affects families.
I have to say that, as you may recall, Ms. Minna, the commitment to pension splitting came out on October 31 as part of the minister's tax fairness plan, not as part of the budget, so there was not the same sort of analysis for budget preparation at that time. But we did do an analysis of it when it came to implementation in our budget and saw it as neutral in terms of balancing income.
The highest portion of pension income is in the men's side of that account, but the splitting certainly enhanced family income support, which was—
:
It benefited families. It didn't benefit anyone unless there was a couple involved who had a pension.
Secondly, there was a substantial addition to the age credit, which was particularly helpful for women.
Thirdly, there was a half-point reduction in the corporate tax rate. That was for the fairness plan from October 31, which was incorporated into the budget.
I would just say that for the budget as a whole, and I think this was in budget information—in fact, it's in the budget at page 229—that over 50% of the income tax initiatives in the budget supported Canadians in the lowest income bracket, many of whom are women.
Similarly, other initiatives, including WITB and the child tax credit, were again particularly helpful to families and to women.
:
We had a witness here not too long ago who said that out of 2,600 clients, 75% are women; these are seniors. None of those 75% of seniors will benefit. The rest of the seniors she has—this is why they need services—do not have enough pensionable income to make a difference.
If you have a very high pensionable income, you're going to save a lot of money; if your pensionable income is very modest, you're going to save a lot less; and if you're a widow or single, from the analysis I've seen, you get nothing.
I need to go to another question, because I think on this one we're not....
Let me ask you, with respect to analysis in the department on policies that come forward, is a gender-based analysis done on every single item before it goes into a budget, and are racial/ethnic situations for women also taken into consideration?
Mr. Wright, in response to the questions, you indicated that 50% of the measures in the current budget were geared towards low and middle incomes. I guess we all hear a lot of talk. You know, we prepare worksheets. When the department gives us something that says, “Here is your worksheet”, could you provide something of that nature so that we have a visual understanding? Everybody does not belong to the Department of Finance; everybody is not an accountant. It's very important that we have this type of information in front of us so that we can ask the legitimate questions and get the answers that satisfy us.
So if that could be done, it would be really appreciated. You can do it afterwards and send it to us, and we might use it in our study on economic security for women.
:
I attended a meeting with Clare Beckton, the coordinator of Status of Women Canada.
[English]
We work very closely with Status of Women on the work we do—and Mireille, you may wish to comment on a little bit of that. They help us in our training, and actually they encourage us to share our experience with other departments.
[Translation]
So we promote a major collaborative effort between the departments and Status of Women Canada.
[English]
There was a reduction in the Status of Women budget last fall, I believe, as a Treasury Board exercise, and some money was reallocated away from administration or from unused grants. The budget actually certainly made up for that $5 million reduction and it enhanced spending in Status of Women by an additional $5 million. So the budget provided $10 million.
So there are full resources necessary for them to continue the work they're doing with departments on gender-based analysis, and certainly we cooperate with Status of Women fully.
[Translation]
Mireille, you have something to add?
:
I can't really speak about other government programs. Madam Beckton perhaps would be better equipped to talk about that.
I can tell you about some of the measures in our last budget. Again, our focus is on the overall economic health of the economy, the generation of jobs.
[Translation]
We have good news on the impact the economy is having on women's work.
[English]
Over the last five years, employment growth has been about 30% faster for women in terms of new job growth and job growth. Wage growth has been about 25% faster every year for the last five years, on average.
So the economy is generating great opportunities for women. We're seeing some catch-up, I'm sure. We track overall economic impact, but in terms of a broader range of policies, the minister responsible for the Status of Women is probably a better place to go to get an overall assessment.
:
Thank you, Mr. Wright, and Ms. Éthier, and I applaud you for your work on this issue.
I'm particularly gratified to hear several things that have come up, when you talked about the training for gender-based analysis, for example. I mean, that's never been done before. To see that growth here through your initiatives is very commendable.
Also, when you talk about families, anything that benefits families of course benefits women. The tax initiatives you were talking about are good for the whole family—and certainly women are a very big part of any family. With pension splitting and things like the targeted tax cuts, the GST textbook credit and the credit for families with children involved in physical activity, we've never done those before.
So I applaud the Department of Finance for looking at things on the ground that really affect women. I know, as a mother of six children, that anything I can do for my family like that in the real world is very good.
Today when we talk about gender-based analysis, there's another thing we haven't touched on, and that is pay equity. I was very, very gratified to see that for the first time supervisors were put in places and businesses to look at pay equity, seeing how it was dealt with in different kinds of businesses, and to see the supervisors' role in doing that.
So perhaps you could talk a little bit more, first, about the training for gender-based analysis because, certainly, people should have been trained long before 2006 and 2007, and I appreciate the initiative that has been put forth on that. And, secondly, on pay equity, never before can I remember in the history of Canada a concerted effort by supervisors to actually go into businesses and take a look at pay equity and analyze exactly what's going on at all levels.
So perhaps you could address these two issues today.
:
Thank you for your question.
Yes, we've been doing gender-based analysis, in some sense, without using the word, for a very long time. In doing the child tax benefit, for example, or changing the child care expense deduction, and things of that nature, we've always been conducting gender-based analysis. However, it wasn't called that, if you wish, and maybe it wasn't systematic in other areas, or areas that are more social in nature or more geared towards the family.
So for training, we and Status of Women did some case studies with the analysts, using some real life case studies and putting everybody together in a room and asking, if this is the kind of measure you have to analyze, how would you go about it? It was really formalizing something that people were doing in certain cases, but at least making the analysis systematic and presenting it in a systematic way in every proposal put forward.
From that perspective, we now have a vocabulary of gender-based analysis that everybody understands and can actually use, and they know what the ramifications of that are. Also, by putting it in every proposal, this raises its profile, because along with strategic environmental assessments, it's now part of the format, if you wish, or template used to present every proposal.
We plan to do some more training as well. What's interesting is that it's not training in gender-based analysis in a conceptual world; it's actually working with the analysts and asking how they do it in their day-to-day lives and add to the process.
:
I had another very important thing. We did not have cuts to the Status of Women. What we did was take a look at the money and put it into on-the-ground projects for women so they could be successful, projects such as the Crossing Communities Art Project, which I had the pleasure of being at. The fact of the matter is that there was $165,000 put into that project. This is a project for women who have been abused.
I talked to some aboriginal women at that particular announcement, and I'll never forget this one girl, Jacquie, who took all the pain she felt and put it into her art and she told her story. There were stories and stories and stories about how these women had built new lives and things like that.
This just happened last weekend. I was very gratified to see that the thrust in Status of Women into providing on-the-ground support for women and women's organizations was very, very good, and that came out of the finance department.
Would you mind elaborating a little bit more on the financial part of what has been put into programs on the ground for women all across the country? I know there was another announcement of $5 million made by the minister--I believe it was on April 1, in Toronto--on this particular issue.
:
Ms. Smith, your time is up.
Mr. Wright, you just made a statement about getting women off welfare. You're talking about income levels, of low income and middle income. So while you're doing that analysis and you're presenting an analysis to us, could you also explain to us how a person earning $22,000 is too rich to get the child tax benefit and too poor to get the working income benefit, just so that we know? We need to understand those nuances of the budget. I'm an accountant by trade, so I know these things. So we have to work this out to say, how do we reasonably understand and move forward with it?
Ms. Mathyssen, for seven minutes.
We heard from Stats Canada, and they discussed this in relation to the increases women had seen, and basically it was women in the under-25 age group who were experiencing these increases. That led me to wonder if you had done any research or analysis on the impact on women who are at that child-bearing age who may find themselves unable to remain the workforce, or to have the same number of hours as their male counterparts, because either they're looking after children or they're caught in that sandwich generation where there are elderly parents who are dependent on them.
The reason I ask is that there was an additional study presented to us, and it indicated that women, even women with higher education, professional women, were still only at about 48% of their male counterparts because they were very often unable to secure child care. And certainly for poorer women, finding affordable child care impacts on their ability to enter the workforce.
So these are all important bits and pieces, I think, of the statistics, then. I wonder if you could clarify any of those.
:
Well, the tax credit actually makes it a more progressive initiative. It's more targeted to those folks who need the support. So actually the more targeted it is in terms of a fixed pool of money, the more it helps low-income women and low-income families.
I think there are also some initiatives...the tax credit is not offset against other credits from the GST credit and the child tax benefit. So there have been a number of initiatives, again, to help the targeting.
But typically, even though we've had some good news in terms of the relative growth of wages and employment for women, if you do a gender-based analysis of the tax system, you will find that indeed women have lower income than men. So if you have a progressive tax initiative, it's going to impact on women more.
So to the extent that this was a credit, that's going to help women more than men. To the extent, particularly, that we've made some steps in offsetting its impact on other credits, that again helps it towards the bottom end of the income scale, which helps lower-income women.
:
A lot of the non-refundable tax credits are also credits that can be transferred to the spouse; they're based on family income, such as the credit for medical expenses, for example. Some can be transferred between the parents and the children, as in the case of tuition fees. Then again, some others can be carried forward. You can think of the charitable donations credit. So a lot of the credits that are not related, like the base credit or the spouse credit, the other credits, have features that allow either another person to use them if possible or the person to use them later when she or he has income to use them. That's one characteristic of the non-refundable credits.
The other thing that may be interesting to note also is on the working income tax benefit. One of the interesting features of the working income tax benefit is that it's not only a federal initiative. We're working with provinces to make sure this is better integrated not only with the provincial working income equivalent tax benefits, but also with the social programs to ensure that the barriers to entering the workforce..... And they are not necessarily tax barriers, but they can be that a person loses a dollar of welfare, for example, by working. Or it could be that they lose some other access to some free benefits.
So we are working with provinces to make sure there is an integration of the federal working income tax benefit with the social programs and with the child tax benefit as well. So this whole set of programs should hang together much better, and we should see a lot fewer impediments to entering the labour market with initiatives such as that.
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair,
Thank you both for coming today.
I'm having a lot of difficulty following what you're telling us here today. I've just reviewed the notes that you've presented to us, Mr. Wright, and you indicate that you have a central agency role and that departments that sponsor policies are responsible for the gender-based analysis. And then you talk about structural policies, and then you also say further on that it's also the department's view that it's ultimately up to the elected representatives to decide which factors in the end get most importance in the policy decisions. So I'm having a hard time actually determining what advice you give, what your role is, and how you present it.
Let me give you a couple of examples. The Status of Women budget we know was cut. Moneys were subsequently put back in. Did you give advice on the impact this would have as it relates to the ability of women across the country, particularly in rural and northern areas, to access programs? The court challenges program was cut. Did you give advice in terms of the impact this would have in terms of the ability of women--and there are other groups affected by it, but I'm speaking specifically to women--to access their charter rights?
We've had a whole host of them. Literacy programs have been cut. Did you give advice on the impact of it? Your colleague just mentioned the tax credits. We look at the sports tax credit, and that's fine if you have the initial $500 to put out to get the $72 or $77 credit. Do you give advice on the impact of that and what it will mean for families, for women, for single-parent women, and do you also break it down or just aggregate it as it relates to aboriginal women and immigrant women?
I'm just giving you some examples here. Many more could be brought forward.
As I said at the outset, I'm having difficulty understanding what you do as it relates to gender-based analysis.
:
Thanks for the question.
The import of what we do as public servants is provide advice to the government. My job description is to support the Minister of Finance. The Minister of Finance, when he's putting together a budget, wants to make decisions on an informed basis. He talks to a lot of people in the country, but when he's looking at proposals or some options to put into a budget, he wants his department to do an analysis of it. So we do that analysis. The minister decides what he wants to put into his budget. We don't, but he does it on the basis of our analysis.
This gender-based analysis is a fairly recent initiative in governance, and we are accelerating our application of it. I would say that if you talk to people in Status of Women and elsewhere in government, you'll find we're doing a pretty good job of that. I'm proud of the work we're doing, but we have a long way to go yet.
I'm actually not aware of what happened in the 2006 budget vis-à-vis some of the credits you're talking about, but I can say that on this budget, where it's quantifiable, in particular on the tax side, we did give the minister advice about the impact of tax initiatives and initiatives for the budget on women. It was a gender-based assessment and in some cases a detailed analysis about the overall impact on women. That fed into his choices and his decision of what to put into his budget. And so it was an informed basis.
We also give a broader base of advice on the broader impact on the Canadian community, so obviously in terms of some of the training initiatives and the priorities for aboriginal training, that was flagged.
You referred to the Status of Women. Certainly we gave the minister our assessment that it was very positive. Based on gender-based assessment, you don't have to be a deep thinker to know that's going to help women in terms of the type of programming that's being supported--
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to our two guests this afternoon.
Before I put my question, it occurred to me during Ms. Minna's previous questions that there was some discussion with regard to the pension splitting initiative brought forward last fall and then incorporated into the budget implementation in 2007.
But there were a couple of other measures that, apart from pension splitting, go directly to pensioners and seniors, if I could. One was the increase in the pension amount credit from $1,000 to $2,000, which affects everybody who has a pension income. And also the age amount tax credit, which was completely universal for any taxpayer 65 years of age or over, which is an additional $1,000. Those were two measures that, apart from pension splitting at least, speak to that issue of seniors and pensioners in particular.
So to my question. I should say the backdrop for this was our previous meeting on gender-based analysis. The witnesses we had at that time described the progress that had been made with respect to gender-based analysis and how it had begun to become more a part of the culture of decision-making. I wonder if you could, from your experience, speak to how this has progressed and perhaps how it has become part of the cultural best practices within a department, even to the point of becoming in other ways other lenses that we need to look through--that being ethnic diversity and other diversity issues--and how that progress has been made.
If you can each comment on that, or one, I'll leave it to you.
I would just say that yes, indeed, the age credit is differentially more helpful to senior women, because there are more of them in that category. There are also other elements of it that are assessed, but stepping back from that, I think what we were asked to come here to report on is a pretty good story.
I checked the transcript of your last meeting. I went through it, and other departments like CIC and Justice have all reported that their best approach to this is making it integral to their overall processes. I agree very much with that.
The big step we took this year was to ensure that virtually every initiative that was even considered for the budget had advice based on a gender-based assessment, with most of it a detailed analysis. That's a big step for us as a department.
We had started on tax. Our colleagues in tax—Mireille and others—have done a great job. It's particularly more detailed and useful, I think, on the personal tax initiatives. It's harder on the business side or more general on the business side, but the fact that we had an assessment for virtually every initiative that was even considered for the budget was a very big step forward. Many of those initiatives, as I think Ms. Minna pointed out, involved other departments, so we've talked to them about that assessment and have worked with them. That is another important step.
We have a lot more work to do. The depth of analysis in other branches is not as strong as it is in our tax policy branch, so I think getting into the budget process with colleagues in other departments is going to help to reinforce the value of this sort of assessment, so that ministers can make the right choices based on an analysis that we share within the government.
:
It was decided by the department several years ago to create a champion—in fact, it was before I arrived—and to engage in this process. To generate change in a large organization, you do need a champion. In practical terms, I have an executive committee of nine ADMs and eight general directors who are all senior officials at an EX-4 or EX-5 level. Each one of them is a champion of something, such as a change initiative.
Given that our greatest capacity to make a difference was in the tax policy branch, the general director of the tax policy branch was asked to lead on this. The current champion, who has just joined us, is also actively working in the tax policy branch. Their job is to make sure we broaden that message.
In the coming year, I will probably shuffle my champions and put some enthusiasm and accountability outside of that branch, in order to take further steps. The driver is the whole organization, but someone senior enough to make a difference.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Wright, knowing that only 33% of women have access to employment insurance, how do you think the head of a single-parent family of six children, as is the case of our colleague on the other side—but here I'm talking about children over six years of age—who is unemployed and has no affordable housing, can benefit from a cut to the goods and services tax? You apparently advised the minister to implement those measures because you thought that was a good idea, but how could those women benefit from that? In Canada, one million children are living in total misery, which means that at least 750,000 parents are also living in total misery. How do you think those people could benefit from the measures you suggest?
Ms. Éthier, parents in Quebec are preparing their income tax returns right now. At least the tradition is to do it before April 30. This year, since the $1,200 amount granted for each child under six years of age is granted on a monthly basis, it won't be too apparent: parents will only have received $600 since July. Their income tax returns shouldn't suffer too much as a result, but next year, once they've received $1,200 per child under six years of age, it won't be the same thing.
Contrary to what you say, this measure isn't harmonized with the Province of Quebec. In Quebec, the income these people report will increase and they will be taxed twice. Why wouldn't we opt for a refundable tax credit, which would really go into the pockets of the parents, among others of those who don't have any money, rather than for an amount that is taxable twice? If your role is to advise the minister on the best measures to take, I'd really like you to explain that to me.
:
All right. I'll start by answering the first two questions. As regards the GST, the fact that this measure has an impact on all Canadians was important. It's also important in the case you described.
[English]
The allowance for GST credit was not reduced at the same time, so support for the lower-income contributor was maintained, which normally would have decreased. That was helpful and it would have shown up.
The other issue, which was an important initiative in this budget, was the introduction of WITB, the working income tax benefit. This is an incentive for those on welfare who wish to go back to work. This chairperson raised this important question earlier: what do you do to provide greater support for people who are choosing those options?
I have to agree that perhaps a single mother with six children would have a very challenging time doing this. But this year we started spending money to give a credit to people who are leaving welfare to get a job, in order to ensure that they're not worse off and to enhance the capacity of the current system.
You talked about our cooperation
[Translation]
with our provincial colleagues. We agreed with them, with a view to improving the situation, that we would examine what we call the WITB together.
[English]
So provincial governments have agreed to maintain their level of support on welfare issues, as we provide federal support to incent people to leave.
This is just the start of a process, but in the last 10 years, there has been tremendous support in dramatically reducing poverty among families with children. Now we can focus on enhancing the capacity of people to enter the workforce.
We had a very good start, which was unanimously supported by all provincial governments. We've had letters from Quebec and Ontario saying jointly, let's work on WITB together.
:
I wasn't here for the 2006 budget, but I know there were some important decisions as part of that budget. There were also some important discussions here. I know that met with his counterpart, including . In terms of child care, she emphasized the importance of working through the provincial governments. So the $500 million transfer to provincial governments for child care was a factor in that decision.
As I said in my previous intervention, the focus of discussions with our provincial colleagues on women entering the workforce was on creating a new system—the working income tax benefit—that governments can support. This makes a difference in people getting off welfare and getting into the workplace.
The examples we used would show that currently for a single mother in Nova Scotia, going to work costs money. If she has a minimum-wage job, the effective wage rate is about $1 an hour. The working income tax benefit can enhance this, not dramatically up front, but it will almost double the return to $2 an hour.
But we can start working with provincial governments to make a difference by helping people who wish to work. It's a great economic initiative for the country. It helps people enhance their income without being dependent on welfare, which again is the principal focus of our collaboration right now with the provincial governments.
:
Ms. Mathyssen, we are done.
Thank you very much for being here. You can see how very interested we are in ensuring that the GBA that was developed two years ago, when we started working with Finance to ensure that they would roll it out to all the programs, etc., is critical. We're happy to see that you're working with it, that you're training people to understand what GBA means. We have a long way to go, and we're hoping that ministers listen to your advice when you give them the GBA analysis. We look forward to receiving your analysis on how we can help with the economic enhancement of women, as well.
Thank you so much for being here. Some of the questions.... You're a deputy minister; you know how to handle those things.
Thank you.
We will have a short break. I'll suspend the meeting and we'll go in camera.
[Proceedings continue in camera]
[Public proceedings resume]
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
That is not my motion. The motion has been completely altered. My motion talks about the full participation of women in Canadian society. This is a discussion, Madam Chair, we've had around this committee. We believe, and I believe very strongly, that under the Canadian Constitution all people who are Canadian citizens are equal in Canada. It's to put down the barriers. This is a discussion we've had around....
We have a right. We're equal. The barriers have to go down. This is where there's some disagreement in terms of the words that we use.
I think in some respects we're very close, but I would not want to have my motion altered in this way because I think it has a political agenda behind it. What I'm more interested in is seeing that women on the ground get exactly what they need in terms of support. Put down the barriers.
There is nothing in my motion that goes against women, but supports women. So I'm asking maybe, Madam Demers, if you'd be so kind as to put forth another motion with that intent, I would consider the support of that. I do need support for the motion and what I'm putting in right now.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm very sorry, but I'm not defending a political agenda. My sole purpose is to advance the cause of women, period. My colleague and I have been travelling around Quebec during the last two two-week adjournment periods. We've met with women's groups, more than during our meetings here. When you've received 36% of the vote, you can't claim that 100% of people think like you do. I'm sorry, but that's not the actual situation. The actual situation is that women everywhere, in all regions of Quebec, in all towns, in rural and urban areas, express the same complaints, have the same demands. They aren't happy that these cuts have been imposed and they don't believe that the word “equality” should disappear from Status of Women Canada or from Status of Women Canada's documents. They don't believe they can demand their rights if we gag and muzzle them.
This motion constitutes false help for women, false help with regard to their freedom and their freedom of expression. It's not true, Madam Chair. I'm going to vote against this motion.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
With all due respect, I put this motion together because for the past two weeks I have been travelling in different parts of Canada, in my riding, and I dare say in Montreal, and I talked about my motion to several women's groups in Montreal. I was talking on human trafficking, and then we went aside and talked about this particular motion.
I believe women are equal. I believe the barriers need to be taken down. I think maybe there's a difference in semantics, but I have presented this today because I will not vote against something that says “address the crucial and pressing issue of violence toward women and girls; support the full participation”—the full participation—“of women in Canadian society; address the challenges women face by promoting projects that improve the situation of women in key areas such as women's economic status”, and that the adoption of this, of course, be brought to the House.
Now, this second motion of amendment is not an amendment, with all due respect. It's another motion, and I would welcome the member to put it on the order paper as her individual motion.
I have four daughters, I have worked with women's groups for years, and I am a woman myself who has worked in mathematics and science for 22 years, and I have to tell you I know what it's like to fight for what you're doing. I think this is a very strong motion, and I would ask the members opposite to lay aside political agendas and support the motion. Today we can do that.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I have to say I'm having trouble. I can't support the motion, but I'll have to explain and go beyond that.
Madam Smith talks about her support and her passion for women and about breaking down the barriers, and she says that women are equal. Do you know what? I speak to a lot of immigrant women and a lot of women in my riding too. Yes, they're equal; it says so in a piece of paper. But they're not equal in everyday life. The only way to change that is to allow for the research that has been eliminated and cut, to allow for advocacy, which is not allowed—and we'll get into that report later, and here it says nothing about restating any of that—and yes, projects.
But I'll tell you, Ms. Smith, I've been working on projects with immigrant women for 35 to 40 years. Projects will help the individual woman who happens to be lucky enough to have a project in her community that she can assist. It does not change the conditions under which she lives, or the core problems that are causing the condition, at all. It does not break down barriers. Barriers don't break down for all women. They may break down for one woman who happens to be in that program.
When I was dealing with women and English as a second language, it didn't break for all of those women. We had to go to court to break the barrier for all those women.
I'll put this on the record; this is important for people to understand, since we're on this discussion today.
When I went to the Status of Women Canada, as an immigrant woman with a group of visible minority women, to ask them to please fund programs for immigrant women as well as mainstream women.... There are still systemic problems in our systems that happen today. When organizations like mine, which was an ethnic organization, applied for money, we were told to go to Multiculturalism and were ghettoized in that section. I met with the minister, who agreed about and understood our problems, and after I left that minister's office, the director of the women's program came up to me in a very angry tone and said, “How dare you ask for this money? You have no business demanding that money. That money was fought for by mainstream Canadian women.”
I'm telling you that was a major barrier. There are many other barriers that cannot be broken down by providing single projects to single programs.
Programs and projects for violence against women are necessary. What you said earlier about the women you talked about--fantastic, no trouble at all. But the condition that causes that and the core issues have to be addressed. The societal thinking has to be addressed.
The police in Toronto were ordered to charge when they went into a situation of violence in a home, regardless of whether the wife was charging or not. That wasn't the case before. That had to be lobbied, had to be worked, had to be researched.
So with respect, all this does is reinforce what the government has already done, which I obviously do not support. Thank you.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm having a lot of difficulty with this motion. I read it in my office and had much difficulty understanding where it was coming from and where it was going. There's no question that the issue of violence against women and young girls has to be addressed. But the piece that I'm having the most difficulty with—and I don't understand its meaning or what the implementation would be—is when we talk about supporting the full participation of women in Canadian society.
When we encourage Status of Women and various other government agencies to do this, are we talking about implementing national child care programs, so that women can go to work, so that women can go to school? Are we talking about reintroducing the court challenges program, so that women can argue for their full participation in society? I'm not sure. Are we talking about reopening the Status of Women offices that were closed, so that women across the country can have appropriate access to Status of Women programs?
To me, this is somewhat meaningless. I don't understand what it means or how it would be implemented. It's words without substance. As I said at the outset, I'll do anything to support the reduction of violence against women. But we have to put forward motions and resolutions that have meaning, that have teeth, and that have some relevance and substance to what's going on or not going on in government.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
It's shocking to think that Status of Women cannot get together to pass a motion that supports women, because the political differences are so different. In terms of the word “equality”, as a Canadian citizen and as a daughter of a veteran, I personally find it embarrassing that people would come into our country, and as soon as it's a woman, be told that they're not equal, when in fact our Constitution says that all citizens are equal under the law.
We have agreed there are huge barriers, and I would agree those barriers need to be addressed. There are many challenges. Today, when I listened to the Honourable Ms. Minna and Ms. Neville....
With all due respect, your government had 13 years to address these problems, and with all due respect, now you're putting barriers in front of us. There's nothing in this motion that should offend you in any way. I'm asking for your support.
With all due respect, I think this motion sends a message that is loud and clear. We should be doing this as a committee and saying yes.
If you feel very strongly, as Ms. Demers does, introduce another motion, and we can have a discussion, But this is my motion, I think it's very strong, and I ask for your support.
:
Ms. Smith, it's my turn to speak, so I will speak, and you will get an opportunity to speak.
You have not responded.... I'm listening to both sides. There is a question. In my mind, you haven't responded. If you can respond to the questions, perhaps there will be a meeting of the minds—perhaps. From a technical perspective, I want to see something tangible.
Yes, you say address the crucial, pressing issues of violence towards women and girls. Yes, money was given to the RCMP. So what is it that you're trying to tell the government to do? If you could just explain that, clarify something that we don't know, it would help.
But if that is not going to happen, I will let Mr. Stanton speak, then Ms. Neville, and then I'll let you wrap up.
Mr. Stanton.
:
There are definitely women's rights advocacy groups.
I think this amendment was moved because I didn't believe this motion was objective. I don't believe that's the case. I find it unfortunate, because it's toying with people; it's manipulative. I find it unfortunate that we have come to this point on the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. We should be working together.
We've made recommendations, this motion for example, in various reports. In the report on human trafficking, we talk about violence against women and children. There were very specific recommendations on these points in various reports.
The motion introduced today must be amended to give women more equality. I am the daughter of a veteran who is now dead. However, that doesn't mean that we have more equality today; that's not true. Yes, it's written in the Charter, but pay equity hasn't yet been achieved. So equality and parity haven't yet been achieved. It's false to claim the contrary. Those visiting Canada aren't tricked because the word “equality” has been removed from the documents presented. I'm sorry, but they aren't tricked by that.
:
Yes, because I just asked the question, and I appreciate that.
To follow up on that, I don't know about the appropriateness of going in a different direction. I think Madame Demers has given some backdrop as to why she wants human rights groups to be part of that, but with all respect to the various speakers on this question, I think there aren't agendas here; it's just that there are differences of opinion in terms of how one would perceive the changes, for example, in the terms and conditions, how that plays out, what are the practical implications of that. There are differing views on that, and I think we should be able to have a civil discussion about those issues without having to elevate it into discussions about who has a political agenda and who doesn't.
I think what we have here in the committee is a presentation in front of us, and Madame Demers has added some different context to the motion. From a practical point of view, I assume this type of amendment is in order.