FEWO Committee Report

DISSENTING OPINION

NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY

The Standing Committee for the Status of Women heard interesting evidence from a variety of groups that provided important insight into the economic security of women.  Witnesses provided important insight to the Committee regarding the problems faced by vulnerable groups of Canadian women.  They also provided suggestions on how the government should address these problems. 

The recommendations of the Committee failed to take much of the witness’ testimony into account and they will not provide the economic protection these vulnerable groups of women need.  Therefore, the NDP has chosen to write in dissent to the Committee’s recommendations. More specific recommendations that suggest the federal government take concrete action are needed to provide Canadian women with the economic security they require.

The Committee heard evidence demonstrating the need for the federal government to implement the recommendations from the 2004 Pay Equity Task-force Report.  These recommendations are conspicuously absent from the Committee’s study.  Evidence presented to the Committee by Statistics Canada demonstrated that the wage disparity between women and men who work full time “seems to be stuck at 70% and there’s been very little change in that over the course of the last decade.”

The Study points out that women’s participation in the labour force often suffers because of responsibilities like childcare and care-giving for dependent relatives. These difficulties are often magnified in lone-parent families.  Women should not have to suffer economic hardship because their family life may sometimes keep them away from paid work.  Likewise, the need to earn a living should not keep women from other important duties, like spending quality time with family. The government should strike a taskforce to study how Canadians can achieve better work-life balance.

Much of the work done by women is unpaid; nevertheless this work is very important.  Unpaid work such as child rearing provides significant value to society.  However, because this work can take up a great deal of time without compensation, it may leave some women in a position of economic insecurity.  Therefore, the Committee should have recommended that the federal government study options to remunerate Canadians for their unpaid labour.

Education and literacy are important factors in attaining higher-paying jobs and economic security, government funding in support of these objectives is necessary.  The Committee should recommend that the federal government reinstate funding to literacy programs, including First Nations languages (in consultation with First Nations organizations). Similarly, the Committee should recommend that the federal government improve the economic opportunities of Canadians by providing quality affordable post-secondary education and training by increasing funding for post-secondary education, lowering tuition fees, and launching a national training strategy to expand vocational training opportunities for Canadians.

The recommendations of the Committee do not go far enough to protect the economic security of women in the most vulnerable groups.  The Committee should have made additional recommendations that would have provided more protection to rural women, aboriginal women, women with disabilities and minorities. The federal government should:

• ensure that farm women have their own private pension plan;
• expand EI coverage to persons with disabilities;
• provide rural, disabled women and low income women better access to transportation for work, education and child-minding services; 
• facilitate the recognition of foreign credentials with various professional bodies and provincial accreditation offices so there is a uniform recognition process throughout the country and develop reciprocity agreements with other countries;
• fund awareness education and sensitivity training in the public and private sector to reduce discrimination against persons with disabilities, First Nations and racialized women.

The cost of drugs and health care services can be a drain on the income of all Canadians, but is of particular concern for the economic security of women in vulnerable groups. The federal government should, in consultation with the provinces and territories, develop and implement a national pharmaceutical plan, provide free dental, vision and drug care to seniors and create 50,000 long-term care spaces over five years and expand coverage of non-for-profit professional home care as another alternative to hospitalization.

The NDP also calls on the government to rectify decades of under funding of seniors’ programs by supporting the Seniors Charter that enshrines the right of every senior in Canada to:

• income security, through protected pensions and indexed public income support that provides a reasonable state of economic welfare;
• secure accessible, and affordable housing;
• wellness, through health promotion and preventative care;
• secure, public, accessible, universal health care including primary care, homecare, palliative and geriatric care, and free pharma and dental care;
• self-development, through lifelong access to affordable recreation, education and training;
• government services, through timely access to all federal government services and programs, including family re-unification.

The federal government must take a more active role in ensuring that women have the resources to make informed financial decisions. Therefore, the Committee should recommend that the federal government develop a campaign to educate women on the impact of motherhood, caregiving and other unpaid labour on their financial future. The government should also better advertise the programs and services available to women that may affect their financial security.

Private Member’s Bill C-303 was developed in consultation with organizations across the country, including Quebec. The NDP recommends that the government support and bring into force Bill C-303 to provide stable funding for a national early learning and childcare program that is safe, universal, accessible and affordable.

The Committee’s recommendations for EI reform are a step in the right direction, but the NDP feels that further recommendations are needed. The NDP believes that the two week waiting period for EI should be eliminated, the maximum yearly insurable earnings should be increased to $51,748,  the eligibility criteria lowered to 360 hours, the benefit increased to 70% of regular earnings and that maternity and parental leave become a distinct benefit under EI.

In addition the NDP recommends that the Federal Government should:

• appoint an ombudsperson at HRDSC and CRA for women who are having difficulty accessing social assistance and the child tax credit;
• increase funding to Status of Women Canada to re-open the 12 closed regional offices;
• allow the Women’s Program at Status of Women Canada to fund research, advocacy and lobbying activities that will increase women’s equality;
• have Status of Women Canada develop a national initiative that would address the economic security of women and fund independent research to monitor the economic security of women;
• collect specific data on the Inuit population and Métis population through Statistics Canada;
• ensure that when businesses go bankrupt, amounts owning to workers are paid first and that workers are able to proceed with claims for outstanding wages against the directors of bankrupt corporations;
• increase the retroactivity period for CPP from 11 to 60 months;
• increase the Child Tax benefit by $1000 per child above the currently scheduled increases;
• fund programs to prevent women from being forced to live in violent situations because of their economic circumstances;
• address Women’s political under-representation;
• reinstate funding to the Court Challenges program and that women’s access to legal aid be increased through an awareness campaign and that legal aid is adequately funded;
• introduce a comprehensive Canadians with Disabilities Act, which would work with other income and high employment strategies to produce the sea change required to enhance the opportunities of persons with disabilities.