Status of Women Committee on Sept. 26th, 2006

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Minna.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I wanted to follow up on Ms. Smith's comment about the minister, and I appreciate that the minister is coming, obviously. But quite often ministers and governments make policy and then the bureaucracy has tons of time to implement or not implement, or delay or slow things down, depending on the culture of that place.

I think it's very important for us to read the report as soon as we get it, but also to meet with the bureaucrats who are responsible for the implementation of the program to ensure that in fact it is happening and is not something that is sitting on a shelf somewhere. Also, as was just mentioned, we need to hear back from all of them about what the current cuts mean in terms of the impact on Status of Women Canada, specifically, to be able to represent the issues across the board, because of course that's its job. It's the lead agency when it comes to women's issues across the government.

I hope we can support it today, because if we don't know what's going on, we can't pressure or talk to the government. It might also put a little bit of onus on the bureaucracy, knowing that they have to come to account for results, to implement the policies a little more rigorously than they might otherwise have done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Mourani.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Madam Chair, this motion is very much in order and I will be supporting it. However, when will we be meeting with these individuals?

The motion would “[...] invite the Deputy Ministers [...] (Finance, Justice, Human Resource, Immigration and Treasury Board)[...] That means five people in total. I think it's essential that we meet with these individuals to see what their ministries are doing in terms of gender-based analysis.

According to our meeting schedule, on October 5, Ms. Oda will be here to discuss reports 1 through 3. We could also put the question to Ms. Oda at that time.

As I understand the motion, we've extended an invitation to the deputy ministers. Given our agenda, I would have amended the motion, adding the following: “immediately at the start of the 2007 winter session.”

Unless you have a solution, I'm open to everything and anything.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

When you indicate the winter session, are you referring to “not until February”?

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Yes, during the next session, at the end of January, February, March and April. I don't have a problem with that, but when exactly?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

If we ask, all they can do is come back and say they don't have time, and so forth. It's not as if they're sitting there waiting to come tomorrow. We can ask, and it may not happen until then; we just don't know. We have to see where we can slot their schedules or, in a meeting where we only have two witnesses and have sufficient time, we could maybe slot in someone who would be willing to come; that's a possibility. We're going to try to be as flexible as possible to get everything we need done, maximizing all of our time.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Madam Chair, if we endorse this motion, we're undertaking to hear from five deputy ministers. You say that maybe two will agree to come. That's not what the motion says. It's a blank cheque of sorts. Maybe two will agree to come, or maybe all five will. What we will do if all five accept our invitation? Are we going to set aside several days to examine human trafficking and meet with five deputy ministers? Perhaps we'd have time to hear from two of them in two hours. If we plan to have all five give testimony, we'd have to set aside a minimum of two and a half days. So then, you're saying that we're going to set aside two and a half days to examine this issue. Correct? I'm merely employing some logic.

Are we going to hear from them at the same time as we hear from the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs? Are we going to cancel our meeting on human trafficking scheduled for October 24? It's all a little too vague. We agree in principle that we need to hear from these individuals. You're asking us to vote on a motion, when in fact we're not really clear on our work plan.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Mourani, the motion is asking that the deputies from the various departments come before us. For one thing, they have to come before us; I mean, their schedule has to count as well as our schedules. If the motion is adopted, we will have to do our best to try to accommodate our needs to have them come as against what we're also trying to deal with. It will be a question of trying to work our schedules out to the best of our ability.

If we could have had some of our ministers in today, or some of our deputies, we would have had some people today. But we can only put in the request; then we have to try doing the scheduling.

If the motion is adopted, we'll do our best to try to find the time, where we have a slot. It may be one deputy one week on it, and another deputy the week after. We will look at this as we try to do the work plan, in order to get the information back from them. Or we could have an additional meeting if necessary to do it. There are other possibilities to accommodate this, once they agree to come.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Madam Chair, you can initiate this process without our having to vote on a motion. Correct?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

There is a motion on the floor. It was tabled appropriately. It's been spoken to, and it needs to be voted on, one way or the other.

Next are Ms. Minna and Ms. Smith, and then we're going to vote on the motion.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Madam Chair, could I answer some of the concerns that were raised? I want to address the issue raised by Madame Mourani, because of course I understand her concern. I was thinking of putting a time limit on this motion, but I didn't, for that very purpose.

When I was on the finance committee and we did hearings prior to a budget process, we used to sit all day long. This committee isn't obliged to sit only the two hours from eleven to one and that's it. We could have extra meetings in the afternoons, especially when we're doing the report on trafficking and what have you. While there are a number of ministers, they could all be given one hour at the end of one particular day, or half a day at the end of another.

Between now and Christmas there is a lot of meeting time, and we're not meeting for full days. We're meeting only for our allotted time of eleven to one. We can certainly extend the meeting. At the finance committee we used to meet all day; I'm not suggesting that here, but we could choose to have two or three extra meetings, just to focus on a particular extra issue that really matters and is important, so that we can get it out of the way, rather than allowing it to fester and to drag.

That would allow us to be able to report to women out there that we are being vigilant. In addition to doing new research, we're being vigilant on existing directions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Smith is next.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

It's very true. We don't have to meet just from eleven to one. We can extend it. My one concern is that we do not detract from the human trafficking issue, because it was very difficult to get the human trafficking issue on a study for status of women, where it should have been probably two years ago.

This indeed is a very good motion. It's another very important topic, but there are different ways we can get off track, and one way is to put a motion down so that we do get off track. For what we deal with in this important motion, we should have extra time specifically allotted, so that we can deal with it right away and get it done without detracting from the work plan that we have discussed, voted on, and put forward. I think that's very important.

Maybe that would address both issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

If everyone is in agreement, we would propose to organize the ministers to respond to this motion and the GBA issues. We would have a separate meeting to deal with that as soon as we can, so that we could get a better handle on this and the government's position. Then, if we were able to line up all our deputies to come, we would propose a separate meeting.

Is it agreeable to everyone that we would have a separate meeting? We would have a separate meeting to get the deputy ministers in; it would be an additional meeting that the clerk and researchers would organize, so it would not take us off from what we're trying to do with our current plan. That will be organized as soon as possible--as soon as we can get a response.

All right. Is that okay with everyone?

Ms. Mourani, you had suggested an amendment. Are you withdrawing that amendment? Okay.

Is everyone in agreement with adopting this motion and requesting the deputies to come out, or do we need a vote on it?

(Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

All right.

On Thursday we have only one witness coming right now.

[Lyne Casavant]

Mr. Richard Poulin is a sociologist at the University of Ottawa. Recently, he wrote a book on human trafficking. He is one of number of people who believe that prostitution and the sex trade in certain countries are linked. I imagine that in his testimony, he will explore the relationship between prostitution and human trafficking.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

That's been very helpful.

Can I make a suggestion? Mr. Stanton triggered this. We have only Mr. Poulin. Would it be possible to ask the department for the status of women if we could schedule them on Thursday, to give us some feedback on the cuts they are going to deal with and where our budget is and so on? I don't know that they'll be able to come on short notice, but we could ask and see what will happen.

All right. Is everybody in agreement?

Is there any other business we need to discuss?

Ms. Smith, do you have a comment?

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Do you want to take a vote on that? There is another RCMP officer I was talking to this morning who might be available to come on Friday as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We're not here on Friday.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

I'm sorry, Thursday. But we have to do both, so either way.

I would just point out that when we get this information, it's “cost savings” within, not “cost cuts”, because “cost cuts” infers that people are going to be cut off from things. So I think our terminology should be “cost savings” until we get our information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We need someone to come in and give us an update on the status of women's budget. If you want to suggest to the researchers or to the clerk the name of the RCMP officer who might also be available—

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

RCMP officials are coming on October 3, aren't they?

[An hon. member]

How many RCMP do we need?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

All right. We will move forward on that and see how we can move forward.

Is there anything else? I know everybody's time is precious, so I'll move adjournment if there are no further issues.

We'll adjourn the meeting.