Status of Women Committee on May 11th, 2006

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

It would be:

That witnesses be given ten minutes to make their opening statements. On the first round of questioning, seven minutes to a representative of each party in the following order: Liberal, Bloc, Conservative, New Democratic Party. On the following rounds of questioning, five minutes per party in the following order: Liberal, Conservative, Bloc, New Democratic Party, and Conservative.

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

That's right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

All those in favour?

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Now that we have that important work behind us, we can start to focus on some of the issues.

Thank you to those who have submitted suggestions on various issues that we might want to discuss.

Does the committee want to go in camera for the discussion of future business? No? That's fine. We're okay to go forward.

I received some suggestions yesterday that you all have in front of you. Unfortunately, Ms. Smith's is apparently not there, nor is Mr. Cottler's, because it came late. We have copies of Mr. Cotler's suggestion here. I have copies, but it's not translated because we did not get it in time to get it translated.

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

I have a point of order. We have an e-mail that shows it was sent before noon yesterday, so I don't know why it isn't here today. Whatever it is, it was sent as requested in the allotted time, and I can provide that e-mail.

When we get to it, I have motions prepared for our agenda. We put considerable time into this.

It's just to note that's what happened. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Smith, since we don't have it translated, could I suggest that you read it out?

Before you do that, I'd like to invite the analyst, Julie Cool, to come and take her place here at the table. Julie has been with the committee for some time. She is very familiar with it and very knowledgeable.

We have submissions from Ms. Neville, Ms. Minna, Ms. Bourgeois, and Ms. Mourani.

Ms. Smith, if you'd like to read out your submission, we'll have it into the record.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

There are copies, and there are translated copies as well. I would like to read this out, but I just want to check that they're on the table and that everyone has a copy. Does everyone have a copy of this?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you all for taking the time to submit some great suggestions for some things we could be working on.

While we're waiting for that to be distributed, I have to say that in reading some of the previous work of the committee, I've noticed that all of you who have sat on this committee have worked really well together, and I hope we can continue to work in a non-partisan manner and accomplish a fair amount in whatever time we have.

Ms. Smith, could you read your suggestions for possible consideration for the workplan?

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

Thank you.

Madam Chair, I will make sure we table the e-mail for you at the next meeting, to reassure you that the request you made was fulfilled.

Also, I'm going to put forth three motions. They're in both French and English. I apologize for not reading in French; I am studying very hard and trying to learn it well, but I don't want to embarrass myself by reading it in French, so I'll just read it in English.

The one we've put at the top of the list is matrimonial property rights for aboriginal women. I must say that a lot of our members here around the table have aboriginal people in their ridings. We have all heard about this issue; it is an issue that was brought to the forefront last year in this committee, and we never had a chance to study it.

My motion is,

Whereas the equitable split of matrimonial property is guaranteed for both spouses when divorcing under Canadian law, and whereas this guarantee does not apply to status Indians living on reserves where property is split in favour of the male spouse, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), be it resolved that the Standing Committee on the Status of Women undertake a study of matrimonial property rights of aboriginal women.

This is an issue involving great disadvantage to women throughout centuries, and as I say, there are many aboriginal....

Madam Chair, could you call to order, please?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Minna.

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

I'm a little confused about procedure. I thought we were going to go over the submissions of all of the members. We've all submitted similar things—I had the one on aboriginal.... I thought we were going to look at the issues the committee would look at, and then at the appropriate time there would be motions, which we all agree with—the list here is quite similar—whereas we seem to be going into....

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I was just about to suggest it, but I hadn't asked, since we didn't have in front of us your submission of items you wanted the committee to consider.

Would you—

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

List them?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

—read the items you wanted and leave the issue of motions to a later time?

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

I will be happy to do that. You didn't have it in front of you, so I thought you wanted both.

Obviously, you know that matrimonial property rights for aboriginal women is huge on our list, and that is something we would really like to study. It's really gratifying to hear that others have it on their lists as well.

There is also poverty among aboriginal women and there is poverty among senior women. These are three things we would like to look at and address.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

It is good to see that there is almost a consensus of all of us thinking along the same lines, in many ways.

Ms. Mourani.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

I think Ms. Minna should go first.

I guess it's you first, isn't it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Okay, Ms. Minna is first.

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

Thank you.

Madam Chair, in my submission there are similar things. The aboriginal property rights is something I consider to be very important as well. I think we might, as a committee, discuss it, and there may not be a need for motions. It might be something that we adopt on the basis of consensus.

With respect to poverty among seniors, I had suggested “economic security of women”, namely senior women, and also of caregivers, which impacts the economic security as well.

I'd like to explain. The reason I said economic security of women is that there are a lot of women today who are in their thirties and are having children and staying at home, some of them, to look after their children, but they're missing out on pensions. Our pension structure doesn't really give them any extra, which means they're going to be the poor seniors of tomorrow whether their marriages survive or don't survive. Even if they do, it doesn't matter.

My suggestion is that since we've taken a look at women, seniors, and poverty, we might also look at the overall issue of economic security for women. That's why I have “senior women” as well.

We could also discuss what we might need to do with current pension structures to ensure we don't have poor senior women in the future, and at the same time address current senior poor women as well, because we need to deal with the short term and the long term situations of women.

That includes caregivers, because many of the caregivers who are now providing care are becoming seniors themselves and have no pensions. They're not earning very much money, and some of them aren't earning any money if they're looking after families.

Those two are rather wrapped together, but senior women really affect the whole issue of pensions for women. I call it economic security, but it's very much along the same lines.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Go ahead, Madame Mourani.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

I think our first order of business should be to review the work accomplished last year to get an idea of where we're going. I've seen several reports peppered with recommendations. I'd like to know what's been done, and what work remains to be done. I'm not familiar with procedure. Do I need to move a motion or some such thing? Perhaps the clerk can enlighten us.

I've also seen a report on pay equity that was tabled. Last time -- I don't recall the exact date -- I put a question to the Minister of Labour concerning pay equity. He responded that an interdepartmental committee was examining this issue. Can you tell me if pay equity legislation is currently being drafted? In my opinion, we need this kind of legislation. The time for debate and discussion is long over. Now is the time for action. It might be interesting for the committee to put forward pay equity legislation.

Finally, as we've all observed, crime and security are key concerns of this government. As I see it, it's critically important that we do a study on the impact future changes will have on women, whether changes to the Criminal Code, the Corrections Act or the Parole Act. We should come up with recommendations to advise other committees that will be reviewing these acts. Regarding crime, we could also examine the whole issue of human smuggling, a subject that has been covered at length in several reports.

In terms of the correctional system, it's important to take into account not only female inmates, but mothers who have been incarcerated. Upon closer examination, we note that their situation is quite desperate. What steps can be taken to ensure that the corrections systems is better adapted to women? The crime rate among women is much lower than among men. Consequently, fewer programs are available specifically for women. Women are incarcerated in maximum security facilities even when they are serving a light sentence. The infrastructure and the programs are simply not there for them.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you.

Ms. Mourani, I might just add, there were several reports done by the committee: on gender-based analysis, pay equity, parental benefits, and on the women's programs. Those reports were all tabled in the previous House with the government. I would suggest that we'd want to re-table those in the House and get a response from the government, and this way we would have a chance to get a response by the government by September on those.

We'll wait until the end of this discussion to move a motion that we readopt those and present them. There was some great work done and it was unanimously approved by all of the committee members. So congratulations on that.

Let me go back to the list.

Mr. Cotler.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I made three recommendations for this committee. The first was on the question of pay equity because I thought the committee had made great progress in that regard and unanimously was able to recommend going forward with respect to legislation. The second was the question of violence against women, and I would include also the issue of trafficking in that context. And the third was this is the 25th anniversary of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the CEDAW convention, and the recommendation was to look at what domestic obligations do we have under that convention, what have we in fact implemented, and what remains to be done. Those are the three.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you, Mr. Cotler.

Ms. Guergis.

[Helena Guergis, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I put forward four suggestions, and further to what I think many people around the table are talking about--senior women and poverty--I included income splitting, which I think addresses poverty for seniors, women in particular, because of the traditional role that women have played and there has been no respect for or a dollar amount given to the work they have done at home.

If we were to investigate and make a recommendation maybe at some point that we could at least start with senior women, with income splitting there, perhaps it would allow them to have pensions, the government pensions, because they're not even entitled to that if they didn't have an income at some point. So I thought it would tie in nicely with the discussion on senior women.

I also support the idea of talking about violence against women--in particular, sexual assault. I know many times I've asked witnesses before the committee about statistics, if we have any, whether they've changed, because I remember when I was a volunteer that it was one out of three women at some point in their life. I believe that has not changed, and it has been ten years since I worked as a volunteer for a rape crisis centre. So I think we need to find out if we've actually made some progress in this, and if we haven't, maybe make some recommendations on how the government could address this issue.

I also thought perhaps we could talk about women and entrepreneurs, and more specifically trade, the international trade side of things. Perhaps the committee could participate in a trade mission for Canadian women and Canadian entrepreneurs and really start focusing on how small-business women can expand.