Status of Women Committee on May 16th, 2006

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Otherwise, all the work the previous committee did in preparing those reports is lost if we don't table them in the House to give the government the opportunity to respond.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Then they come back here for us to discuss.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

They would come back, and at that point we could decide whether we want to do something more on those particular issues. We could re-examine the recommendations that come back from the government as to the direction the government wants to go in, or whatever.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you for your clarification.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Do I have any other speakers to the motion before Mr. Stanton?

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Just on this question, I heard something different. I don't have the motion in front of me, unfortunately, but it essentially read that this committee in fact concurs with the conclusions of the committee in the last Parliament, and then it in turn submits these for tabling and for government response.

That's the only part I take issue with, and only on a matter of procedure, simply because we haven't had the chance to even look through them to see what's in front of us and whether in fact we concur. So before I sign off and agree with this, in the current form I would vote against this motion, only on the basis that I don't want to sign on as a committee member to just instantaneously adopt the work of the former committee. I don't want to make any comment about its work. I'm sure it was very well done and the conclusions were well put, but this is a new committee and I would think we need at least a bit of time. I wonder if we could table this motion and give ourselves a bit of time and come back to it, perhaps.

I agree that because of the 120 days we need to move this to get a response, but at least let's give the committee the opportunity to digest what the last committee did. I apologize if perhaps we should have done that by now; nevertheless, if we could put this off for even a brief period of time to give us a chance to catch up on that, that would be good.

I agree with Madame Bourgeois that even if it's 20 minutes' consideration or a round-table discussion on the five reports, it might be healthy in terms of just acquainting the members with the subject matter that is contained in those five reports.

I note that, for example, on pay equity, that's a report, in fact, on one of our workplan items, so perhaps there's some tie-in there. But before we move ahead and send these five reports out the door today, it might be beneficial to have a bit of time to at least take them in and make sure that the current committee is completely up to speed on them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Well, there are several members on the committee now who were on the committee previously, and these were unanimously adopted by the status of women committee.

Clearly, part of the frustration in government when you change like this is that all the work that was previously done, all the time of the witnesses, on all those five reports....

The first one is “Increasing Funding to Equality-Seeking Organizations”; the second is “Gender-Based Analysis: Building Blocks for Success”; the third is “Funding Through the Women's Program: Women's Groups Speak Out”; the fourth is “Pay Equity”; and the fifth is the “Interim Report on the Maternity and Parental Benefits under Employment Insurance: the Exclusion of Self-Employed Workers”.

There was an enormous amount of work done by Ms. Smith, Ms. Grewal, Ms. Guergis, and the other members of the committee. To not get a response back from the government is almost a waste of all the time and effort of all the people who worked on it.

It's important to get feedback from the new government so that we can have some help and direction in trying to move these very important issues forward. If we don't get a response back from the government and we decide that, before that, we would start to relook at these issues, we can forget about all the other issues that we now want to work on, because these issues are complex. It takes far more than 20 minutes. You get nothing more than an overview of them, and it makes it very difficult.

I would suggest that we move it forward, get a response back from the government, and at that point decide where we need to go with those issues. If we don't move them forward, all the work that was previously done isn't going to get redone. We won't have enough time to redo it, and it makes it very difficult for all the people who participated, including all the women's groups and witnesses who came forward on those issues.

Speaking to the motion, Ms. Mathyssen.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Madam Chair, I would like to move ahead with this motion and simply add that members of this committee at the last meeting made a commitment to do the homework, to read the reports, to understand the work of the previous committee. We are from time to time going to have substitutions, and we cannot have people who are coming in as substitutes delay the committee by saying they haven't done the work. We very clearly said in the last meeting that we would come prepared. I would ask that committee members do that, so that we can indeed move ahead.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We will now have a vote on the motion for concurrence.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Madam Chair, I would simply like to make a comment. I would like to remind my colleagues that three of them were part of this committee last year.

Ms. Smith, Ms. Grewal, and Ms. Guergis, your names appear on all of the reports. Only two people, who were not part of this committee, did not really have time to read these reports, perhaps. Nevertheless, three people were present, as their names appear on these reports.

Ms. Grewal, your name perhaps does not appear on all reports, but Ms. Smith's does. Consequently, I think that the majority of us have read all of the reports, including myself, even though I was not on the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Let me read this again, please, so that everybody is well aware of what we're doing.

That the Committee concurs in the recommendations of the First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Reports of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women presented to the House in the 1st Session of the 38th Parliament;

that the Chair report to the House the concurrence in these recommendations;

and that, pursuant to Standing Order 109, the Committee request that the Government table a comprehensive response to those reports.

Do we want a recorded vote on that? It was moved by Mrs. Mourani.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Let us get back to the workplan we have before us. We have until June 1 already there. Given some of the comments we've raised this morning, I suggest that after June 1, which would bring us to our June 6 meeting—June 1 we have the minister here—on June 6, if we possibly could, we have that joint meeting with the aboriginal affairs committee on matrimonial rights. We will put a request in. That would help us to review those 32 recommendations and look at just how much might be—

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

There are only three recommendations, Madam Chair. I'm sorry; somebody said 32. There were 37 witnesses, and three recommendations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I suggest we have that joint meeting on June 6, if possible. I think that's very important, and there's clearly consensus from all of us. We will try to do that at the June 6 meeting. Then we'll try to have the justice department meet with us on June 8.

I think there are a lot of issues that are going to come out of these meetings, and the earlier we can have them, possibly, the better for us as we're trying to plan where we're going in the fall. We know where we're going on that.

Possibly on June 13 we would have the Department of Human Resources come in. On June 15 we would no doubt require a second meeting with those two.

Is that acceptable?

June 13 and 15 would be Human Resources, because they tie into so many of our other issues. Will we leave it at that?

June 13 and 15 would be HRDC. We may have to move people around if we can't get our joint meetings going. The intent in those four meetings would be to try to cover off those things from that perspective.

I wanted to make the suggestion that when we have witnesses come in we leave the last 15 minutes for committee business. If, following the witnesses, we need to discuss any motions or anything we'll have the last 15 minutes of those meetings reserved so we don't carry on after eleven. We'll try to keep ourselves in our nine to eleven slot because we're all on so many committees.

Are there any other issues?

On June 6 and 8 we're going to try to meet with the committees. The minister is coming in on June 1. On June 6 and 8 we're going to try to have our joint committees with aboriginal affairs and justice. On June 13 and 15 would be HRDC. We'll move after that.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Is that confirmed?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We're awaiting confirmation from the minister for June 1.

Yes, Ms. Smith?

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

Could you have a copy of this agenda and this timeline sent to our offices as soon as possible so we can prepare for those days?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Yes, definitely.

We are awaiting confirmation from the minister for June 1.

Yes, Ms. Mourani?

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Madam Chair, you are proposing to meet with the members of the justice committee on June 8. Do you think that will be enough? We have many topics to address: trafficking in women, sexual assault, etc. It might well be very short. I don't know how we could do all of that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

There are many issues. The results of those discussions may help us to determine a variety of other things we also want to deal with. At least let's have the two hours with both aboriginal affairs and justice and then we will assess following that which other issues have come up that we feel are important to discuss further.

Again, we're just trying to move things forward in a constructive way here. There's a lot to be done.

Yes?

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Do you want to devote just two meetings to the economic security of older women?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

What we will no doubt find when we're talking about economic security of women is that it's quite complex and complicated. I would expect we would want to talk about everything, from caregivers' income splitting to even the issue of matrimonial rights for aboriginal women, which also has a piece to play in there, so I think we would need the two meetings. If it's the will of the committee not to, that's fine, but I'm suggesting we should block off these two, because I think the more you meet with many of these people the more questions will come up that you need to follow up on.

Yes, Ms. Guergis?

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

Thanks very much, Madam Chair.

I'd like to say that income splitting will be a very complex discussion, and we will require that time and may require even more time down the road.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Exactly. Thank you.

Yes, Ms. Minna.

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

I only want to clarify something, Madam Chair.

We are talking about income splitting and economic security. Since we went through a motion this morning, I only want to see whether there is a consensus on the workplan that aboriginal matrimonial rights is now number one and then we're going to economic security. What are our priorities? Is it violence against women and economic security, or the other way around?

I only want to have some consensus on what we've approved as a committee so that we don't have to go back to motions again.