Status of Women Committee on Feb. 7th, 2007

[Sheila Genaille, President, Métis National Council of Women]

Madam Chair, I have speaking notes and a profile for the speaking notes. I'm sorry for not getting them to you sooner.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

No problem.

As I told the panel before, you have five minutes to present.

We will start with Ms. Genaille.

[Sheila Genaille]

Good afternoon.

Five minutes is not all that great a time, so I'll have to just edit as I go.

My name is Sheila Genaille. I'm president of the Métis National Council of Women, which is a national organization that advances equality and justice for Métis women and their families across Canada. We were formally organized in 1990 and incorporated in 1992 as a national non-profit corporation.

We are Canada's only independent national organization structure advocating for aboriginal and equality rights for Métis women. The organizational structure consists of a board of directors filled by presidents of the provincial affiliate organizations.

We've been actively involved in multi-faceted educational, political, and legal campaigns to promote the interests of Métis women in Canada, including their equality rights since formation.

During the early nineties, the Métis National Council of Women's founding provincial associations in communities held workshops in provinces to formulate the reports to the Beaudoin-Dobbie committee and provide information on Métis women in the communities on the constitutional meetings.

As soon as the MNCW was formally organized, the president and directors attended the first peoples conference in Ottawa to speak on behalf of the Métis women's needs. In 1993, the MNCW was invited to attend the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples forums and round tables. RCAP helped fund and carry out a needs assessment study with the MNCW and its founders and constituents, and we've participated in all phases of the royal commission's consultations and work.

In its final report, the commission documented the history and functions of the MNCW as the national voice of Métis women, and made specific recommendations to the federal government on funding needs and policy contributions it should commit to the MNCW.

In particular, the commission included in its report anecdotal accounts of how traditional male leadership in the Assembly of First Nations, the Métis National Council, and the Inuit Tapirisat have always created ongoing problems for all aboriginal women seeking to promote women's equality interests within their unique cultures and communities.

The Métis National Council of Women has frequently been invited by the federal government to speak on behalf of Métis and other aboriginal women in international meetings and organizations. The MNCW has been included in the status of women delegations at the UN and has worked on women's issues within Indian Affairs. We lobbied the European Commission to enter into an international agreement on humane trapping, in which our community is involved. We have also been involved in the implementation on biodiversity, and the indigenous issues in Madrid. MNCW has been involved in a lot of issues in the international area.

The MNCW achieved recognition of non-government status on the international scene. We have general status with ECOSOC at the UN. Again, there are many international areas of involvement.

We are committed to advancing equality and justice for Métis women, and that includes a commitment to safeguard the aboriginal, constitutional, and human rights of Métis women, including those guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

To this end, we were granted leave to intervene in Lovelace v. Canada, and have been invited, along with the other two aboriginal organizations, Pauktuutit and NWAC, to speak on behalf of Métis women at conferences held by Justice Canada. We received funding from the Secretary of State, through the court challenges program, to hold a workshop and conference on Métis women's equality rights.

Métis identity is not affirmatively created by federal legislation in the same way as Indian status was created by the Indian Act. Thus the MNCW's education and advocacy on behalf of Métis women has taken place in the form of creating an audible voice for them in predominantly male-run organizations, and in finding ways to bring their unique concerns as Métis women to the attention of Métis communities and organizations, on the one hand, and the federal government on the other.

Continued advocacy for Métis women's employment needs, as well as the process of establishing a political and public voice for Métis women, became much more difficult in 1994 after the Supreme Court issued its final decision on NWAC v. Canada. The Métis National Council of Women continued to work with the royal commission, despite these difficulties. We have advocated strongly that the Métis National Council of Women be recognized and included in self-governance arrangements as an independent voice. The depth of the opposition to Métis women's organizational autonomy has made it clear at every step of the way that Métis women have to overcome prejudice, stereotypes, and traditional roles in their dealings with federal government.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Please wrap it up.

[Sheila Genaille]

Okay.

Based on my involvement with Métis women in Canada, I believe there is considerable confusion and anxiety on the part of Métis women about the lack of uniformity in the application of law to Métis, Inuit, and first nations women. At the same time, the continued prevalence of attitudes of domination and violence against Métis women makes it difficult for Métis women to turn to an organization that itself has been marginalized.

The status and condition of aboriginal people in Canada, and the federal government's decision to support a select few aboriginal organizations in developing capacities for self-government, have placed us at a disadvantage. There is a need for political will to build partnerships in sharing ways to promote participation, accountability, and effectiveness, not to cut funding. If the funding to Status of Women is cut, will there be more cuts in other federal departments?

We believe this will result in uncertain futures for equality-seeking women's groups. Many groups will have to reduce their operations, most of us will simply shut our doors, and the most disadvantaged women will be silenced.

The promise of the future must be tempered with the legacy of the past. In the case of Métis women, the legacy is a long and continued history of exclusion and marginalization. There must be political will from all parties and continued funding to ensure there will be change and freedom for Métis women from social injustice, exclusion, gender inequality, and racism.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

[Sheila Genaille]

I hope you all read my whole text when you get it. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Ms. Landolt is next for five minutes.

[Gwendolyn Landolt]

REAL Women of Canada has been around since 1983, when we were federally incorporated. We represent a vast cross-section of Canadian women-- Métis women, immigrant women--many, many women across Canada. One thing we've found is that the most discriminatory agency against us has been the Status of Women, because the Status of Women only represents, not women in general, but those having an ideology, that of radical feminism.

You gave out $1.5 million between 1992 and 2002 to the organization CRIAW to research for feminist objectives, and they are not a reflection of what Canadian women want and need.

Canadian women have other agendas than the Status of Women, and we are very offended that this agency has existed since 1973, never ever reflecting the needs of Canadian women. For example, I'll give you the most pertinent example today. Canadian women are in all the major professions. We have equal opportunity, but one of our major problems today is how to balance our work life with our home life and commitments. The Status of Women has not the slightest bit of interest in what women think in these areas. Women need to be treated equally, and there has never been equality with the Status of Women. It has been a blemish on the face of Canada.

In fact, we're looking through some of the previous speakers.... It's the end of democracy. Women are not being funded. REAL Women has never received money. We're obviously an advocacy group and we've managed to survive very well because we have grassroots support. We reflect what women in Canada want. They pay money, and they're not wealthy. Some are on pensions, some are single mothers, but they support us simply because they care about what we reflect.

REAL Women is an NGO with consultative status with the United Nations. As such, we've attended over 34 United Nations meetings. We have been working internationally, promoting women and the care of women. We have equality, which is in our objectives of incorporation, yet we have been able to do all this work simply because women care for what we're doing. We're not fronts; we're not phoney, putting up artificial creations by the government, which is supposed to represent women but doesn't.

For example, a very important point is this. One of the previous speakers suggested that Canada won't have equality until all the CEDAW committee accepts us and says we're equal. Perhaps they're not aware of the fact that the committee monitoring CEDAW is under severe surveillance because it's coming up with theories and positions that are not in the CEDAW agreement. For example, we have them promoting the word “abortion” 37 times, yet it's not in the CEDAW at all.

As for pay equity, how many people here know that when Canada actually ratified the CEDAW document, it put a reservation against pay equity, simply because the provinces would not go along and were not interested in this equal pay for equal value? In fact, I hear again and again that there's no pay equity, yet the International Labour Organization convention has never implemented it because there's no international agreement on that.

The point is that times have changed. We have to move into the 21st century. We have to deal with what women want. We have to listen to women—I've heard that again and again—but women are not all feminists. A few are, and they're perfectly entitled to be, but the vast majority of women do not accept those bylines and guidelines out of the Status of Women. The changes that are taking place are long overdue.

You've had the Status of Women operating for 34 years, and yet you still say women are discriminated against, that we're victims. What victims? Some women are victims--they may be Métis women, they may be immigrant women--but women as a whole are not discriminated against. We're perfectly capable, competent women, able to make decisions with our life, and it's deeply troubling that the government is putting out $11 million each year to a variety of feminists—not women's groups, feminist groups—to promote an agenda that is not a reflection of what Canadian women want or need.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you very much, Ms. Landolt.

Ms. Graydon, you have five minutes.

[Shari Graydon, President, Women's Future Fund]

Thank you very much for your invitation.

My name is Shari Graydon, and my role as president of the Women’s Future Fund is unpaid. I tell you this so you can appreciate that my goal is to make the organization obsolete, because once it's no longer necessary, I will have a lot more time to stick to my knitting.

The Women’s Future Fund is a coalition of national organizations working to further women's equality. Our member groups include a number of those you've already heard from, such as CRIAW, LEAF, and others. The mandate of the coalition is to develop an alternative source of financial support to make women's organizations less dependent on government. Understanding that this wouldn't happen overnight, Status of Women Canada assisted in the development of the Women's Future Fund as a means of accessing workplace giving programs, much as the United Way does. Because such success takes years to build, the agency had pledged to support the coalition through its start-up phase. But the new guidelines have rendered us as well as many of our member organizations ineligible for funds, thus cutting us off at the knees just when we were starting to build and realize significant returns on the investment.

Last year we doubled our revenues and donors. This year we were poised to do so again. Our progress has also been hampered by the fact that although Canadians overwhelmingly support the goal of women's equality, they believe that ensuring human rights is the government's job.

Let me put this in context. No one says the Department of Justice should raise its own revenues. Everybody recognizes that simply making murder illegal doesn't stop the violence. As long as injustice exists, we still need a Department of Justice. As long as inequality exists, we still need a department like the Status of Women. Asking the groups that do the work funded by Status of Women to raise their own money makes about as much sense as asking the Department of Justice to set up its own bingo hall. Yet that's essentially what the Women’s Future Fund is trying to do.

My unpaid work with the Women’s Future Fund is made possible by the fact that I earn enough money as an author and speaker to be able to volunteer and pay taxes. As do all Canadians, I want to know that my tax dollars are being spent responsibility. I have enormous confidence that the moneys awarded to the Women’s Future Fund members deliver an exceptional return. We leverage enormous in-kind support in volunteer labour, and our work is relevant not just to women's lives but to Canada's economic prosperity. UN research from around the world makes it clear that social equality translates into economic prosperity. When women are educated, given genuine choice about child rearing and employment, treated with respect, and paid fairly, the entire society benefits. All taxpayers suffer from the barriers and biases that continue to keep many women from fully contributing their skills and knowledge to our economy. We should all be outraged that instead of spending millions of dollars annually to prevent violence against women, we are spending billions annually on the aftermath of it.

John F. Kennedy once noted that things do not happen; they are made to happen. The equality gains that we've achieved in the last century--and there have been many--exemplify this. Governments didn't simply decide to grant women the vote, or declare us persons. Women's advocacy made that happen. Over the past 30 years, the member groups of the Women’s Future Fund have also made divorce and sexual assault laws fairer, improved the matrimonial rights of aboriginal women, secured maternity benefits and fair pay. We lament that the current government doesn't wish to continue funding this work, which benefits millions of Canadians. If the goal is to make us obsolete, at least part of the solution is to ensure that women have parity in the House of Commons, where the decisions affecting us are being made. If our voices, experiences, and realities were integral to the identification of priorities, the formulation of policy, and the allocation of funds, then our groups would become much less relevant.

I thought I had ten minutes; that is what the correspondence I got said. So I will skip and hope to have the opportunity to come back to some of what I would have said.

In conclusion, because progress doesn't come from deleting the word “equality”, I ask you all to imagine that, in declaring that equality has been achieved, Minister Oda had somehow tripped an invisible balancing wire and men were suddenly faced with the same odds that currently confront women, and my nephews and your sons were now forced to anticipate their new equality in the form of a 30% reduction in expected wages, two more hours per day of housework--unpaid--a 25% risk of sexual assault during their lifetimes, and a 50% chance of living in poverty if they were to become single parents. Those are the realities facing our daughters. They deserve the same realities as our sons.

The member groups of the Women's Future Fund are currently among the resources that government has at its disposal to effect that equality. We are recognized and emulated around the world. We're among the most cost-effective non-profit organizations you can find. And we're working to improve the lives of women and to become less dependent on government funding.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you very much, Ms. Graydon.

We stopped at Ms. Stronach last round, so we will start off, for seven minutes, with Mr. Stanton.

I'm sorry, but that's what we agreed to do.

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

When?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

That's why Mr. Stanton had been cut off.

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

We shouldn't do that again, actually.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Mr. Stanton has seven minutes.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

And thank you to our panellists, both from this panel and the previous one. Your reports and insights today have been invaluable to this study on Status of Women and the change in the terms and conditions that have been undertaken.

I'd like to start, just to preface my comments, from the position that what we're seeing here, in fact--and I heard this through the course of the testimony this afternoon--is the realization that there exists an acceptance that while the public sector has invested heavily in advancing funding for equality-seeking groups and so on over the last 20 or more years, even by the admission of the various groups that have provided testimony to this committee in the last month or so, tremendous need still exists. And predominantly, and even backed up here today, these needs in fact exist in the community and at the community level. We heard examples of that this afternoon.

To Ms. Graydon's point that this goes beyond just treating the effects of the issues around inequality, it in fact speaks directly to the kinds of injustices that are occurring at the community level.

When I look at the new terms and conditions for Status of Women--and I'll preface my question this way--what we see, and I'm speaking now of the women's program, is that the program's key objective is to achieve the full participation of women in economic, social, and cultural life in Canada. And as its key priorities--but not just these three--the focus of these programs would be towards aboriginal women, immigrant women and visible minority women, and senior women. As I said, these are the priorities of the women's program. That's not to say that only these categories of needs would be addressed.

I'll start, perhaps with Ms. Genaille. Could you tell me, from the standpoint of your organization, how that new objective of the women's program would fit with the needs you have in your community?

[Sheila Genaille]

Taking away the words “equality” and “advocacy” is.... We haven't reached equality, and I don't see it within my lifetime or even in my children's lifetime.

The aboriginal population in this country is at or below the poverty line. I don't have to tell you that. You've seen the number of communities that would rival third world populations. And for Métis women, if you check with Statistics Canada, you will see that we are the most impoverished in this country. So when you start cutting funding on the grounds that we're an advocacy group or that we're seeking equality, it's not there.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt. Have you applied under the women's program?

[Sheila Genaille]

We have applied. We have done some work on violence against women. The incidence of violence in our community is very high. We have in the past, but this year we haven't applied. The funding in the past was limited. With the number of women in this country looking for dollars to address their issues, the funding is very small, so when you cut it even further and put in more stringent criteria, we won't have the same opportunity.

Yes, to answer your question, we've had money in the past. It was about three or four years ago.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

You haven't applied under the new terms and conditions.

[Sheila Genaille]

We haven't, not under the new ones, no.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I just want to correct a point. In fact, there has been no reduction in the women's program funding. It's still $10.8 million and will continue to be. That's in addition to the $1 million available for the Sisters in Spirit program.

[Sheila Genaille]

The Sisters in Spirit program is for Indian women. We're Métis women.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I understand that.