Status of Women Committee on Feb. 7th, 2007

[Shari Graydon]

Really, that is the point I was trying to make when I talked about the history of the advancement. The advancements we have made over the last century have come through advocacy. Women got the vote because of advocacy. So many of the member groups of the Women's Future Fund--like LEAF, like NAWL, like Media Watch--that have advocated for systemic change, for policy and legislative change that would affect all women can't show how this is going to make this woman's life better right this minute, but in fact that advocacy work helps all women and changes all our rights. Without advocacy as part of what Status of Women funds, the kinds of progress that we have made in the last century will not be replicated. The very removal of the word “advocacy” and the word “equality” suggests that there's no understanding of how that change happens. It seems so fundamental that the change happens—

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

You have one and a half minutes.

[Gwendolyn Landolt]

Madam Chairman, could I respond to that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

It's her turn to ask the question, so whether she wants—

[Belinda Stronach, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

I'll just ask Ms. Landolt, very quickly, about REAL Women of Canada. How many of your members are members of Parliament?

[Gwendolyn Landolt]

How many of our members are what?

[Belinda Stronach, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

How many are MPs?

[Gwendolyn Landolt]

I don't know. We don't ask that. We don't know.

[Belinda Stronach, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

I just want to ask you a few quick questions. Are you a member of a political party?

[Gwendolyn Landolt]

I am not.

[Belinda Stronach, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

It claims on your website that many of your members attended the Conservative convention in 2005. Are you a Conservative organization?

[Gwendolyn Landolt]

Some of our members did. A lot of our members attended the Liberal Party convention too. We're non-partisan. It's part of our organization. A lot of us were at the Liberal convention. You must have seen them there.

[Belinda Stronach, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

You talk a lot about measuring results. That's a good thing, to be able to measure results. What measurable results has REAL Women of Canada achieved to advance women's equality? What are examples of that?

[Gwendolyn Landolt]

We have a policy in our articles of incorporation—

[Belinda Stronach, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

What results have you achieved?

[Gwendolyn Landolt]

—and we have always said that women who choose to be at home--we're not saying that everybody should be at home--should be treated with dignity equal to that of women who are in the paid workforce.

We have suggested that the national day care plan is only for a certain group of women. Your Liberal Party plan was not accepted by the public, because we want equality for women, and every woman should be treated equally. That's exactly what we've been working for. We don't care what the profession, but those women at home have been denigrated for their choice for far too long.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

I'd like to thank the panel for being here. I know the discussion has been a little heated, but that's part of the....

Yes.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Madam Chair, I have a quick point of order for clarification for somebody new to the panel.

We've had two hours of testimony from some very knowledgeable people. We've had six questioners from the opposition side and two questioners from the government side. I'm just wondering if that's the normal ratio, just in case I come back.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Generally there would be two rounds, and the governing party would get three, but we had no time, and we went for one round only. That's why. Seven minutes were given to each one to be fair. Okay?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Just for future reference, we can always expect to ask questions. Fine. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you for asking the question.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here. I hope you had a fulfilling experience. We will take your input. What I'd like to do is give you each one minute to wrap up, and I'll be very strict. It will be one minute only.

I will start off with Ms. Graydon.

[Shari Graydon]

If women's voices were heard, if government representation in the House of Commons were 50% instead of 21%, and if the most marginalized women's realities were reflected in the policies and priorities of the government, we wouldn't all need to be here at all.

I think that really speaks to why advocacy is necessary and why many organizations, like the ones I represent, are so concerned about the removal of the word “equality”, because that suggests that the government is now even more resistant than ever to the kind of work that is necessary to ensure that women do in fact realize substantive equality, not just legal equality on paper.

I also want to say that I regret the amount of attention that has unfortunately been focused in this past hour on one particular group. There has been a lot of misinformation. I would love to have had more opportunity to respond to that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Landolt.

[Gwendolyn Landolt]

I'd like to respond and say that they mentioned that women got the vote through advocacy. Believe me, those women did it all on their own, without the Status of Women funding them. Women have many advantages, simply because as women we are perfectly capable of speaking out. We don't need government funding to pay for everything. It seems to be that they all want to be in the government trough to feed, but they don't want to stand on their own two feet and fight for what they believe in.

What does one mean by the word “equality”? That is the main problem. All of us believe that women should be equal, but there are different approaches to how we would achieve that. What has happened is that Status of Women has only accepted the feminist approach to equality. There are other ideas, other challenges for women, but they are all totally ignored. That's why it's crucial that the guidelines be changed so that all women, with their own ideas of how to change equality, will achieve it, and not just the feminist definition.

I would like to make a comment. On September 21—

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Your time is up.