Status of Women Committee on Nov. 21st, 2007

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

We have quorum and we can start.

Ladies and gentlemen, members of the committee, last week we discussed gender-based budgeting and that Dr. Clara Morgan would be giving us a synopsis of what it means. You all received a document, which is an IPU document. That was easily translated. It was just to give you a flavour for what gender-based budgeting is, what the parameters are, and which countries have done it.

Dr. Morgan has now got her overview of her study. I'd like to distribute it now and give Clara an opportunity to explain to us what the process entails, and then we as a committee need to focus on which aspect of gender-based budgeting we want to do. We have to be very focused because it is a huge topic, as you will hear, and we need to narrow it down.

If we can get Clara to do a presentation for about ten minutes, then we'll take some questions and answers, and then go through and figure out what focus we should look at. Is that agreeable?

Then we are ready to give Clara the floor.

[Clara Morgan, Committee Researcher]

Thank you.

At the end of the last meeting, the chair asked me to provide you with a short presentation on gender budgets. The clerk has distributed by e-mail a publication from the Inter-Parliamentary Union. It's called Parliament, the Budget and Gender. This is a lengthy document—I'm sorry about that—but it's the only document that was available in French and English. The Commonwealth Secretariat does have gender budget information, but it's not translated yet, so it's only in English. If you were to look at chapter 4 of Parliament, the Budget and Gender, page 55 in English, 61 in French, it has a gender perspective on the budget, so that's a useful chapter. If we were going to focus on one chapter in this document, as sort of a solid background, it's chapter 4.

The publication covers, generally, information on budgets, which is a useful thing to know when you're tackling gender budgets because you really need to know about the budget process and good budgeting practices and principles.

The chair mentioned that it would be useful to distribute a document that I was working on in the summer. Because this committee had talked about gender budgeting earlier in June, I thought I'd better get familiar with this topic because I didn't know much about it. So I did my reading, I did my homework, and this is what I put together. This is the other document that you have, the shorter document, which is about nine pages. I'm not sure if everyone has one yet.

First, let me clarify that I'm not an expert on gender budgets. I think there are people out there who have much more expertise. I know, generally, a little bit about it, so I'm going to just walk you through the document and tell you just what is inside it, really briefly.

The document is organized into what a gender budget is, why gender budgets are needed, the implementation process of a gender budget, tools for effective gender budgeting, and the role of parliamentarians in encouraging and implementing a gender budget. This document will eventually become a publication on the Library of Parliament website.

Just the basics: what is a gender budget? According to the literature on the topic, a gender budget is a budget that accounts for direct and indirect effects of a government's expenditure allocations and revenues on both men and women, and groups of women and groups of men. I'm not going to read the whole document to you, but I just want to highlight the main points.

Why do we need gender budgets? This is based on the literature. The World Economic Forum has pointed to the inefficiency of gender inequality. These costs are manifested by lower levels of productivity and competitiveness and reduced levels of well-being. Experts who recommend the use of gender-sensitive budgets know that a national budget can be an important tool for addressing women's equality. So gender budgets are tools for addressing women's equality.

A national budget that is gender sensitive recognizes the underlying inequalities between women and men and redresses them through the allocation of public resources. So that's what the literature says about gender budgets and why we need them: because they can correct the imbalance that exists between men and women.

The implementation process of a gender budget. If we were going to tackle the topic of gender budgets, we'd have to look at it through the whole gender budget implementation process, the actual budget cycle. A useful implementation of a gender budget requires data. It requires disaggregated data and indicators. So your starting point, according to the literature, is to have the correct data available to undertake a gender-responsive budget. The document lists other areas that are highlighted by experts of gender budgets, such as the location, scope, reporting format, and who will be involved in the process.

The gender budget literature makes another point, that a gender-responsive budget has to be part of the budgetary cycle.

The literature identifies several factors that contribute to the successful implementation of a gender-responsive budget--for example, there needs to be a commitment from both government and civil society stakeholders, and the availability of technical expertise and data that's aggregated by gender. So there are certain factors that make gender budgets successful in their implementation.

There are a host of tools for effective gender budgeting that have been developed by experts in this area. I've listed them according to expenditures and revenues. I am not an expert on these tools. The committee would require people on that who have extensive expertise in how to develop these tools and how to use them as part of the budgetary process.

There are really only three experts in the field of gender budgets who have tackled this area. They're Rhonda Sharp, Debbie Budlender, and Diane Elson. These are three very well-known individuals who have worked on this topic extensively.

The role of parliamentarians in encouraging implementing a gender budget is another aspect to this document that I have included. This also includes studies that this committee has undertaken.

Parliamentarians can encourage a gender-sensitive approach to the budget during the pre-budget consultation process or when reviewing the government's estimates and departmental performance reports. In addition, parliamentarians can request research staff to conduct more in-depth gender-based analysis of budgets, government expenditures, and program spending.

Members of this committee have noted in their report, Gender-Based Analysis: Building Blocks for Success, that Canada needs a more effective process to do a gender analysis of the budget.

So this is just to give you a brief overview. It's all in the document. That's basically it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Any questions?

Ms. Neville, followed by Mr. Stanton.

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

I don't know whether this is a fair question or not: are there countries that do gender-based budgeting successfully?

[Clara Morgan]

From the literature, I see that results have been mixed.

Australia has been at the forefront of gender budgets. I have a really interesting article from The Parliamentarian on gender budgets, which we probably want to circulate, but I'd like it translated first into French. South Africa has also been on the leading edge in what they call gender budgets. But if we were going to look at role models, we probably want to look at the Australian one.

I would recommend that we have information from people who have more expertise, to ask these types of questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Mr. Stanton, and then Ms. Minna.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you.

In order to understand properly how this should work, it appears from the outset that we have to look at the budget cycle and how data is derived. It might be a bit of an exercise to bring this together.

I think we had two meetings on gender-based analysis in the last session. In looking through the gender lens at the budget processes, it would seem that at least some departments are doing that already. I think we even talked about the extent in particular that the Department of Finance is using a gender lens to look at the programs. I'd have to go back to look at the reports, but I recall that the work they're already undertaking has become more and more a part of the culture. It's a foregone conclusion that before anything gets released at the public level, that consideration has been part and parcel of developing a budget.

It's great to understand more about this, to assure ourselves that this is in fact happening. I'm coming back to what specific things we would be hoping to achieve as a committee by investigating gender budgeting. Are we doing it for the purpose of equipping ourselves better--for example, to consider estimates and supplementary estimates when the time comes? Perhaps if we had a set objective there, it might be easier to narrow that focus down.

I give that really more for consideration for our discussions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Okay.

Ms. Minna.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think there could be a number of objectives. Obviously, the first one is to ensure that the gender budgeting that's being done now is done in a meaningful way across the board. My understanding from the last time that we met with the Department of Finance is that they're not using gender-desegregated data as part of the basis, which already gets you down a different kind of road. I remember that was one of the questions asked, I think, by one of the witnesses or by one of us at the time. I do remember that issue coming up.

Listening to experts would allow us to see how it's being done or not done, because if we're not going down the right track, we will find, five years from now, that we actually haven't been doing it—not really in a meaningful way that matters. The other thing is that it hopefully allows us to see which department, if any, is actually trying it, aggressively or not. Because my sense has been, government-wide, that there are some stellar examples, like CIDA, and there are some others that just talk about it but don't really do it. I think we maybe need some pressure on how it should be done, and what the outcomes, when they've done it right, can be. For instance, I think we should look at gender-based budgeting and how it impacts things as part of our study.

We should probably identify three or four areas that we can use as templates to show, when it's used, this is what happens. I thought, as a suggestion, we could use poverty and working women, and how gender-based analysis actually affects the outcomes of policy for eradicating poverty; women in the legal system--it's not that big, but it's an area of critical importance in terms of women being able to access the judicial system and how they are treated when they are in the system; women in the military, including the spouses, but also the soldiers themselves; and racialized women would add the other element. If we could look at those four that I'm suggesting, and break those areas up, then we could say we are doing gender budgeting, but we are applying it as we learn it to these areas with experts. What would the outcome be if it had actually been used right?

I think there are people out there, like the women who were just mentioned recently, who could work with us to actually help us see, so we could focus in on a number of areas and identify the problems in those areas. I think that would allow us to be concrete and at the same time specific.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Mr. Pearson is next, then Madame Boucher and Madame Demers.

[Glen Pearson, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madame Chair.

I've noticed that when you have successful initiatives, you talk about how many of them happen at various levels of government. I know, for instance, in the city of London they are taking some looks at this, but they're trying to target it--much like Madame Minna has just said--at the poorest of the poor, so to speak; that's where they're targeting it.

The Ontario Association of Food Banks had a large meeting last week in which they were trying to challenge civic governments and the provincial governments, in their own gender-based things, to do the same thing. What we're trying to do is set up linkages to aboriginal communities that are in the northern part of Ontario. I toured there this summer, and it wasn't as bad as I've seen in Africa, but it's definitely the worst that I've seen in Canada. It got all of us as a group to sit there and say if we're going to do that but it somehow bypasses these individuals, that's not so good.

I was wondering if you could tell me--when you say let's have other partners take part in this at various levels of government--and maybe through you, Madame Chair, to the rest of the committee, because some of you might know--are there successful models in Canada provincially, civically, or even in communities that work? You say here that the most successful ones start from the ground up.

[Clara Morgan]

Let me look into it and give you.... I have seen, but I can't recall. There have been gender-participative budgets at the Canadian municipal level--not gender specifically, but more participative budgetings. If you'd like me to look into that, I can gather information for the committee on that topic.

[Glen Pearson, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

That would be helpful. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Madame Boucher.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

I know that my team also did research on the budget. We found that around 60 countries, such as Norway, Sweden, etc., are carrying out projects like the ones we want to carry out.

Those countries studied three main categories of issues. The first is called “Gender-responsive allocations”. Resources are specifically targeted either to men or to women. When the target group consists entirely of women, they call it a budget responsive to women's needs.

The second category is called “General allocations”. It includes most of the expenditures. The challenge consists in determining whether the allocations are responsive to the needs of women and men in various parts of the population, as we said, in different groups and different governments.

The third category is very interesting, given that there is a difference between women and men. It is called “Allocations for equal employment opportunities”. It seeks to promote gender equality in the public service. The targeting takes into account the differences between women and men, because they do not have the same needs in the working environment.

Clearly, women and men do not have the same sensitivities. There are differences, our needs are different from the needs of men. Our research showed this, and I wanted to share it with you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you. I am sorry, have you finished?

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

This could help the committee to set specific targets, because otherwise, it will be “at large”, as they say in English. We could go all over the place without finding a long-term solution.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Madame Demers.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This is really a broad field of study, and it is not easy. I listened to what Ms. Minna said, what you said and what Mr. Stanton said. I was very much moved by Mr. Pearson's words, because I am very concerned with the condition of first nations and Inuit women.

I read a report that said that a woman had to call a shelter for battered women because she had no place to stay. It was easier for her to call a shelter for battered women to find a warm place to stay for one, two or three nights, because she was unable to get housing at a reasonable price. Therefore, I must say that we should really focus on those parts of society that are obviously experiencing hardship that is getting worse all the time.

I think that things are constantly getting more and more difficult for first nations and Inuit women. The same applies to the entire population of these communities, as the men are also having a hard time. However, I think that if we adopt gender-based budget analysis, we could probably find some ways of really making a difference in terms of health, housing, education and food. We can probably find ways to intervene and to improve things. I would be very glad, because this is under federal jurisdiction. I am even more glad because I do not think that this is under provincial jurisdiction; they leave us alone. You will have my full support.

I think that, as Ms. Minna said, we must study certain aspects more specifically, such as the legal aspect. However, we cannot cover all the issues. We could wander around for a long time if we tried to do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you, Madam.

Ms. Neville and then Ms. Mathyssen.

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

Just a very quick comment.

I think in Manitoba you'll find some gender-based budgeting going on, and certainly a community group is actively working with the government on gender-based budgeting. It may be under the Provincial Council of Women, I'm not positive, but I can give you some names to contact.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Ms. Mathyssen.

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

Ms. Neville made the remarks I was going to make. We have, close to home, an example we could get some information from. I would concur that we take a look in Manitoba.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Okay.

Ms. Davidson.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just want to say it seems as though we're starting to get a little bit focused on this huge issue, and that's great. I think we definitely need to focus on it.

I think some studies have been done, or some work done anyway, by some other non-governmental groups that perhaps we can take a look at as far as gender budgeting in budgets and so on and the reaction and what has happened. Maybe we can find some of those past works and make use of those as a basis as well.