Status of Women Committee on Nov. 26th, 2007

[Clare Beckton]

Sixty projects, yes.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

How many projects have been rejected?

[Clare Beckton]

We had 252 applications and we accepted 60. There were approximately 60 more that had real potential, but given the time limits and our resources we simply could not give them professional assistance at the time. We think the majority of them will be applying in the second call, because we had a number of information and training sessions that helped many of these groups understand how to better prepare their applications. We have put a successful application online to serve as an example.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

You said that you are going to be creating training courses. How will those courses be accessible in rural communities or in the regions? It is not really an easy matter for these women to have access to the offices, particularly when they have been cut from four to 16. How are you going to make these training sessions as accessible as possible?

[Clare Beckton]

Our regional employees have been going out to various areas of their regions to provide these seminars. In Ontario we've had them in Toronto, but we've also had them in other cities. In Newfoundland, our Atlantic regional office went out to not only St. John's but to Stephenville and Gander to take these sessions to groups likely to be applying for funds.

In Quebec, our Montreal regional office has given sessions in Quebec City and in other regions of the province.

So we're trying our very best to take them out to where many of the groups are so that they will benefit from that.

We also bring a number of groups together on a conference call and do the session. It has been very beneficial to have the groups come together to do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Ms. Davidson, the round is yours for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Beckton, for presenting to us today. It has been very interesting to hear your presentation. I'd like to congratulate you on your professional accomplishments. There are many, and you are certainly well qualified to assume the role you are playing now. So again, welcome and congratulations for everything thus far.

I was interested in Ms. Minna's question on the lobbyists and so on. If I understood you correctly—and I hope I did—a group that does lobbying can get funding, but it has to be for a program that's going to have a direct impact on women. Is that correct? Did I understand you correctly?

[Clare Beckton]

Yes, you're absolutely correct.

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

Okay, thank you.

In the address you gave us today, you indicated that we had gone through significant change and so on, and you were going to outline the future direction of the Status of Women. The legal mandate, you have pointed out, has remained the same since 1976, but there certainly still are systemic barriers we need to overcome.

Could you tell me what your priorities might be for the upcoming operation of Status of Women?

[Clare Beckton]

One of my first priorities is to rebuild the organization. As you know, when we went through the efficiency review, a number of people left the organization, and some left even though they weren't affected. So we've been building a new and very strong team, including the members of my management team, whom you see here today, who are new to the organization.

We're also working to change the way we deliver the women's program to make it as effective and efficient as we can, adding new tools, working with the website to update our website to make it more accessible to women across this country.

Also, on the systemic barrier side, we're focusing on making sure that we're influencing the policy agendas both nationally and internationally. In addition to being able to do that, we do that in partnership with not only the federal government departments but also our federal-provincial-territorial partners as well as international partners.

We're also looking at taking gender-based analysis to the next level, focusing on the accountability element of gender-based analysis, to ensure that departments are indeed reflecting gender-based analysis in their work. That is through our work with central agencies.

Where I think we've made considerable progress...we now know that the Treasury Board requires, for example, that every Treasury Board submission have a gender-based analysis, that they have done the gender-based analysis.

So we are making very good progress with central agencies, and we're also still working to coordinate in areas where no one department has responsibility. And we are looking at issues such as women and long-term economic prosperity, for example.

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

Thank you very much. That certainly sounds like an ambitious program but an extremely worthwhile one. I think that will get things back on track. Hopefully we'll spend the dollars delivering programs that will directly benefit women. I look forward to seeing how that unfolds.

Do I still have some time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Yes, you have three minutes.

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

There's another thing I wanted to ask you about. We were talking about the motion we just passed before you began your presentation, and I made the comment that I felt Status of Women was actively participating with some of the other groups when it comes to the 2010 Olympics.

I wonder if you could elaborate a little bit more about what Status of Women might be contributing, whom they may be working with, and what we're hoping the outcome will be.

[Clare Beckton]

Status of Women is part of an interdepartmental committee that is working on the issues around trafficking. We have been working very closely, for example, with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to assist them and encourage them in the training they're doing for other police forces on how to identify victims of trafficking.

We have been working with the Department of Justice, and all of the other departments, to ensure that the work they're doing has a gender lens and that the policy they're working on reflects the needs of the women who may be trafficked.

It was very interesting to note as well that as a result of gender-based analysis, they now have the temporary work permits for women found to have been trafficked into Canada. That was the result of a gender-based analysis.

All of that is to say that we are working very closely with all the other departments as part of this committee.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

You have one minute left.

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

I have one minute left? Okay.

You talked about the projects that you had approved already. I think you said that 60 were approved and that 60 more were hopefully going to be able to be worked on with the presenters and then approved.

Are there any areas in particular that you can see the focus going toward? Is it general or is it a huge variety of issues?

[Clare Beckton]

The issues on the last round were focused around economic security and prevention of violence against women, but within that was a whole spectrum of projects, ranging from helping immigrant women integrate to helping women become empowered to step into positions of decision-making, one of the areas that I personally am very interested in. There is a project involving aboriginal women, helping them to take their culturally gender-based analysis into their communities to help them with their work.

So there is a whole spectrum of projects, ranging from young women to seniors to immigrant women to visible minority women. Many cross over. For example, we have three projects in lower east side Vancouver dealing with various aspects of the sex trade workers and helping to assist them.

We are very positive about the outcomes of the initiatives we've funded in this round.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you, Ms. Davidson.

We now go to Ms. Mathyssen for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for coming.

I have a series of questions, starting with the supplementary estimates. If you look at page 137 under vote 101, the line indicates that:

Funding to forgive a debt due by the Native Women’s Association of Canada that resulted from an administrative error.

That funding was to the tune of $708,000.

Can you explain why the $708,000 was necessary? What went on in that situation?

[Clare Beckton]

I'll do the best I can, because I wasn't here when it happened.

As you know, there is $5 million for Sisters in Spirit, and this was the first year's payment. It turned out that Status of Women only had authority for grants, and this was a contribution agreement. So it was a technical error that required us to change our terms and conditions to have authority to pay under both grants and contributions. That change was unable to be made that year because they had to go to warrants, and Status of Women was not able to do it under a warrant.

As a consequence, we had to go in early this year and seek debt forgiveness, because that resulted in a debt to Status of Women of $708,000. But it was simply a technical error and no fault of the Native Women’s Association.

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

No, I'm sure it wasn't.

I have a letter here, and I'm going to hand you a couple of copies of it so that you can see what I have. I'll hand one to the chair, and hopefully we can have it duplicated and translated, if need be.

You'll see that it's a request from my office for ATI searches. The letter from the department indicates that due to the $5 million in administrative savings, the ATI office—

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Madam Chair, a point of order. We do not have copies of the documents. We do not know what she is talking about.

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

I'm just explaining it. This is a letter that was sent to me, and I just need to ask a question about it.