Status of Women Committee on March 28th, 2012

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Exactly.

[Jane Stinson]

—and what can work better, and to be able to advocate alternatives, things that will make improvements, which this committee is seeking to do around looking at young women.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Right, and obviously all the research we need to do on women's equality isn't done. Otherwise, we'd be equal, right? I feel there's still a lot to do.

Do you consider research important in us being able to provide economic prospects for women specifically? There's the fact that Status of Women Canada doesn't fund research and advocacy--is that going to have an effect? Could you could speak a bit about that?

[Jane Stinson]

I think it does have an effect. It certainly had an effect on CRIAW. We went through and are still sort of going through some very difficult years as a result of the change in the funding criteria for Status of Women Canada. We were lucky in getting funding from SSHRC to be able to carry on some of our work in this area. But in our view, there's a need for Status of Women Canada to go back to funding research and advocacy. It should be, in our view, part of the mandate of that organization.

But there are a lot of organizations, women's organizations, that don't have the advantages of CRIAW in terms of a network of researchers who could still do useful research, and certainly useful advocacy, and who need that funding from Status of Women Canada.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Did you receive funding in the past from the independent research fund that Status of Women Canada had?

[Jane Stinson]

I'm not sure about the early days, but I do know that CRIAW's whole creation and early strength relied very much on funding from Status of Women Canada. It, like many other national bilingual women's feminist organizations, really got started through Status of Women Canada. We've also received funding from other sources over the years, including individual and institutional donors.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Of course. It's important that the government participate, but of course we all understand that other partners become involved.

Could you talk a little bit about what happened to CRIAW after the Status of Women funding started being cut in 2006?

[Jane Stinson]

We went through a very difficult time. We had to lay off our full-time executive director. We went from a staff of five to a staff of two who were part-time. So we really struggled. The board had to step up to the plate, and volunteers really had to take on trying to run the organization. We focused on finding alternative sources of revenue and, as I said, on having some success with that, and we've started to rebuild.

But we have nowhere near the strength we had when I got involved in the board about ten years ago.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

So that very much influenced your capacity to advance women's equality.

[Jane Stinson]

Totally. Even now, for this project, we're starting to get findings for research on women in the north.

We've been wanting to update fact sheets, like the fact sheet on violence against women and the fact sheet on immigrant and refugee women, for a long time. Just recently we have been able to get resources to do that. But it really set back our research agenda, absolutely.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

What would you recommend that Status of Women Canada do to improve the economic prospects of women? I know that research would probably be one of those elements, as we've been talking about. But what else can we do? What is the number one thing we should be doing so that girls will be able to look forward to equality in the future?

[Jane Stinson]

What's the number one thing? It's always hard to say.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

More than that, what are the first steps we should be taking?

[Jane Stinson]

For Status of Women Canada, I think that continuing to fund research and advocacy is important, as is the funding of national women's organizations or women's organizations.

Part of what Status of Women Canada has done, as well, has been to continue to dispense a lot of money. For a lot of community organizations, they have provided front-line community service, which is different from the original mandate. So we think that returning to funding women's organizations and feminist organizations, as its main focus, would be important.

Brigitte has talked about the importance of that and about how those organizations contribute to women's leadership and growth and development.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Right. So maybe not in words but in actions Status of Women Canada's mandate has changed, essentially in the way it funds now.

[Jane Stinson]

Definitely.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

How were you able to pick yourselves up and look for alternative funding? I know you fund more community-based projects now. Was that an adaptation to the way Status of Women Canada does funding now?

[Jane Stinson]

No. CRIAW has a long history of working with community partners and of bridging that gap between academia and community. We started to look at SSHRC funding and we're having success there.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

And that itself isn't exactly expansive.

[The Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Madam James, for seven minutes, please.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to our panel of guests today.

Ms. Crooks, in your speech you mentioned something about $65 million. Did you say that was funding you had received from individuals and corporations?

[Dr. Claire Crooks]

Yes. In the past year, Status of Women Canada funded a particular piece of work that the Canadian Women's Foundation did, but typically we do not go after government funding, so it's individual donors and corporate sponsors.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

What kinds of organizations or corporate sponsors do you find are interested in the issues that you cover?

[Dr. Claire Crooks]

Who is on our big money list? It's very wide-ranging. We have a tremendous group of volunteers right across the country. One of our biggest partners has been Rogers Media and Chatelaine, and all of their different offshoots. There's a range of banks and of different groups. We have very skilled people in that fundraising area, who work with partners to find some kind of signature event they want to do or some kind of process. Most of our money comes from individual donors.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

So it's individuals.