Good afternoon. I would first like to thank the committee for inviting us.
I would quickly like to emphasize that the issues of women and health are really related. Across Canada and around the world, women take care of health issues, providing it both in the public sector and in the family as caregivers. Any steps taken in this area, therefore, target not only the women they seek to help, but also the whole family and society as a whole.
I would also like to say that we are aware of the difficult economic times the world is going through—I am thinking of Europe in particular—of the constraints required in austerity budgeting and of the cuts imposed in order to achieve a balanced budget. But they have a social impact that costs much more later. We have three recommendations for you, all principally based on prevention.
The first deals with demographic change. As you know, we live in an aging society and women live longer. That is to say that they die later than men and, more specifically, in worse health. They have more chronic diseases and, in the final years of their lives, they consume more medications and use more services. They are not in good health.
Given that situation, we feel that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We must therefore invest in prevention to provide those women with information and to improve their living conditions before they get into situations of vulnerability. The result will automatically be the same for men. As we mention in our brief, this is a position that the Public Health Agency of Canada has taken on a number of occasions. In economic terms, we know that $1 in prevention represents $10 in savings in social and health costs and in absenteeism. I can provide examples later if there are any questions.
How do we move forward on prevention? We have been in existence for 15 years and we have a good deal of experience in the area. We do research, we produce information, brochures, conferences and videos in order to provide women with information on their health and the health of their loved ones. For example, we deal with cancer prevention and menopause, among other subjects. That allows them to make decisions and to practise prevention.
Our first recommendation is that a permanent funding mechanism is necessary. The women’s health contribution program, now abolished and whose activities will come to an end on March 31 next year, provided $2.8 million in funding annually to centres of excellence in women’s health. We are part of that program and we want a permanent mechanism to provide $4 million for research. That is the amount needed currently. Why? Because research provides information focused on women that they can use in order to practise prevention, thereby reducing costs.
Our second recommendation asks for $100 million to be invested into improved living conditions. While we have to provide people with information, we also have to improve their living conditions. Food Secure Canada has talked to you about nutrition. That is a living condition. Others have talked to you about old age pensions and affordable social housing. Those are living conditions too.
That brings me to our third recommendation. In order to achieve sound international governance, the optimal use of resources and the modernization of public services, budget analysis must be based on the equality of men and women. The tools used to manage budgets must be tailored to the needs of the target population. The impacts on men and on women are not the same. There is a lot of research on this.
As economic inequality between men and women persists and is manifested in health problems and a loss of social and economic productivity, it is important, when drawing up budgets, to use tools that recognize these differences. This allows us to assess the impact of the measures being taken. We therefore recommend that Budget 2013 use gender budgeting as is done in other countries such as Morocco and some countries in Europe and Latin America.
We also recommend that the budget respond to differences. For example, a person living in a remote region does not have the same impact and does not need the same measures. The budget analysis must therefore also be intersectional and take into account factors like age, place of residence, family situation, life path and disabilities.
So, to optimize the budgetary impact, the tools must be refined so that they can truly be tailored to all Canadians.