Thank you for the invitation to offer my observations on the important priorities that should be addressed in this round of budget policy-making.
I'm here to speak in specific reference to what has happened to women both during the recession and during the period subsequent to that. I have provided a one-page handout which has a couple of exhibits on it that give a bit of content to what I am saying.
My main point here is that if you look at the one-page graph that is with the materials that have been handed out, you will see there have been significant gender differences in the losses and gains experienced both by women and by men during the recession. Basically, since January 2010, as men have managed to regain shares of standard employment—full-time permanent employment—women in the shadows of that have been gradually losing full-time employment. More recently, they have been losing shares of their temporary employment, which they turned to as they were looking for ways to make ends meet during the actual recession.
This is bringing Canada not closer to jobs, growth and prosperity, but to a point of crisis in relation to the overall structure of the labour market.
The core thing that I think the budget should address is how to eliminate the discrimination that has produced this situation, driven mainly by the rapid removal of huge numbers of married women from full-time employment the minute the recession began and continuing with their exclusion. This has been exacerbated by the lack of equality in access to employment insurance resources, because the lion's share of employment insurance benefits during the recession and subsequently have gone to men. Women, because women have lower incomes overall and have less eligibility for employment insurance, do not have access to a survivable employment insurance benefit.
There needs to be greater enforcement of equal employment rights and equal employment insurance rights.
Second, as a budget priority—and this is on the back of the one-page handout—it is time to face the fact that Canada has to stop paying women to not work. Women's employment is a crucial component of labour market stability in Canada and has been the mainstay of labour income employment growth over the last 15 years. With the upcoming introduction of parental income splitting, Canada will soon be spending close to $9 billion per year to pay women to not work, at a time when their labour is needed not only by the national economy but also by their families.
My final point is that if this money were not spent to pay women to not work, it would be available to support dual-income families, who really cannot reach their full potential on behalf of their children or themselves unless they have access to affordable care resources.
I draw to your particular attention the severe upside-down effects of parental income splitting which, if it is implemented, would give the families with the greatest need $39 per year as their benefit from parental income splitting, whereas people with the highest incomes in the top 1% of the population stand to receive $4,780 per year. This is money that will not help women with already low levels of employment gain access to jobs, growth, or prosperity.
Thank you.