Good evening. My name is Kate McInturff, and I am a senior researcher at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. I would like to thank the committee for inviting me to speak today.
The government's decision to include gender-based analysis in the federal budget is an important step forward for gender equality and, as I argued in my pre-budget submission, for our economy. Budget implementation bills are an important moment for the government to act on that analysis.
To date, the analysis presented in both budget 2017 and the fall economic update identifies how men and women are affected differently by, for example, tax policy. I was very pleased to see the fall update take note of the negative impact on women of income splitting and income sprinkling. It is important, however, to ensure that the analysis actually forms the basis for action and better policy. That is to say, our government policies need to be designed with the analysis in mind.
The scope of Bill C-63 is understandably narrow. However, I would like to take this opportunity to demonstrate how gender-based analysis can make the government's policies more effective and go further in setting us down the path to gender equality. I am going to speak specifically to the issue of leave for victims of domestic violence.
In the 2017 budget's gender statement, the government recognized that “[w]omen and girls are more likely than men to experience poverty, violence and harassment”, noting that “[w]omen are more likely than men to experience the most severe forms of self-reported spousal victimization”.
The government's decision to implement leave for victims of domestic violence is a very welcome step in addressing the relationship between economic insecurity and susceptibility to domestic violence. However, a deeper analysis suggests that there are two further steps that need to be taken to ensure that this policy achieves its goal. Bill C-63 provides an excellent opportunity to take those steps.
First, leave for victims of domestic violence needs to be paid. The evidence is clear that when women remain in violent settings and return to those settings, it is because they cannot afford to leave. A study from the University of British Columbia found that survivors of intimate partner violence experienced financial hardship as a result of that violence, regardless of their income status prior to leaving their abusive partner. That is to say, this has an impact on women from all economic groups. That financial hardship continued for years after they had left the violent setting.
In the short term, when a woman leaves a violent setting, she faces immediate financial challenges. One of the primary reasons given by women in shelters for returning to a violent household is that they cannot afford housing. Additionally, women with young children fear that if they are unable to financially support themselves and their children, those children may be apprehended by child and family services. This not only means the tragedy of a victim of violence being separated from her children, but in small communities this can also result in the children being placed with, for example, a relative of the violent partner, potentially putting them at further risk.
The costs of lost work, lost wages, and lost productivity are significant. Justice Canada estimates the cost of lost wages due to domestic violence at $33.7 million annually. The cost of lost productivity to employers is an estimated $68.5 million annually.
What does this look like in the life of a survivor of domestic violence? When you leave an abusive spouse, you leave with almost nothing—your children and a few suitcases at most, not a fork, not a pot, not a chair, not a bed. When it's time to find housing, a survivor of domestic violence is starting from scratch. If she has children, she has the additional pressure of having to demonstrate to child and family services that she can provide the basic necessities of life for her children.
Three days of wages, three days of paid leave, for a woman making $25 an hour amounts to $600. That is enough to buy a mattress, a few plates, and a fork. That can make a world of difference in the life of a woman trying to build a new, safer life for herself and her family.
The second recommendation I would make to ensure that domestic violence leave is effective is to eliminate the exclusion of those facing police charges. While I understand the desire not to extend this leave to someone who is charged with a violent crime, the exclusion of those who have been charged with domestic violence has the potential to exclude victims of abuse as well. This is because in some jurisdictions in Canada the police practise the policy of automatic or dual charging. Automatic charging means that when police respond to a domestic violence call, they are required to charge those involved. This may result—and does in fact result on occasion—in both the abuser and the victim of the abuse being charged.
Automatic charging is intended to ensure that charging occurs and that the police response to domestic violence is robust. However, the result is that in some cases victims are charged. Under the current proposal, under the legislation proposed here, those victims would be excluded from eligibility.
The government is leading the way by recognizing the role of financial hardship and lost work in the lives of those who experience domestic violence. With these additional changes, the policy will set a new standard in supporting survivors of that violence. Further, it is precisely in implementing its policies that the government has the opportunity to put gender-based analysis to work and to ensure that this analysis leads to action.
Thank you.