Good morning. I'm Ann Decter from the Canadian Women's Foundation, and I thank you for the invitation to speak to you today on behalf of the foundation with regard to Bill C-86.
The Canadian Women's Foundation is Canada's only public foundation dedicated to women and girls. We fund grassroots women's organizations and women-serving community programs and invest in building the women's sector through knowledge mobilization, networking, collaboration and advocacy.
We were pleased to see key commitments to women's equality in the 2018 federal budget, and we welcome the next steps on those commitments in Bill C-86. I will be speaking to three of them.
Among its myriad provisions, Bill C-86 will establish the department of women and gender equality, transforming Status of Women Canada into a department. We celebrate the retention of “women” in the name of the department, thus ensuring the link is maintained to historic milestones like the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada, which in the early 1970s made recommendations that are still on our wish list.
When we talk about women's equality, we are talking about equality for the majority of the population. Our recent research on the state of women's equality in Canada indicates that violence against women, economic security and gendered reconciliation and decolonization are key priorities to advance gender equality in this country.
Approaches needed to advance equality for women, who make up slightly over half the population and, notwithstanding the grumblings of premiers, have the overriding protection of charter rights, may differ greatly from approaches that would advance the much smaller population identified in the act as “gender-diverse”, who lack charter protections while often facing social persecution on a daily basis.
We encourage the minister for women and gender equality, as she will soon be, to examine the question of what structures are needed both inside and outside of government to ensure the government remains on a dynamic path towards women and gender equity and equality.
Our submission to the 2018 federal budget consultation called for intersectional gender-based budgeting across all federal departments. We recommended that Status of Women Canada establish a gender-budgeting plus resource centre funded and mandated to embed intersectional gender-based analysis across the federal government.
Our reading of the broad strokes of the Canadian gender budgeting act is consistent with this approach. We welcome it and recommend that the new department for women and gender equality be placed on a growth plan and its budget on a path of significant annual increases to ensure its leadership capacity in this area.
We agree wholeheartedly with the preamble to this act that “Canada's long-term economic success depends on an inclusive society in which all individuals have the ability to contribute to their full potential” and note that women became the majority of university graduates in 1990 and have now surpassed men in education across the population. The Canadian economy needs women, and that means all women.
The Canadian Women's Foundation welcomes the introduction of proactive pay equity legislation. We fully support our colleagues from the pay equity coalition, who are experts on this issue, and you will hear from them today.
I have a few quick points.
For unionized women, it's good. The legislation supports them to advocate for their pay equity rights and for their unions to negotiate pay equity plans. The non-union worker, however, is on her own. She may find it difficult to comprehend, and the act lacks any provision for a legal support centre to assist her.
The opening clause includes “the diverse needs of employers” in the purpose language. This could give employers' needs precedence instead of centring on the needs of women in federally regulated workplaces.
This act is silent on pay transparency. Disclosure of pay practices goes to the heart of compliance and needs to be added here or in accompanying legislation.
We look forward to corrections to these issues in the pay equity act and to implementation of this important legislation.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.