Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to speak on the subject matter of Bill C-86 on behalf of the National Association of Women and the Law.
I think most of the members of this committee are familiar with NAWL, which is an incorporated, not-for-profit feminist organization that promotes the equality rights of women in Canada through legal education, research and law reform advocacy. We work on our own and in collaboration with other women's and equality-seeking organizations to impact public policy on a wide range of issues.
I'd like to begin my comments today by congratulating the government for prioritizing action to advance women's rights and gender equality in Bill C-86, particularly in relation to division 18, which establishes the department for women and gender equality; the pay equity act, included in division 14; and the Canadian gender budgeting act, included as division 9.
I'll just say a few words very briefly on the pay equity measures that are included in Bill C-86. We've been calling for pay equity legislation for decades and simply want to reiterate that pay equity is a human right and the government has international and domestic obligations to eliminate the pay equity gap. However, as NAWL is a member of the Equal Pay Coalition that you heard from earlier this morning and we support all the positions taken by that coalition, I'm going to focus my comments today on the establishment of the department for women and gender equality.
We welcome the creation of a full department. Feminist groups have been calling for the elevation of Status of Women to a full department for decades now. We applaud the decision to include a strong preamble in this act that highlights Canada's international and domestic obligations to respect, protect and fulfill the rights of all women in Canada. The retention of women as a primary focus of this elevated department is an important recognition of the ongoing impacts of the historical and systemic sex-based discrimination that women in Canada continue to experience in all aspects of our lives. We applaud the explicit adoption in this bill of an intersectional feminist analysis and approach to advancing substantive gender equality for women in all of our diversity.
I want to turn now, though, to our two key points, which are about the importance of ensuring there will be an adequate and appropriate funding guaranteed to ensure the full implementation of the gender equality components included in Bill C-86, which includes funding for the independent women's movement and the need to ensure more meaningful consultation in the law-making process with independent women's groups.
As members of this committee will no doubt be aware, after the change in the mandate of Status of Women, which was introduced by the previous federal government, NAWL and many other feminist and equality-seeking groups were defunded. Many, including NAWL, were forced to close their operations. These were very challenging times for feminist and equality-seeking groups. We faced not only defunding, but prohibitions on advocacy and challenges to our charitable status. Many feminists and equality-seeking organizations faced similar fiscal and organizational challenges and the landscape of feminist and social justice work was eroded significantly, with severe consequences for women and equality, including the dismantling of significant achievements and knowledge.
I reiterate this because it is not just history. The impacts of those cuts remain significant today. However, the good news is that we are beginning to recover and rebuild our capacities and our feminist networks, but this will take time and investment—and I focus on investment. Many organizations, including NAWL, remain underfunded. We cannot yet meet the demands for our feminist legal expertise, or that are required to rebuild feminist legal capacities and advocacy in other feminist organizations, and rebuild our coalitions.
We're very appreciative of the project funding that Status of Women Canada is now providing and the new capacity-building grants that have just opened up for women's groups; however, these do not and cannot replace the need for a restoration of core funding to independent women's groups. We urge the new department for women and gender equality to include core funding in its fund modalities, as was recommended in the 2005 report of the FEWO committee, “Funding through the women's program: Women's groups speak out”.
On the topic of funding, there is no question that this new department must receive additional funding to implement what is clearly an expanded mandate. This is not a change in name only. This is a new mandate.
The gaps in funding and capacity of women's groups, when coupled with the incredibly short timelines for engagement, make it nearly impossible for meaningful engagement in law-making, including in relation to this bill. For example, as you all know, Bill C-86 was tabled on October 29. We received an invitation to appear before this committee on Friday afternoon, and here we are this morning, on Tuesday. This is clearly an insufficient period of time to analyze such a complex bill. Even if the legislation to establish the new department had been tabled on its own, rather than as part of this really complex omnibus bill, this would have been insufficient time.
On the issue of meaningful consultation, we are also advocating for the establishment of an independent advisory body comprising groups that lead on critical women's rights issues and gender equality issues to provide advice and feedback to the department of women and gender equality.
I'd like to finish by saying that it's been a pleasure to appear before the FINA committee again, after more than a decade. We look forward to this committee's facilitating of the reinstitution of core funding for feminist and equality-seeking groups and to an expansion of the time frames and the mechanisms provided for engagement in law-making processes. Both are required for meaningful engagement by feminist and equality-seeking groups in law-making processes such as this one, which are critical for the future of our country.
Thank you.