Thank you.
I will be giving my presentation in English but would be happy to answer any questions in French.
As some of you may know, Oxfam is an international confederation working in 90 countries to support long-term development and to provide humanitarian assistance in times of crisis. We also do advocacy and campaigns to address the root causes of poverty. We put women's rights and gender justice at the heart of everything we do, both here in Canada and in some of the poorest communities around the planet.
Many of these communities have made great progress in the struggle against poverty, but this progress is being threatened by rising inequality. Money, power, and opportunities are concentrated in the hands of the few at the expense of the majority. Rising economic inequality has the most negative consequences for women, who continue to make up the majority of the world's poor.
On Monday, Oxfam launched a new campaign called Shortchanged. The campaign is focused on finding solutions to growing economic inequality by looking in particular at how to make work paid, equal, and valued for women.
With a feminist Prime Minister and a government committed to inclusive growth, Canada is well placed to become a global leader in tackling the twin struggles of gender and economic inequality.
Today, I'll present three sets of recommendations, all of which have implications for Canadian domestic and foreign policy.
First, the government should prioritize progressive taxation to ensure that tax policies do not entrench inequality. The tax system is one of the most important tools the government has at its disposal to address inequality. Badly designed tax systems, on the other hand, exacerbate inequality. When the richest in our society enjoy low rates and can hide their money in overseas tax havens, the rest of society has to make up the difference.
Oxfam has seen examples of governments taking the high road. A few years ago, Senegal adopted a new tax code to raise revenue to pay for public services. This reform increased the corporate tax rate, reduced personal income tax for the poorest, and raised it by 15% for the richest. Uruguay has also reformed its regressive tax system over the past decade by lowering the tax rate on the poorest and the middle class. Today, after-tax income inequality is starkly lower than it once was. These reforms show that where there's political will, governments can ensure that those who have more can contribute more.
For budget 2017, we recommend that Canada continue investing in CRA's capacity to tackle tax evasion. We also recommend that the government gradually increase the corporate tax rate from 15% to 21%. Providing tax breaks to Canada's largest companies has not materialized into more jobs and prosperity, but rather an increase in corporate profit and government deficits.
Canada should also play a positive role in global tax reforms by specifically looking at tackling tax havens and ending harmful global tax competition. Canada also has a role to play in helping developing countries participate in these global reforms on an equal footing.
The government also should make gender-based analysis mandatory for all proposals that go to cabinet, the Privy Council, Treasury Board, and the Department of Finance. It should invest in research to make sure this gets done and gets done well. The next budget should include increased funding for Status of Women Canada to lead these efforts.
Second, Canada should increase the proportion of total government spending on public services and social protection to lift people out of poverty. Public services can be great equalizers, and they can mitigate the worst impact of today's skewed income and wealth distribution.
Public services are particularly important for women. For example, when parents have to pay to send their kids to school in developing countries, girls are more likely to be kept home, which affects their life chances and their future income earnings.
Public services such as health care, child care, and elder care also help redistribute the unpaid work that women have traditionally performed for free, and which limits their time to engage in paid work in rich and poor countries alike.
Oxfam has seen examples of governments taking the high road. In 2005, the Government of Nepal dramatically improved access to health care by removing fees for primary health care services and providing cash incentives to women to give birth in health facilities. This has a dramatic impact on women's health. Here in Quebec, the subsidized child care program has prompted an upsurge in employment among women, especially single mothers, whose poverty rate has fallen and whose after-tax income has shot up.
Oxfam welcomes the federal government's commitment to building a national framework on early learning and child care. To ensure this delivers on its promise, we recommend an increase in child care funding by $600 million in 2017, as well as steady increases in the years to come.
The government should also address the discriminatory and chronic underfunding of essential services for first nations.
The government, on the international front, could reinvest significantly in Canada's international aid budget to the tune of $862 million in 2017. We can afford to do our part in tackling global poverty. An increase in the aid budget would also strengthen Canada's renewed leadership on the global stage.
As we've discussed with Minister Bibeau and her team, 20% of all new aid investment should be specifically allocated to programs that advance women's rights and gender equality.
Finally, our next budget should address the unequal economics of women's work. Women around the world, including here in Canada, have been told that accessing the workforce will provide them with independence and empowerment, but the reality is that many women are often rewarded with poverty wages, insecure jobs, and unequal pay. Women also shoulder the majority of unpaid care work, washing their children's clothes, caring for aging parents, or collecting water and firewood in some of the poorest communities in this world.
In Canada, women represent 60% of minimum wage earners and they make, on average, in their earnings 28% less than men. Yes, women still earn 72¢ on the dollar. In some countries the gap is even starker. For example, women in Pakistan make, on average, 37% less than men. Around the world, 75% of the people who work in the informal sector are women. You can think of women selling snacks at bus stops in Mexico, or women sewing together our jeans in their homes in Bangladesh, working for multinational corporations.
Some governments are taking positive steps to address the unequal economics of women's work. For example, after loss of advocacy by Oxfam International and their local partners, the Government of Malawi has raised the minimum wage, which has made a real difference in the lives of women. In Sweden, the equal opportunity act is a great example of how to address pay disparities between men and women.
