Status of Women Committee on May 11th, 2006

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Yes, it's really good to hear the synergy around the table in terms of all the issues we're talking about. It truly is a full plate. The business of aboriginal women is something that all of us hold near and dear to our hearts. It's something that a lot of us have been very concerned about. There's also the poverty among senior women. I know in my riding there are a lot of women who can't make ends meet at the end of the month.

These are useful things, and to have a knowledge of what went on before is very important as well. So I would suggest that we carefully move forward as quickly as we can on these issues.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you all very much. I think we can have a very interesting time as we move forward. These have all emerged, the economic security of women tied in with....

Ms. Bourgeois.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

I has asked to be recognized.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I'm sorry, please go ahead. We hadn't noticed. My apologies.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

As I see it, not only should we review the work done by the previous committee, we should also revisit the recommendations made.

A total of four reports were tabled, two of which dealt with the funding of the Women's Program. Both of these reports called for an increase in funding levels. Status of Women Canada was scheduled to begin consultations on this very subject last fall. It would be good to get an update on the status of these talks.

The second committee report focused on an extremely important subject, namely a comparative analysis of the sexes. In my opinion, we cannot draft or amend legislation without taking this analysis into account. A three-member panel of experts was struck to devise the best possible strategies to promote and report on the advancement of women. It's important that we review the report prepared by this panel.

Moving along, the committee should propose draft pay equity legislation. We need to find out what this government intends to do on this front. I'm delighted with the prospect of having aboriginal women's issues on our agenda, especially the question of matrimonial property and rights. Aboriginal women, least we forget, have been fighting to have their rights recognized since 1974. A Quebec organization has been actively promoting the recognition of aboriginal rights.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Any further discussion?

Ms. Minna.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Madam Chair, this is not so much a discussion as maybe....

There seems to some consensus, if I might suggest, that we could start off with a tabling of reports, including a request to the three-person panel of experts. I understand that a report was given to the government, and I'm not sure this committee ever saw that report. Maybe what we want is to get a copy of that.

I would suggest that, as Madam Mourani and others said earlier, we retable the reports and ask for a copy of the one we've not seen. That puts it in motion, and the government could then take whatever time it needs. If we could do that first, then we could go to the suggestion of items to work on. There seems to be consensus around those as well. All we need to do, really, is discuss how we word each one and the pieces we want to discuss in each of those major areas.

It seems to me that would be the best way to proceed. Then we could just wrap our heads around each one fairly quickly.

Perhaps Madam Mourani could....

Do you need a motion?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Yes, I think Ms. Mourani needs to put it in the form of a motion, that we would readopt and reintroduce to the government the previous reports and the work done by the committee.

It would read as follows: that this committee report to the House that it agrees with the conclusions of all of the committee's reports from the previous Parliament and that it request a government response to these reports.

[A voice]

It needs to retable them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Retable them.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

I do have a motion, first of all, that's on the table about aboriginal marriage rights. Could we deal with that one first and then go to the second motion, since it goes along with what Ms. Minna is suggesting? So could we do that and get a consensus on both of those?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I don't know that it matters which one goes first. It has been moved, and I don't know what difference it makes which one goes first. We have several motions here, as well. Does the committee want to deal with these additional motions at this point?

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I don't think I have a problem dealing with them, Madam Chair. My difficulty is that we went through a discussion and we all put in pieces. Rather than a specific motion, could we not adopt, on a consensus basis, the different pieces of each? The matrimonial one was changed to say “let's have a meeting with”. The other one.... There are different motions on poverty with seniors. I have a similar one, but mine is not a motion, it's a recommendation, and Madam Guergis has one to do with income splitting. If we come to a consensus, we'll pull these pieces together and then we'll just agree--because there doesn't seem to be any disagreement--rather than go through the formalities. There seems to be consensus. If there were no agreement, I wouldn't .... I'm just suggesting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I think there is very consistent agreement with what we have before us and what we've all talked about as far as trying to pull together a meeting with the aboriginal committee on matrimonial property rights. Do you want it with the aboriginal committee as well as with the justice committee, or strictly with the aboriginal committee?

[Helena Guergis, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Separate discussions with them, focusing on Ms. Mourani's idea and talking about when they're in jail, if that's what she wants to talk about, and accountability and cracking down on crime and--

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

So we would put a request in, then, to the aboriginal committee for a joint committee meeting with us and the aboriginal committee and the justice committee. That would take care of a couple of our meetings at that point.

I wonder if I could make a suggestion. Statistics Canada put out a report in March on women in Canada, an update on previous work they had done. Would it be the wish of the committee to have Statistics Canada come in and give us an update so we know what successes we've had and where we are as of today?

One other suggestion, and we only have about three weeks, maybe four....

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

We might be here in July.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

That's good.

We're getting some work done. Maybe we can just hold our meetings outside, though, and we'll leave the clerk's department to figure that one out.

As well, I think it would be very nice to have the minister come and address the committee, if we could fit all of that in, depending on her schedule. It would be nice to hear what her priorities and concerns are.

One other thing was to hear from the department. Ms. Mourani raised it, but for those of us who are new to the committee, I'd like to hear from the department itself--what the priorities are, what the budget lines are, and various things that I think would be helpful to all of us.

I think we have a fair amount of work that we've decided in front of us. Is everybody comfortable...?

Ms. Minna.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I would like to suggest, Madam Chair, that when we meet with the department and officials, they should be instructed that when they come in front of the committee we may ask questions of them on matrimonial rights, but also on income security, seniors, and poverty, as well as on violence against women and other things. While the three major areas we seem to have consensus around will be studied separately as three pieces, the officials should know that we may be asking questions in all three areas while they are here so we don't have to recall them every time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Good point. Thank you.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

It's a way to start us off.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Davidson.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Yes, I just have a couple of questions.

Am I understanding correctly that somebody has made a motion that we are going to accept all of the former reports and forward them to the government? Is that correct? I haven't even seen them. Today I got three. Maybe I'm the only new member here, but....

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

We're trusting our former colleagues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

There was a report--