Status of Women Committee on Dec. 13th, 2006

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I have to say, being biased and all, that I want to give a nice round of applause for Madam Pitre's last comments and for Ms. Byers'. So I have to admit that at the outset.

I do want to ask some questions, though, of Ms. Williams and also of Ms. Wachniak.

One of you mentioned helping individual women with respect to domestic violence locally. Then you talked about girls and sexual education and so on in the schools, which is all within provincial jurisdiction, which has nothing whatever to do, in any case, with this particular program.

I don't quite understand why or how the moneys that would be used to address specific issues, specific problems like domestic violence--and I've worked in this field myself with immigrant women before I ran--for a specific woman who is having specific problems, and trying to help her with housing, shelter, education for herself and possibly the husband and so on, in any way assists the issue when we cannot address the systemic problem. What the change of criteria does is it takes away the ability of women to do research and to address the systemic problem. All we're doing is fixing that one woman's issue, but we're not addressing the problem of all the women who are facing domestic violence.

I don't understand what your problem is with Status of Women Canada's mandate as it was.

[Doraine Wachniak]

I found it exclusive.

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

But the mandate was for equality, to fight for women's equality, and unless you're fighting for women's equality.... I guess my question is why you feel excluded from a mandate that says this is about assisting all women in Canada to reach equality.

[Doraine Wachniak]

Because under the mandate it says you have to be advancing equality for women.

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

Why would you not want to advance equality for women?

[Doraine Wachniak]

Why would we not want to advance equality?

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

Yes, because if you had a program that was advancing equality for women, then you would have no problem.

[Doraine Wachniak]

It appears that the terminology is exclusive, because if we, within our mandate as an organization, were not identifying that as our specific goal, then in fact we would not qualify for the funding.

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

Go ahead, Ms. Williams.

[Gladys Hayward Williams]

I understand your question is about why we want the money to go to general research instead of to helping individual women.

I guess my answer to that would be that it just reminds me of a story I heard of two people walking down the beach. There were all these starfish on the beach and they were stranded. One of them kept picking them up and throwing them back in, and the other asked why he was doing that because there were just so many on the beach. How could he possibly make a difference? He picked another one up and threw it in and said, “Well, it mattered to that one.”

I think where we need to get the money is directly to the people who are in need.

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

But with all due respect, Ms. Williams, your story doesn't hold water because—

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible--Editor]

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

I'm sorry, can I say...? I said it didn't hold water, I didn't say—

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Smith has a point of order.

Ms. Minna, wait.

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

We have guests in this building who are presenting to us. They deserve respect, even if they don't agree with the member opposite's point of view. I would like the member to treat all people with respect at committee.

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

I am doing that. All I'm saying is that I disagree with the premise. All I'm saying is that the terminology means the same thing. I'm saying I disagree with the premise, because I would hope that in this country we're not just going to be dealing with one issue but with the problem that affects all women. So we should be dealing with both.

There are programs provincially--some of them are federal--to address the specific issues of the specific women who are facing domestic violence, but we also have to address the systemic problem in the broader sense in terms of research and changing the conditions that affect their lives. We can't just deal with the individuals; we also have to deal with the situation, with the condition they live in.

Are you saying we should not be dealing with the condition that affects those women?

[Gladys Hayward Williams]

I'm sure that if we're dealing with a woman who comes to your door and says to you she is in crisis, there is a problem with violence, and she needs help—

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

We don't disagree with that.

[Gladys Hayward Williams]

If you were to say to her, I'm going to take that to the Status of Women and we are going to research that quite thoroughly, I'm sure that would make her feel good on some level, but it's not really what she needs right now.

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

I'd like to move on, if I could, to Madame Pitre and to Ms. Byers.

I'll ask you the same question I asked the previous group. The minister said that the advocacy and research stuff is fine to do but asked why she should pay for it.

Can you tell us why the government should pay for that kind of research?

[Louise Pitre]

Sure.

I think if we look at it in terms of a river, the mandate of the women's program, when you focus on the research piece--and maybe we will need to talk a little bit later about what participatory action research is, because it's action research--is about doing something upstream rather than doing something downstream.

When you're dealing with those systemic issues, you're dealing with them upstream. Therefore, you're going to make an impact downstream, and there will be less need for direct service because we will begin to address the issues at a systemic level.

[Barbara Byers]

My response would be very similar.

We need to change the systemic discrimination that women face. There is no one from the women's equality movement who would oppose more money, and in fact we've been calling for more money to go to women's programming to help individual women as those problems occur.

I'll just refer back to my past life as a social worker, in which oftentimes I worked with women in crisis. One of the things I was taught early on by a very sage woman social worker, who had dedicated her whole life to women and children and changing conditions, was that if you're not a social advocate as a social worker, then all you're going to do is deal with one problem after the next, one file and then another file, and you won't change the lives of those women. That's why the advocacy work is important.

Think of where we wouldn't be if we hadn't the advocacy work and the research work that was done by women's organizations till now. Start to pull out all that wonderful work that's been done, by the court challenges program, by NAWL, by FAFIA, by CRIAW. The list goes on and on. Think of where all of the women--all of us, in this room, and all the men who have women in their lives--would be if we hadn't had that advocacy work. That's what's critical. Yes, we have to do the work.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you.

Ms. Mourani.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ladies, I want to begin by thanking you for being here and providing your testimony.

A report recommending that proactive legislation be passed on pay equity was released at one point, but we still have no legislation, and the current government has told us that it isn't necessary. At the same time, it's important to point out that previous governments did no better.

Ms. Byers, you represent the Canadian Labour Congress, and I would like to know what you think of that?

[Barbara Byers]

Pay equity is about women's economic equality, and that's for all women. We think it's absolutely shameful that we don't have national pay equity legislation in this country. In fact, it should exist in every province.

We had a very well-researched, well-consulted report that came out in May of 2004, in response to which there was no action--you're quite right--from the previous government, and it should have been acted on. We should all be enjoying the benefits of pay equity legislation at the federal level by now.

When the current government says we're going to go back to 1978, when women were told exactly the same things--let's research it, let's talk about, let's educate people more--I say again that we don't need to educate more. Women understand very clearly about wage discrimination. They face it every time they take a paycheque home and every time they try to create some economic equality for their family.

It's shameful that we don't have it, but it's also part of the work that we've all been doing, trying to push to make sure that we get pay equity for women.