Evidence of meeting #31 for Status of Women in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was quebec.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
All right. Are you aware of women who may not enjoy that economic autonomy, for example, aboriginal women, visible minority women, disabled women? Do you think they have the same economic advantages as you say you have?
Past member, Manitoba Association for Home Schooling
Do you mean in the same profession as I'm in?
NDP
Past member, Manitoba Association for Home Schooling
Anyone who is employed in the profession that I am in is paid at the same scale rate. If it is--I'm going to guess--a security guard, whether they are male, female, aboriginal, or whatever, they would be paid according to their scale, so would they have pay equity within that? I would think. I'm not sure I understand the question beyond that. It's difficult for me to understand your question.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Who achieved pay equity for you? How did your group achieve pay equity? Have you any idea?
Past member, Manitoba Association for Home Schooling
I think it was just there. If you are a physiotherapist in a certain area, under the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, you are paid according to that pay scale, and it's the same thing with the nurses, and it's right across...within that regional health authority.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Do you have any experiences with marginalized women? Do you have any direct contact? Do you work with marginalized women in any way?
Past member, Manitoba Association for Home Schooling
Those are two different questions. Do I know any? Yes. It's more on a friend type of a basis, a social basis. You hear of these things; you know of these things. Also through the media, yes, you hear of these things and you know of these things. Of course, we are also trained to be watchful in our profession and to be very sensitive to patients, male and female, who may have had various issues of abuse.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Okay, thank you.
Ms. Wachniak, you made reference to having talked to 43 women, and then you made reference to your position in society. Is your position typical of Canadian women? Are you typical?
NDP
Representative, Parents for Healthy Teens
I'm an animal health technologist by trade, and I'm married currently. I have two children. I would say that I've been through poverty and have worked my way up with my husband, and we are now in a very comfortable financial situation, if that's what you're asking.
Representative, Parents for Healthy Teens
I'm not in an elite group at all. I would say we're maybe a little less than middle class.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Okay.
Now, you asked a question about violence against women. You're quite concerned that after all of these years we still have the problem of violence against women. It's very real, and we know from the coroners' reports; we know from the news reports. In my city, four women have been murdered in the last few months by violent males, partners. In one case a father killed his two daughters.
Are you aware of CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women? It's a UN convention that Canada has signed on to.
Representative, Parents for Healthy Teens
I'm sorry. I know of the United Nations, and I know they do work and have mandates or goals that they have countries wishing to meet and reach, but CEDAW, particularly—
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
The United Nations has condemned Canada for not living up to its obligations to women, all Canadian women, including aboriginal women, disabled women, visible minority women. And in that convention, the condemnation had to do with the fact that we have done very little to address violence against women.
Should we not be pursuing and trying to live up to our obligations under that UN convention?
Representative, Parents for Healthy Teens
I think you are. You haven't eliminated that funding. Isn't that right? Isn't that what you're continuing to do with this? Is there nowhere that this mandate allows for those kinds of programs to continue, and that kind of—?
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
As a country, as a government, we've failed, and women's equity groups and equality-seeking groups are seeking to address that. So there is a bit of a gulf in terms of what we aspire to and what we've actually achieved.
I have a question for Louise.
I know you work for the sexual assault centre, and I'm wondering about the impact of changing the mandate of the Status of Women Canada in terms of your organization and the changes in terms of eligibility criteria.
Executive Director, Sexual Assault Centre London
We are a grassroots organization, and thankfully we are incorporated, so quite possibly we could access some funding. However, we will have to compete with for-profit organizations that may or may not have an equality agenda. And based on what I'm hearing today, I'm pretty sure those for-profit organizations that have consultants to write proposals and access the material on the Internet are going to have more success at getting funding than my organization.
What I'd like to add is that there is a need for direct service, but the direct service isn't going to do anything about women's equality, and that's what the women's program used to do. It did something about advancing women's equality.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
I have one more question, Madam Chair. I would like to address it to Ms. Byers.
The minister, on December 6, said that all the savings being set aside for reinvestment--and she's talking about the $5 million--would go into directly supporting Canadian women.
You made reference to the government's internal capacity to achieve women's equality. Why is it so essential for governments to play an active role in women's equality? Why do they need to be there?
Executive Vice-President, Canadian Labour Congress
Because women do hold up half the sky; we are half of our population, and it's important that governments do that. It's important, for example, that governments do something about pay equity. And I think it's important in this forum especially that we clarify that there's a difference between equal pay for equal work, which is being paid the same for the same job; equal pay for similar work, which is equal pay for jobs that are roughly similar; and equal pay for work of equal value, or pay equity. That's what the task of this generation of women is, to make sure we achieve that.
Governments have to be responsible for women's equality, and we don't have it yet. Yes, we are equal, obviously. You're not going to find anyone around this room, a woman, who would say she's not equal, or a man who would dare say that we're not equal. But the reality is we still face discrimination at work, in our community, in Parliament, wherever we go. We still have violence in huge numbers. We don't have economic and social equality. That's why governments are here--to make sure that all citizens are treated equally.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much.
We have run out of time.
I thank the questioners very much for their questions, but I thank the presenters very much for taking time out of their daily lives to come and share their opinions. That's why we have a committee, to listen to all of the people's opinions. That's what makes Canada strong. So to all of you, thank you for taking the time. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas on behalf of the committee. We look forward to doing more work in 2007, the year to come.
I'll move adjournment.