Status of Women Committee on May 30th, 2006

[Colin Lindsay]

I'm not totally an expert in that area, and somebody else wrote that chapter, but my understanding is that the assumption is that most of that difference is accounted for by birth rates but some of it may be accounted for by changes in identification.

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

I was fascinated by the data on the configuration of families: numbers living alone, not living alone, living with extended family, the numbers of senior women compared to those in the non-aboriginal population. What do you do with this information? Whom do you provide it to for purposes of policy-making and policy decisions, and are you part of the discussions when policies are made by other departments?

[Colin Lindsay]

Well, first of all, I'm talking for myself. The Women in Canada report itself is one of a series of reports that we do on a whole bunch of groups. In particular this report gets used as a kind of report card for the status of women, but that's really not its main purpose. The main purpose of this report is to provide people across the country, who are working and studying in the area of gender statistics, with an on-shelf database. So I suppose in that sense this report, where it points out emerging trends, fits into the policy area, but it's certainly not the function of this particular report to have a direct impact on policy.

I can probably pass the question to Rosemary, who could talk a little more specifically. We do have a full aboriginal people survey division. It's one of the main functions there. Maybe she could address that a little more specifically than I could.

[Rosemary Bender]

On that point, I can say that we do have regular ongoing exchanges with policy researchers and policy-makers at the various levels--the federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal levels--and we share a lot of information from various sources that we have.

Women in Canada is one of our key sources for gender statistics, but we do have ongoing dialogue with policy-makers who either take the data as is from a publication like Women in Canada or they ask for further statistics. They like special tabulations or special meetings to talk with experts on the underlying statistical notions and concepts that really lead to the conclusions of the report.

We're usually very busy on many fronts, speaking with whoever is interested in our statistics and in using them.

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

This report has a particular section on Bill C-31 and the impact of Bill C-31. Do you extrapolate forward the potential implications of Bill C-31 and the numbers of women who may in fact lose status because of Bill C-31? It's a very controversial bill, and many people want it revised. Do you move forward?

[Colin Lindsay]

None of us is really an expert in that. I'm sure some work has been done at Statistics Canada, and we could probably go to the actual experts in that area and provide the committee with some documentation, if there is any available. I know there are population projections, but whether or not that's included, I think, it's certainly beyond our---

[Rosemary Bender]

The one area where we do move forward with projections is in the area of demographics. So we do project the populations of various areas in Canada as well as for certain subpopulations, for example, such as visible minorities or aboriginal groups.

So in the area of demographics, yes, we do project forward based on the assumptions on the various characteristics of growth, whether it be migration, fertility, or mortality. We do not project forward some of the trends in terms of employment status or labour market activity. On that we don't project, as a rule.

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

Could you pick up on the discussion earlier about low-income families and whether you've broken that down as it relates to aboriginal women and particularly lone-parent families?

[Colin Lindsay]

No, we did not. We do know that aboriginal women are more than twice as likely to be a female lone parent as opposed to the regular population. We know that aboriginal women in general are twice as likely as other women to have low incomes, but in this particular report we didn't look at female lone parents.

We try to stay away from family issues with the aboriginal numbers because it's difficult to define an aboriginal family sometimes, but no, we didn't break that down in this particular report. At some point in time we had to make some decisions. Otherwise the publication would become simply too large and too costly, and this was one that wasn't included.

We could probably find it for you, though, and send it to you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Stanton.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a couple of questions, actually, and I'll try to get through them in the time allowed.

My first question is to Mr. Lindsay. In terms of establishing the incidence of spousal violence, we're seeing that one-third report to police. How do you come at establishing what the universe of that is, in order to know that the incidence of police reporting is at around 36% or 37%? How do you come at the big number? You mentioned you've got the victimization survey and so on, and you've got certainly hard numbers on the police reports, but how do you know it only represents a third of the actual incidence of violence?

[Colin Lindsay]

I will pass that to my colleague Ms. Mihorean, who is more the expert in that area than I am.

[Karen Mihorean]

In the victimization survey, what we do is we ask about very specific acts of violence, and so for anyone who says yes, then we follow up with a series of questions to get at the nature of the violence and the extent of the violence. One of the questions we ask is whether the police ever found out about the incident. So we ask the woman or man if the police found out. If the police did find out, we also then ask if they reported the violence or someone else reported the violence.

So if you've got in your sample x number of people reporting violence, the subpopulation of that is who reported to the police and who didn't. Now, the 37% or 36% or so who do report spousal violence is actually in keeping now with the overall rate of violent crime. So if you look at violent crime that's committed by others, non-spousal, the rate of reporting is also around 34%. So in fact when we saw that huge increase between 1993 and 1999 in reporting, probably what was contributing to it was all the work that was going on at the community level--better police training, pro charging, encouraging people to report the violence.

The question is, now that it has levelled off between 1999 and 2004 and it's consistent with other violent crime, is this the plateau now? Have we reached the plateau? Will we see a further increase in reporting?

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you for that.

It's along the same lines and in the same topic area. Clearly, while it's certainly good news that the incidence of violence is coming down, 640,000, which I think was the number, is clearly substantive. It really conjures up concerns about how you come at the root causes of this. There's a breakdown of respect within the family unit--whatever that might be.

You have some numbers looking at the fact that certainly the younger women, in particular the 15-to-24 category, higher incidents among the aboriginal families and so on.... I wonder, was there any measure looking at issues of education and economic affluence within the family? Were there relationships there? Ultimately you need to come to Ms. Mathyssen's point, which is how you then come at solutions for this kind of thing.

Clearly, those are the sorts of questions that come to mind when you see these critical issues happening within the family. There is still a lack of respect that is ultimately endangering the lives of women and children. What can we do to address that? It would interesting to know where and what categories of our society are more affected by this.

[Karen Mihorean]

We do look at income and education; those are the standard socio-demographic characteristics we look at. We found that urban/rural residency, education, and income really don't have an effect on risk of spousal violence. Of those that I listed for you on page 4, probably the one that's missing is that there is more violence where the woman's partner had a father who was also abusive towards his mother. Certainly, there is this generational aspect. Spousal violence does cross all socio-economic boundaries.

Really what we're seeing is that there certainly are pockets with being young and at risk. But again, I would say that if you look at the risk of any type of violent crime, it's also concentrated in the young age groups. The facts I have listed here are the ones that statistically are the strongest predictors of spousal violence. But there is no difference among income or education levels.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Madame Bourgeois.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ladies and gentlemen, your presentation this morning is extremely interesting. I believe that your studies are complementary to one another.

Mr. Lindsay, you said that you have made a contribution to all Canadian publications on women. I have read practically every publication, and I am pleased to see that women's living conditions have improved slightly. I believe that women's living conditions have improved thanks to the relentless work of women's groups, in addition to all of the social measures which have been put in place for that purpose.

As for Ms. Mihorean, I also find it interesting to see that there has been a marked decrease in violence. Once again, measures were taken to crack down on spousal violence.

I am trying to combine my two questions and I don't know which one of you wishes to answer them.

An increasing number of women live in common-law relationships. In fact, Mr. Lindsay, I believe that you were the one who pointed out that there are more and more divorced women, and more families that depend on single mothers. In fact, two thirds of single mothers work, and generally speaking, two thirds of all women who have children work. Therefore, “work” is the key word, as is the importance of work for women.

With respect to violence against women, the 50 p. 100 decrease is primarily attributed to increased community support, and secondly to the improvement of women's socio-economic conditions. Therefore, the more women work, the more financially autonomous and independent they are, the less likely they are to accept violence, regardless of whether or not they are young, between the ages of 30 and 50, or older. Older women who have worked, who have drawn salaries, who are receiving benefits or a pension, are less likely to accept violence.

Canadian women are calling for a daycare system. I will not talk about Quebec, because we already have a system.

Ms. Mihorean, do you believe that this is one way to help women fight against violence and to become more autonomous?

Mr. Lindsay, my second question is for you. It will be very brief. Is your data broken down? Do you provide a province-by-province breakdown of your data? In your report, you present general data for all of Canada. Did you notice any differences between Quebec and the rest of Canada?

Those are my two questions. Thank you.

[Colin Lindsay]

Well, I'll answer the quick question.

For the most part, in the Women in Canada report, the data is presented at a national level. We would certainly like to have more provincial data in there, but it is already a 325-page book, and at some point in time we have to cut things off.

For the major indicators, we have provided a provincial breakdown. So what you see, for example, is that in the province of Quebec women are somewhat less likely than women in Ontario and the western provinces to be employed. However, over the course of the last decade, there has been a very significant increase in the labour force participation rates of women in Quebec compared to the rest of the country, about double the rate. I think their participation rate has increased by eight or nine percentage points, whereas in Ontario and the western provinces it's up about four percentage points.

So we do have some breakdowns in here, but as I say, we have to cut it off at some point in time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Madam Mihorean, do you have something very quickly to add?

[Karen Mihorean]

I was just going to say that I couldn't speak directly about the impact of child care and rates of violence, but we do know that in Quebec, for example, spousal violence rates are the lowest, yet they have the highest rates of common law relationships, which is interesting. I know there are other social supports in play there that I can't speak directly to.

We do know that one of the main reasons women go back to abusive partners is for the sake of children. We know that transition homes are most busy around the return of school, so women are more likely to go into a transition home once their kids are established in school. Again, I can't speak directly on child care, but I'll leave you with that to ponder.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Mathyssen, go ahead, please.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I'd like to switch gears a little.

I'm looking at the statistic regarding the substantial gender gap difference persisting despite the socio-economic variables. The improvement in terms of gender gap issues has slowed quite dramatically in recent years. As a teacher, I always asked whether women had reached the level of equality. The response was always, oh yes, we've arrived. It would seem to me that we haven't arrived yet, and that there's still much work to do. I'm wondering if that is because equality hasn't been a priority for the public. The public perception reflects my students' perception that things are much better now, and that we don't have to work at it anymore.

Secondly, is there a connection between that perception and the fact that we have so few female parliamentarians? Do we need to work more at getting representation? Is there something there in terms of electoral reform?

[Colin Lindsay]

Again, as we said, looking into the future or trying to explain things is not within the scope of the Women in Canada publication, particularly without a statistical basis to do so. In answer to your questions, I think there was, over the course of the last decade, a lessening of the interest in gender issues. When we released the 1995 issue, it was a big deal. One of our analysts was interviewed. It was the lead story on all three news networks, and it was well covered in all the papers. When we released the 2000 issue there was very little response in that regard.

The good news, in terms of your question, is that when we released the latest issue we got tremendous coverage and there was tremendous interest in it. In fact, we released it in March, and we're still dealing with media requests and things of that nature. If there's a good-news answer to the question, it is that some of these issues do seem to be percolating to the top. We would hope that on reading this publication and on seeing that some of these trends have slowed and in fact stopped, people may be given pause to at least ask what's going on here, and the profile of the issues may be raised.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I have a second question. This one has to do violence and elder abuse. We haven't talked very much about elder abuse. It seems this is something that is becoming much more visible, and we're hearing much more about it. I wonder about the risk factors associated with this kind of violence and who is participating, who is committing this kind of crime.

[Karen Mihorean]

It's different for men and women. There has been a very slow increase, a gradual increase in the trend of senior abuse. For senior women who are victims of violence, by and large it is a spouse or intimate partner committing the violence. I don't know if you've heard the expression “spousal violence growing old”, but it's that sort of phenomenon. In the case of senior men who are abused, it's often by acquaintances, friends, or their children. In the case of senior women who are abused, there is a fairly significant portion who are abused by their sons.