Evidence of meeting #41 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 pension.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Joy Smith Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
I was very interested in that. With the experience I've had and what I know about it, I just wondered how they gathered their data, because coming to something like this, we need to be very aware.
First Vice-President, Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs
May I just—
Conservative
Joy Smith Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
I just have a few minutes, so I need to go on to Ms. Blake. Thank you for answering that question. I appreciate it.
Ms. Blake, I was very moved by your compelling assessment of a woman who, as you say, has two degrees and who elected to stay home with her children, and then unfortunately had a medical situation. Could you please give this committee some advice as to what you think would be really helpful for women in a position like that? Life happens, and you don't have control over that. So could you give us some more advice? I was very moved by what you said.
Member, Women Elders in Action
I think what it takes is, for instance, the issue of affordability of housing. If I could find affordable, decent housing, that would go a long way to helping me.
Also there is the provision of all the benefits of health care without the costs, and not this whittled-down health care that exists now, at least in our province, where seniors are not able to have access to podiatry, have access to very little massage, very little physiotherapy, all the kinds of treatments that give you a comfortable old age and are preventative.
The other thing is pharmacare, a national pharmacare program, at least for people over 65 but preferably for the 55 to 65 age group as well, maybe with some qualifications.
Conservative
Joy Smith Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
I'm trying to go really quickly. I'm not being rude; I'm just trying to keep within my timeframe. I have those constraints too.
I find the kinds of things you're saying extremely useful to us here in the committee. What are the social supports that you think are so necessary to put in as well?
Member, Women Elders in Action
I would think that housing issues could encompass some sort of collective or cooperative--people involved in creating collective or cooperative housing for seniors--and possibly a mix between that and various creative ways of providing housing, where people have a say in what kind of housing, and where and with whom they live, and so on.
Liberal
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I was a teacher in Ontario for 25 years and I think I could answer that question about why men make more. If you look at the promotion of teachers to department heads, to vice-principals, to principals, to superintendents, to directors of education, I would venture to guess that there are very few female directors of education in this country, and they would certainly make three to four times what a classroom teacher would make. In 1985 I was a secondary teacher and a female vice-principal was an anomaly, a rarity. People actually went into her office to look at this incredible and strange aberration.
So perhaps that helps.
I have a couple of questions, and I want to begin with something that's become of real concern to me. In my constituency, single moms are in difficulty with Canada Revenue Agency because they have to prove that they are single, that they aren't cohabiting, and their child tax credit is at risk. It's clawed back. They're threatened with having it clawed back. Senior women are experiencing difficulty in terms of dealing with various agencies.
Would it make a difference if certain government departments, like HRSDC and CRA, had an advocate right in the ministry, right within the institution, for vulnerable people? Is that something that makes sense?
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
I will then keep pursuing that.
It was quite interesting, Ms. Calhoun. You talked about the fact that the Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs is self-funded. You receive no funding from Status of Women Canada, no support at all. Yet you were very supportive of the research advocacy role of women's organizations and the importance of maintaining that.
I wonder if all of our visitors could comment on why that's so important.
First Vice-President, Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs
I would say that for BPW Canada, the only money we get comes from our members. We have always seen a very important role for Status of Women Canada. For example, we access that research in preparing briefs like this. We depend on that research a lot. That was done by Status of Women Canada. We also work with groups across the country, and I'll give you a couple of examples of the impact of the change in the mandate to the Status of Women in New Brunswick.
We have a pay equity coalition that's been going on for a few years. We have an urban support core group that has worked with poor people in Saint John. We have a child care advocacy group that has been working towards getting quality, affordable, accessible child care in this country, which does not exist. And all of those groups are finished. They're ended. Yes, they're all finished. The funding for the pay equity coalition will continue, they've been told, until September 2008. The child care coalition finishes in June. As for the urban core support group, which has done amazing work with poor people in Saint John, they're not sure, but it pretty well looks as though they're finished because Status of Women does not fund advocacy anymore.
The position that we as an organization take is that direct services are very important, obviously--food banks and all those kinds of direct services, educational programs. There are a lot of problems, and I'll use the food bank as an example. You can feed people from now until eternity, and you'll still be feeding them unless you do something that deals with why people need food banks in the first place, with why people are poor. When we talk about that, we're talking about systemic changes to the society we live in. There are no easy solutions, but there need to be those kinds of changes.
BPW Canada has always been an advocacy group. That's what we do. We are an advocacy group. Unless those groups have a voice...and a lot of them were supported by the Status of Women. They will no longer have a voice; those groups are all finished.
So now we go back to food banks and we keep feeding people for another 100 years.
Liberal
Chair, Women Elders in Action
I'd like to comment on that.
Our organization has been sponsored by the Status of Women, and we're very grateful for all the help that we've received. Because of that, we were able to hire a part-time...and this, again, is a woman in later life who is working part-time, but she's doing quite a bit of the research for us, because some of us, particularly in my age group, are not really very computer literate. I have a difficult time, so I recognize that and I appreciate the help that our part-time worker gives us.
But we would not be able to do any of this. We would not have been able to find out just exactly what is happening. And we toured the province; we went all across our province of British Columbia. We talked to women in the small communities and the little villages as well as the big cities, and we found that there were so many differences that took place. And women themselves knew there should be some change, there should be something better, but they didn't know how to go about it.
And we're hopeful. We're maintaining that contact with women so they know how to speak up for themselves, so they know how they can better their lives. And they want better lives for their children. This is what we should be thinking of--the future.
If the Status of Women cuts off all funding to groups like ours--and we're not the only group--this type of funding, so we can do this, so we can advocate on behalf of the people who are less fortunate, then I'm afraid we'll be backsliding, and about 20 years from now I'll come in with my cane and I'll be telling you that you've failed miserably.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
I will give you a closing remark to make. So make a note of it, and you can do that in your closing remark.
Ms. Minna, for five minutes, please.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to share a bit of time with Ms. Neville, since we are closing early today. I want to ask a couple of very quick questions.
Ms. Calhoun, you mentioned something about cutting taxes, although I missed the end of what you said, and I wasn't quite sure what you meant by that. Maybe you could expand on that in a minute. I just want to ask two questions, and then Ms. Neville will ask one, and maybe you can group them, if that's okay with you.
Some of you mentioned splitting the RRSP at the time of a divorce. The government has done what's called income splitting, but that helps only couples who are married. It does not help the woman, because it's not splitting pensions, where the women get a portion of the pension in their hand that they can call their own. The family gets a tax break, but it doesn't really help the woman.
So my question is whether you would support pension splitting, and that is for all pensions subsidized by the government--Canada Pension Plan, RRSPs, OAS--whatever it is, you split it between the couple. And of course, increase the GIS, I agree with you. Also, it's true we need to look at the poorness of the RRSPs, that they really don't help most Canadians.
But I just wonder if you could give me an answer to the issue of pension splitting as at least one vehicle for the current seniors.
Liberal
Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
That was actually my question. I'm assuming that when you're talking about pension splitting on marriage breakup, you're talking about more than the CPP; you're talking about any pension that has government support?
Okay, that's fine.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
To finish, my question is not about divorce, but about pension splitting across the board, regardless of divorce or not. Women get 50% and men get 50% of what they've accumulated during their lifetime.
Do you have any comment?
First Vice-President, Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs
Well, I have to tell you that BPW Canada hasn't really studied this issue enough for me to be able to tell you what we think, and normally we try to avoid talking off the top of our head if it's not a policy of the organization. So I really can't answer that question.
Liberal
First Vice-President, Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs
Was that the question? I didn't hear the question, but I think--
Liberal
First Vice-President, Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs
Taxes for all individuals in Canada with incomes below the poverty line.
Chair, Women Elders in Action
That is something we would support. As a matter of fact, we have in our paper that anybody who lives below the so-called low-income cut-off would not pay any taxes at all. Unfortunately, that's not the case today.
As far as income splitting is concerned, the 50-50, it is a fraught with a few dangers. We talk about Canada Pension Plan survivor benefits right now, and it's 60% for the survivor, and it's usually the woman who is the survivor. This is the majority rule again. Even if a husband and wife both have a Canada Pension, the survivor is supposed to get 60%, but they don't get 60%, they get 40% of the 60%. That's one of the things that happen in CPP.
Also, if you talk about splitting 50-50, it sounds very nice; it's very equitable, it's very democratic, and we love it. But what happens if one of the persons dies? Are you left with that 50%, whereas you might have gotten 60% as a survivor?