Status of Women Committee on March 20th, 2007

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

If you look at the graph, you notice that admittedly there is a gap, but since 1998 the graph for contributions by women continues to grow. You indicated it hasn't grown by much; I note that it has grown by about 10% since 1998, whereas the men's contribution rate has stayed relatively flat. It has gone up somewhat.

When you consider all the other factors that are coming into play, such as greater women's participation in the workforce, a decreasing wage rate gap, and all of these other factors--we even heard, for example, that women's participation in postgraduate studies is soaring relative to men--and if you were to project those lines forward, taking all these things into consideration, wouldn't it be reasonable to conclude that the projection is going to continue to go forward and close, so that major interventions of public policy really shouldn't be necessary there?

[Ruth Rose]

That's why I put down graph 4. When you look at it by age group, we find that yes, under 25, women and men are contributing about at the same level. But the women's wages, even at that age—even at between 20 and 24—are still only 84% of men's. Then when you get into the childbearing ages—that is, between 25 and 50—there's still a gap between the percentage of men and the percentage of women who are contributing, on the order of 5%, and again women are contributing only at 85% of what men are contributing.

The gap is still quite considerably larger for the older women. That's a legacy from the past, and that's where we're going to see more closing, particularly as the labour market gets tighter and there are more jobs for people over 50.

But the projection you can get from graph 4 is that 40 years from now women will still have pensions that are 15% lower because they have 15% lower wages and 5% lower because they've been 5% less on the labour market; therefore, their pensions will be still 20% lower than those of men. That's in 40 years; that's when your daughter will be retiring.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

We go to round three and we'll probably be able to do two questions.

Ms. Minna, you'll have five minutes.

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

Thank you. I wanted to ask one question.

We're discussing women's economic security today, and pay equity and the equality of women, and so on. Recently, the Status of Women Canada mandate was changed so that the equality provisions were removed. I'm wondering whether, Ms. Rose, you could tell us whether you think that is premature, given what we are discussing here today, and what you would do with it.

[Ruth Rose]

Absolutely. I think women have made progress. You must also note, and I should have answered this to Mr. Stanton, that unfortunately one of the reasons why the gap between men and women has been closing—two-thirds of that closing—has been through reduction in male wages. This was particularly strong between 1996 and 2001. It was less true between 2001 and 2006.

So yes, I would say that women still need to fight for equality. They still need help with that. Especially if we're looking for a saner, more human, more ecological world, we would like men to adopt more the attitude towards labour force and money and children that women have. If people produced more of their own services and consumed less in material goods and had more time for family, there would be greater equality, and we'd have a better quality of life.

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

I have a comment and two questions for both of you.

The first comment is that while I understand that income splitting is accepted, and I know the FSN and others are seeing it as beneficial, from the point of view of fairness, even if it were $50,000—a couple is making $50,000 through pensions, and the female or an individual is making $50,000—that means the individual is paying higher taxes. I think from the point of fairness, it is not quite a fair way to do taxation. Maybe you can comment along the way. That's a comment more than anything.

I have two specific questions. Both of you talked about pension sharing, one way or another. What about pension splitting? I'm not talking about income splitting, but pension splitting, such as CPP, RSPs, anything that is subsidized in any way by government being split at the time the pension is starting to be drawn. Obviously at divorce now we do it, but at the time.... So it would be 50-50 for both the male and the female. At least the woman is receiving more money in her hands right from the beginning rather than right through. That's one question: whether you could tell me what you think of that.

Ms. Rose, your last two graphs show that couples are doing better than single men or single women among seniors, as well as two-parent families. One of the things you've suggested a number of times today is that what I call “early education and child care”—because early childhood development is not about babysitting—is a major factor, and then increasing the women in the labour force.

There is a philosophy that would suggest going the other way around, keeping the women at home--that they should be at home if they're having children. Can you expand more on why you're going in the opposite direction, and what some of the philosophy is, and in fact some of the government's own planning, that tends to favour stay-at-home moms as opposed to those who go to work?

That's two. Maybe you can expand on those two things.

[Ruth Rose]

If you're looking for equality for women, the only way they're going to attain equality is by being in the labour market. The problem with a stay-at-home mom is that there is a lot of psychological experience that in fact they're not being very happy and they're not necessarily being very good mothers. But the important thing is that they're necessarily dependent partly on the government, perhaps, because there may be subsidies from the government, but they're mainly dependent on a husband. That means they're also losing experience and losing contacts in the labour market. If the marriage breaks up—and we still have very high divorce rates—that's when we get low-income single mothers who are not equipped to regain their autonomy. The people who are most in favour of stay-at-home mothers are the ones who are most aggressive against welfare mothers, but they go hand in hand.

Back in 1936, Alva Myrdal, in Sweden, introduced maternity leave, not so much to allow mothers to maintain their income as to allow working women—because at that time women had to work in Sweden if they wanted not to be poor—to have children.

Our experience in Quebec now that we have the new maternity program, which is a year old, is that we have increased the birth rate by something like 7,200 babies a year, and it's still going up, and we've increased the labour force participation rate of women. It's the only way to prevent poverty.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

We will go to Mr. Stanton for five minutes.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

To Mr. Dussault, through your presentation I was interested in your comments that upon the death of the spouse there's a first survivor. Usually the woman in the household is the survivor; the man passes away first. And clearly within the public pension plan, the survivor benefit, I think you said, is 50%, and that's my recollection as well.

But in light of the fact that there are other assets, in the case where the man passes away, any assets—family assets, real estate, other things—essentially go to the surviving spouse tax-free. Madam Neville made an interesting point about the fact that the surviving spouse gets jacked up into a higher tax bracket and that there is a change in financial circumstance as well.

I would see to some extent that in terms of living in poverty, the financial circumstance because of all the family assets coming to the surviving spouse wouldn't necessarily be launching them into a period of more poverty than what they had before.

Perhaps I'm just way off on this, but maybe you could clarify that a little bit for me or add some insight.

[Bernard Dussault]

You're totally right if you look just at the financial aspects you mentioned, but we have to keep in mind that when a spouse leaves the family, the remaining spouse is left doing the things that the other spouse was doing, and this has a cost. For example, the surviving lady cannot take care of all the things that used to be done physically, at no cost, by the man, so there is a cost. So 50% might look correct, but there are additional costs when a spouse dies, and that's one of the aspects.

The other point is that the financial situation of each family is so different.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Of course.

[Bernard Dussault]

On average, it seems that 50% is not enough.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Okay.

One of the announcements that came out yesterday in budget 2007 was something called a working-income benefit. This was particularly addressed to people in low-income situations.

I realize this might fall a little bit outside the realm of pensioners, for example, but you seem to have a good basic knowledge about public income support systems. The proposal was essentially that there is a benefit for working individuals who are in that very low-income sphere, that bracket between $3,000 and $12,000 in annual income, that in fact they would be eligible for an annual benefit of up to $500, which I think is the maximum, and within that range between $5,500 and $9,000, they'd get the full $500.

Do you see that as something that would help when we're looking at the economic security issues, particularly as it relates to single moms and you add on top of that the additional child tax benefit of $310 that they would receive as well? Do we see some positives in that announcement?

[Bernard Dussault]

The obvious positive is that it's a good poverty-related measure, but I don't know who would benefit more from it. You mentioned single moms. But there are a lot of people who would fall into that category, and they're not necessarily women or women with children.

I really can't tell you more than that. It's a good measure. Obviously, it's not bad.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

We'll go to the last questioner, Madame Deschamps.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you.

People say that economic security promotes not only tolerance and a feeling of well-being, but that it is also beneficial for social growth and stability. That is all well and good, but the fact remains that poverty still exists and that women are the most likely people to be poor.

Ms. Rose, can you tell me whether Canada has introduced any policies to fight poverty following the Beijing Conference on women in 1995?

[Ruth Rose]

I must admit that Canada has made some progress, particularly in the area of child benefits. There has been a significant improvement in the amounts given to families. Quebec has also invested a great deal in this. However, this is unfortunately not true with the other provinces. Extending maternity benefits to 50 weeks is also another big step forward. I would say that those may be the two most significant measures. There is very little movement in the area of child care services, except in Quebec. Of course, there has been a great deal of progress in women's participation in the labour market and in education, particularly at the university level. We have seen some reduction in poverty, but there remains a great deal to be done.

I apologize, but I had forgotten to answer Ms. Mathyssen's question about pension splitting.

I would be in favour of the splitting of pensions. We do it in divorces. Why not also do it at retirement?

It would also mean that if the husband died before the woman, she would get an equality of treatment that would be relative to what would happen if he died. It means single men would probably have somewhat lower incomes, but it would equalize post-widowhood for men and women.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

I'd like to thank the witness for being here. We appreciate that you came here to provide us with your insight. I think we all had a fruitful discussion. Thank you again for being here and for travelling to be here.

I'd like to suspend the meeting for one minute and go to committee business.

The Chair:

I'm resuming the meeting, because Mr. Dussault would like to add something.

[Bernard Dussault]

I would like to add to an answer that I gave to one of the first questions that was asked on what can be done to alleviate poverty or to help improve the conditions of women. There are two other means that crossed my mind in the meantime. It's not that they are new, but I forgot to mention them.

In terms of poverty, one means of alleviating poverty would be to extend the guaranteed income supplement downward. It applies only to persons age 65 and over. I think it was once thought in the government that it would apply at all ages. It would be one means.

The other means rests on the fact that it's not clear to everybody that fewer than 50% of employers have a pension plan for their employees. It's why the CPP was introduced. It was introduced a long time ago, and it's still fewer than 50% of employers who have an independent pension plan. There would be a case for the government to either have employers obliged to have a pension plan or to increase the scope of the CPP.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

The meeting is suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

The meeting has resumed.

We have before us a notice of motion. I'd like Ms. Mathyssen to move the motion, please.

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

Shall I read it, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Yes, please.

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

The motion says:

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), That the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women recommend that the Government publish all outstanding research projects from Status of Women Canada’s Independent Policy Research Fund and that the chair report the adoption of this motion to the House forthwith.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Ms. Mathyssen, would you like to explain why you've brought this motion?