Status of Women Committee on March 27th, 2007

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

Thank you. That's the clarification I needed, based on a comment. I wanted to make sure I was accurate.

My second question is centred again around CPP. I'm looking at CPP as being something that's there, something that could be utilized, yet it doesn't recognize the economic value of work women do at home. Could either one of you comment on that, how we could come up with some solutions so that problem could be addressed?

I know many women, as you said earlier, are penalized because they made a choice to stay at home. I had an aunt who put my uncle through university. He was a nuclear physicist, so he was in university for an awful long time. She was a relatively uneducated woman, but extremely intelligent, and as you related these testimonies today it reminded me of several instances where this has happened.

Could you comment on the CPP?

[Daniel Braniff]

Only from the standpoint that I believe that CPP does recognize the woman who's at home, because it calls for sharing. You have the option—and maybe it shouldn't be an option—that you can assign 50% of your CPP to your spouse. Unfortunately, not everybody knows that. Whether we should go to the next step and award some kind of recognition for caregiving, I don't know how to do that.

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

Could I just ask a question following that?

In a way it might, but doesn't it recognize the smallest, minimal amount of CPP? They don't get any....

[Daniel Braniff]

It's a shared thing.

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

That's the end of my questions. Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Can I give your minute to Ms. Minna?

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

Yes.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

What about you, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

It's okay. It's a technical question, and I don't want to put people through that.

Go ahead, Ms. Minna.

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

I'll try to be very quick.

I'm sorry, but I'm having some difficulty because we're talking about women's economic security, which means young and older women.

Mr. Braniff, you talk about pension splitting as primarily a women's issue, and then you go on. I have difficulty accepting that. As you stated, when someone is deceased or in many other cases as well, the pension is depleted, it disappears, or it's less. Women are left with less even if they've saved some money along the way. If this was years later, depending on your income, you could save to varying degrees, but it does not give income security to women.

There are divorced women we ought to deal with who are not going to grow old with their partners, and there are single women. We need to talk about income security for women in the broader context, not as attached couples but as individual citizens. What's happened here with income splitting is fine, but we need to go beyond that.

If you could help me to understand, have you looked at or done any research with respect to income security for women as entities on their own? I'm trying to say this just doesn't do it, and it's frustrating.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

This is what I would like to suggest. We are looking at the economic security of women. We can look at a Gantt chart that shows what the timelines are. At the end of the timeline, what happens to the woman? Why do we have so many senior women who are poor?

We've asked you questions that have sometimes been beyond your expertise, and we apologize for that. We are all very anxious to see a holistic approach, but we have witnesses who come with different perspectives, and your perspective is pension splitting.

If you can address Ms. Minna's question in your wrap-up, it would be quite appreciated.

We thank you for being here and providing us with your opinion. It's your opinion, and it's not actuarially tested, and that's okay.

We have certain things the finance department has not come up with for how it will manage the pension splitting, such as whether or not there'll be a clawback or it will be applicable this way or that way. There are too many permutations and combinations.

As a tax auditor, I can tell you that I don't envy anybody trying to do it. We don't expect it from you either, but you can give us your analysis of what you see on the street and what you know.

Thank you.

[Daniel Braniff]

Thank you very much.

It's a tough question, but I can best answer it with what I get back from women.

You say they won't get the feeling there's something there for them. It's not what I'm hearing, and I have addressed groups by the hundreds.

When I mentioned this as an entitlement, the first group I had to talk to were women, and they would segregate themselves from the men, from their own husbands. They like it. They said their husbands want the tax break, but they want the entitlement.

Let's push that button as far as possible, if you want to get to the point of actually mailing out separate cheques. I know when my wife first received her half of my CPP, there was a smile on her face. It wasn't so much because it was a windfall, but it was recognition for the fact that I wouldn't have had the pension without her. I recognize that.

I've been married for 52 years. My wife probably knows what I'm going to say in the next sentence, by the way. If you think she doesn't think pension splitting benefits her, you're mistaken.

I realize there are couples where this doesn't exist. This is a cultural problem within the different cultures we have in this society. There are men who think what's theirs is their own; they earned it, so it's theirs. It's not even true, and we know that.

I think we have an information package. If you want to mail out separate cheques, that's great, but it's going to cost you a lot of money.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Mr. Wilson, for one minute.

[Ken Wilson]

I would like to express our appreciation for being able to be here to speak to you and to hear what you have to say and the questions you've asked.

I have to let you know that I sent a copy of this presentation, the CAPS one, to our members. It was almost only women who responded, saying how pleased they were by the position we had taken. We felt we were on to something that resonated with the women in our group, and most of them are senior women.

It doesn't answer Ms. Minna's question, and I don't think we're in a position to do it. There is an issue that has to be dealt with and dealt with separately from this.

We are quite proud of the fact that we brought it to this stage, and we hope it will be introduced. From what I understand, you probably support the fact that this will be introduced as well.

The bottom line is that we can't help you immediately with it, but I think it's something the groups we belong to could address and would look forward to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you very much, and I thank you all for being here. You've provided us with a lot of information.

I'd like to suspend the meeting for a minute and then start again with the business. You're welcome to stay in the audience.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Committee, we're resuming business. We are going to resume consideration of the motion posed by Ms. Mathyssen. At the last meeting, Ms. Smith had--

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

Would you mind, Madam Chair, if I could explain the reports, because they're not here today? Oh, they're here now? Okay, great.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Ms. Smith provided them to the clerk's office, and it was late--

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

Sorry, I just got it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

--and it was in English. Since we're going to be discussing the motion pertaining to the report, I'd like to get the committee's direction on whether I can distribute the list of reports. They are only in English, and that is why I'm seeking the committee's direction. Can I distribute copies of the list of reports that have been put on the website, those that have been authorized, those that require revision and will not be completed, etc.? Can I please give this list?

It's in English only. Is there a problem?

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Are we talking only about names?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Yes, it's just names.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

A name is the same, whether in French or in English.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

It doesn't matter, right?

It's the title.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Madam Chair, while that's going on, could I suggest, to go back just for a moment on this issue that we have on the topic we're discussing--economic security--that we consider at some point getting Revenue Canada in? I know at the front end of this topic we did have them in, but there have been some issues that have come up in the course of the deliberations here. There were a couple today.

Similarly, now that we have the Statistics Canada report, we need to shine a light back on the situation of those 60% to 70% of women and what truly happens to their economic reality once they're widowed. Furthermore, we need to determine what types of measures might we consider to do that.

I pose that as a question.