Status of Women Committee on April 17th, 2007

[Robert Wright]

They're all very important questions.

The results I was giving were very high level, for the overall employment in the Canadian economy. I don't have any light to add on those important questions, but I will take them back to the department and see if there is some additional information.

And I would say, if you've had Statistics Canada here on the results they've had, you've probably got some pretty good idea of how to drill down to those details. But I'll be happy to go back and talk to my analysts about anything they could have that might shed light on it.

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

Okay. I'd appreciate that, because certainly there is a concern about the availability of child care.

Another question: have you looked at the gender impact of the recent tax reforms? I'm wondering specifically about the general or the targeted tax reductions.

And perhaps you could also talk about how the non-refundable tax credits impact women specifically, because I have some concerns in regard to the fact that they are tax credits, and that obviously impacts on lower-income women who don't have a taxable income.

[Robert Wright]

Well, the tax credit actually makes it a more progressive initiative. It's more targeted to those folks who need the support. So actually the more targeted it is in terms of a fixed pool of money, the more it helps low-income women and low-income families.

I think there are also some initiatives...the tax credit is not offset against other credits from the GST credit and the child tax benefit. So there have been a number of initiatives, again, to help the targeting.

But typically, even though we've had some good news in terms of the relative growth of wages and employment for women, if you do a gender-based analysis of the tax system, you will find that indeed women have lower income than men. So if you have a progressive tax initiative, it's going to impact on women more.

So to the extent that this was a credit, that's going to help women more than men. To the extent, particularly, that we've made some steps in offsetting its impact on other credits, that again helps it towards the bottom end of the income scale, which helps lower-income women.

[Mireille Éthier]

A lot of the non-refundable tax credits are also credits that can be transferred to the spouse; they're based on family income, such as the credit for medical expenses, for example. Some can be transferred between the parents and the children, as in the case of tuition fees. Then again, some others can be carried forward. You can think of the charitable donations credit. So a lot of the credits that are not related, like the base credit or the spouse credit, the other credits, have features that allow either another person to use them if possible or the person to use them later when she or he has income to use them. That's one characteristic of the non-refundable credits.

The other thing that may be interesting to note also is on the working income tax benefit. One of the interesting features of the working income tax benefit is that it's not only a federal initiative. We're working with provinces to make sure this is better integrated not only with the provincial working income equivalent tax benefits, but also with the social programs to ensure that the barriers to entering the workforce..... And they are not necessarily tax barriers, but they can be that a person loses a dollar of welfare, for example, by working. Or it could be that they lose some other access to some free benefits.

So we are working with provinces to make sure there is an integration of the federal working income tax benefit with the social programs and with the child tax benefit as well. So this whole set of programs should hang together much better, and we should see a lot fewer impediments to entering the labour market with initiatives such as that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you, Ms. Mathyssen.

We're now into a five-minute round, with Ms. Neville.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair,

Thank you both for coming today.

I'm having a lot of difficulty following what you're telling us here today. I've just reviewed the notes that you've presented to us, Mr. Wright, and you indicate that you have a central agency role and that departments that sponsor policies are responsible for the gender-based analysis. And then you talk about structural policies, and then you also say further on that it's also the department's view that it's ultimately up to the elected representatives to decide which factors in the end get most importance in the policy decisions. So I'm having a hard time actually determining what advice you give, what your role is, and how you present it.

Let me give you a couple of examples. The Status of Women budget we know was cut. Moneys were subsequently put back in. Did you give advice on the impact this would have as it relates to the ability of women across the country, particularly in rural and northern areas, to access programs? The court challenges program was cut. Did you give advice in terms of the impact this would have in terms of the ability of women--and there are other groups affected by it, but I'm speaking specifically to women--to access their charter rights?

We've had a whole host of them. Literacy programs have been cut. Did you give advice on the impact of it? Your colleague just mentioned the tax credits. We look at the sports tax credit, and that's fine if you have the initial $500 to put out to get the $72 or $77 credit. Do you give advice on the impact of that and what it will mean for families, for women, for single-parent women, and do you also break it down or just aggregate it as it relates to aboriginal women and immigrant women?

I'm just giving you some examples here. Many more could be brought forward.

As I said at the outset, I'm having difficulty understanding what you do as it relates to gender-based analysis.

[Robert Wright]

Thanks for the question.

The import of what we do as public servants is provide advice to the government. My job description is to support the Minister of Finance. The Minister of Finance, when he's putting together a budget, wants to make decisions on an informed basis. He talks to a lot of people in the country, but when he's looking at proposals or some options to put into a budget, he wants his department to do an analysis of it. So we do that analysis. The minister decides what he wants to put into his budget. We don't, but he does it on the basis of our analysis.

This gender-based analysis is a fairly recent initiative in governance, and we are accelerating our application of it. I would say that if you talk to people in Status of Women and elsewhere in government, you'll find we're doing a pretty good job of that. I'm proud of the work we're doing, but we have a long way to go yet.

I'm actually not aware of what happened in the 2006 budget vis-à-vis some of the credits you're talking about, but I can say that on this budget, where it's quantifiable, in particular on the tax side, we did give the minister advice about the impact of tax initiatives and initiatives for the budget on women. It was a gender-based assessment and in some cases a detailed analysis about the overall impact on women. That fed into his choices and his decision of what to put into his budget. And so it was an informed basis.

We also give a broader base of advice on the broader impact on the Canadian community, so obviously in terms of some of the training initiatives and the priorities for aboriginal training, that was flagged.

You referred to the Status of Women. Certainly we gave the minister our assessment that it was very positive. Based on gender-based assessment, you don't have to be a deep thinker to know that's going to help women in terms of the type of programming that's being supported--

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

Cutting back offices will?

[Robert Wright]

The $10 million that we added to their budget in this budget.

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

You took out $5 million in operating dollars.

[Robert Wright]

Their budget was reduced in the fall. It wasn't a budget decision on that. There was a process to weigh up how to go, and I believe my colleague from the Treasury Board mentioned the process that was managed by her ministry to do that. It wasn't a budget initiative, so I have to say no, we didn't provide the analysis leading up to all of those decisions. But in the budget we did.

So our role is to support our minister to make informed choices. We give him advice, and what I'm reporting to this committee, based on what we've been asked on the motion that Ms. Minna put forward, is that we're taking it very seriously. We're making progress and we've got a lot more work to do, but I hope we're getting across that we're taking it very seriously and we feel we can show further leadership in the public service on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Mr. Stanton for five minutes.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to our two guests this afternoon.

Before I put my question, it occurred to me during Ms. Minna's previous questions that there was some discussion with regard to the pension splitting initiative brought forward last fall and then incorporated into the budget implementation in 2007.

But there were a couple of other measures that, apart from pension splitting, go directly to pensioners and seniors, if I could. One was the increase in the pension amount credit from $1,000 to $2,000, which affects everybody who has a pension income. And also the age amount tax credit, which was completely universal for any taxpayer 65 years of age or over, which is an additional $1,000. Those were two measures that, apart from pension splitting at least, speak to that issue of seniors and pensioners in particular.

So to my question. I should say the backdrop for this was our previous meeting on gender-based analysis. The witnesses we had at that time described the progress that had been made with respect to gender-based analysis and how it had begun to become more a part of the culture of decision-making. I wonder if you could, from your experience, speak to how this has progressed and perhaps how it has become part of the cultural best practices within a department, even to the point of becoming in other ways other lenses that we need to look through--that being ethnic diversity and other diversity issues--and how that progress has been made.

If you can each comment on that, or one, I'll leave it to you.

[Robert Wright]

I'll lead off.

I would just say that yes, indeed, the age credit is differentially more helpful to senior women, because there are more of them in that category. There are also other elements of it that are assessed, but stepping back from that, I think what we were asked to come here to report on is a pretty good story.

I checked the transcript of your last meeting. I went through it, and other departments like CIC and Justice have all reported that their best approach to this is making it integral to their overall processes. I agree very much with that.

The big step we took this year was to ensure that virtually every initiative that was even considered for the budget had advice based on a gender-based assessment, with most of it a detailed analysis. That's a big step for us as a department.

We had started on tax. Our colleagues in tax—Mireille and others—have done a great job. It's particularly more detailed and useful, I think, on the personal tax initiatives. It's harder on the business side or more general on the business side, but the fact that we had an assessment for virtually every initiative that was even considered for the budget was a very big step forward. Many of those initiatives, as I think Ms. Minna pointed out, involved other departments, so we've talked to them about that assessment and have worked with them. That is another important step.

We have a lot more work to do. The depth of analysis in other branches is not as strong as it is in our tax policy branch, so I think getting into the budget process with colleagues in other departments is going to help to reinforce the value of this sort of assessment, so that ministers can make the right choices based on an analysis that we share within the government.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Madame Éthier, do you have anything to add to that?

[Mireille Éthier]

What was also important in the exercise on gender-based analysis was raising the profile of it in the department. By having this training, by naming a champion, and by forcing people to think about it, they started to realize that it adds value. In some cases, the reaction was, “Oh, my God, I found this. This is great.” It does raise the awareness, and then people start to talk about it and start to exchange ideas. That is also important, because then the dynamic changes.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Very briefly, you mentioned the champion. In practical terms, could you briefly tell me how the decision-making body that actually undertakes this process is composed? Would the head of GBA for the department be part of that decision-making group? How does that look?

[Robert Wright]

It was decided by the department several years ago to create a champion—in fact, it was before I arrived—and to engage in this process. To generate change in a large organization, you do need a champion. In practical terms, I have an executive committee of nine ADMs and eight general directors who are all senior officials at an EX-4 or EX-5 level. Each one of them is a champion of something, such as a change initiative.

Given that our greatest capacity to make a difference was in the tax policy branch, the general director of the tax policy branch was asked to lead on this. The current champion, who has just joined us, is also actively working in the tax policy branch. Their job is to make sure we broaden that message.

In the coming year, I will probably shuffle my champions and put some enthusiasm and accountability outside of that branch, in order to take further steps. The driver is the whole organization, but someone senior enough to make a difference.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Ms. Demers, you have five minutes.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Wright, knowing that only 33% of women have access to employment insurance, how do you think the head of a single-parent family of six children, as is the case of our colleague on the other side—but here I'm talking about children over six years of age—who is unemployed and has no affordable housing, can benefit from a cut to the goods and services tax? You apparently advised the minister to implement those measures because you thought that was a good idea, but how could those women benefit from that? In Canada, one million children are living in total misery, which means that at least 750,000 parents are also living in total misery. How do you think those people could benefit from the measures you suggest?

Ms. Éthier, parents in Quebec are preparing their income tax returns right now. At least the tradition is to do it before April 30. This year, since the $1,200 amount granted for each child under six years of age is granted on a monthly basis, it won't be too apparent: parents will only have received $600 since July. Their income tax returns shouldn't suffer too much as a result, but next year, once they've received $1,200 per child under six years of age, it won't be the same thing.

Contrary to what you say, this measure isn't harmonized with the Province of Quebec. In Quebec, the income these people report will increase and they will be taxed twice. Why wouldn't we opt for a refundable tax credit, which would really go into the pockets of the parents, among others of those who don't have any money, rather than for an amount that is taxable twice? If your role is to advise the minister on the best measures to take, I'd really like you to explain that to me.

[Robert Wright]

All right. I'll start by answering the first two questions. As regards the GST, the fact that this measure has an impact on all Canadians was important. It's also important in the case you described.

The allowance for GST credit was not reduced at the same time, so support for the lower-income contributor was maintained, which normally would have decreased. That was helpful and it would have shown up.

The other issue, which was an important initiative in this budget, was the introduction of WITB, the working income tax benefit. This is an incentive for those on welfare who wish to go back to work. This chairperson raised this important question earlier: what do you do to provide greater support for people who are choosing those options?

I have to agree that perhaps a single mother with six children would have a very challenging time doing this. But this year we started spending money to give a credit to people who are leaving welfare to get a job, in order to ensure that they're not worse off and to enhance the capacity of the current system.

You talked about our cooperation

with our provincial colleagues. We agreed with them, with a view to improving the situation, that we would examine what we call the WITB together.

So provincial governments have agreed to maintain their level of support on welfare issues, as we provide federal support to incent people to leave.

This is just the start of a process, but in the last 10 years, there has been tremendous support in dramatically reducing poverty among families with children. Now we can focus on enhancing the capacity of people to enter the workforce.

We had a very good start, which was unanimously supported by all provincial governments. We've had letters from Quebec and Ontario saying jointly, let's work on WITB together.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

I'm sorry to say it, Mr. Wright, but you haven't managed to reduce child poverty. I'm willing to believe you're in good faith, but we nevertheless shouldn't delude ourselves: there are one million poor children in Canada.

Instead, we should adopt measures that would enable women to receive employment insurance. We know that only 33% of them are eligible for it. You're not talking about measures that will help people get out of misery, sir. We need real measures such as affordable housing and employment insurance for people who are eligible for it. We pay for employment insurance out of our pockets, but we aren't entitled to it; that's not normal.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Ms. Demers, your time is up.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Pardon me, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

You may speak.