Status of Women Committee on June 1st, 2006

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank you for coming in and presenting today. I commend you on your work on these important issues.

I have some interest in the theme around accountability, which you spoke about. I recognize that this is one of the overriding themes, I guess, for the work you see in front of you. I wonder if you could expand a little bit on what types of groups, for example, you would work with to intervene and/or make suggestions and/or provide some guidance on what kind of accountability mechanisms they should be employing. Given that there is gender-based analysis available, for example, what steps would you then take to put those kinds of mechanisms in place? I'd be particularly interested to know where and how you would work--perhaps through INAC, especially within aboriginal communities--on those kinds of systems.

If you could expand on that theme, that would be of some interest to me.

[Florence Ievers]

As I mentioned earlier, it's clear that a number of countries around the world have committed to gender equality. Canada is one of those countries. We are lucky in that equality is enshrined in our Constitution, we have the Canadian Human Rights Act, and we have other legislation that helps us in that regard. What we've realized, though, over the last number of years is that even though we have those commitments, and even though progress is being made, there is not enough accountability built into the government. I'm talking about the federal government because this is what I do, but I would say that provinces would say the same thing about the work they do.

We have benefited, on the question of accountability, from consultations we held in the late summer and fall of 2005. We consulted almost 3,000 people in six regional consultations, one national consultation, and an electronic consultation where not only women's groups and equality-seeking organizations but also men and women, interested Canadians, gave us their views. Accountability was one of the issues they mentioned.

The work of the standing committee was key in flagging to us that there is a need for more accountability. When Canada reported to the United Nations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the question of accountability and the lack thereof within the federal system was highlighted, as was the need to have not only more accountability within government as a whole with regard to gender equality but also with regard to accountability regarding gender-based analysis.

Also, after the report of the standing committee, we set up an expert panel to look at the questions of accountability and what kind of mechanisms could be or should be brought in, in order to enable the government to be more accountable. You'll see when you look at the conclusions and the recommendations of that committee, which were tabled in the House last fall, a number of suggestions. One interesting suggestion is that the Treasury Board and the government look at management accountability frameworks. We don't want to blanket the government and try to do it all at once, because that would never work, but we've started our work with central agencies, and they are going to use their challenge functions with departments and others as policies come to the fore, slowly but surely, in order to be able to build that accountability. We believe that with the help of Treasury Board in that challenge function, using gradually the management accountability frameworks of departments, sometimes with one policy, sometimes with all of their policies, we will build part of that accountability.

So that's one kind of mechanism. We are also developing, with Statistics Canada, a set of indicators and benchmarks that will help us measure progress, identify issues, identify gaps, and identify emerging issues and trends in order to be able to help confirm the focus at times, that the focus is right, or to at other times say, “You should perhaps shift to this.” For example, the previous member's question talked about older women who are leaving their jobs. This is a new phenomenon, and that's the type of thing that maybe in a year or two we should be looking at more.

Those are the kinds of things we want to do in order to build more accountability, and not just for Status of Women. Within Status of Women, given what I'm telling you about developing indicators, looking at more accountability for gender-based analysis, looking at using the management accountability frameworks, we are in the process of reorganizing and looking at ourselves to see if we are best equipped in order to be able to meet those challenges with the government.

In a nutshell, that's where we're going on accountability.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you very much. That was an excellent answer, I must say. I recognize that it's a work in progress and that you still have much work to do there, but that does give me a better sense of where you're going in that regard.

You mentioned Sisters in Spirit, and that you have additional dollars for that. In terms of working with INAC, recognizing that when you're dealing specifically with aboriginal cultures there are some different dynamics you need to work with, I wonder if you could talk just briefly about how your work so far is playing out and what progress you're making in that regard.

[Florence Ievers]

We have a good working relationship with INAC, and we partner on some things. INAC has equipped itself with a good gender unit and does a lot of work to bring the gender perspective and women's equality to their work. We have at times worked as a network builder, for example, on Sisters in Spirit. It's an initiative that really involves INAC with Status of Women and a number of other departments in order to bring the full realm of interests to bear on this initiative. Status of Women Canada, because our role is to coordinate policy with regard to equality, was tasked to coordinate this initiative. We are doing it with INAC.

Earlier this spring, INAC had a conference on research and aboriginal peoples and how to develop better research. This is the second time this kind of event was hosted by INAC. We're a solid partner with them. Within that conference we had a special workshop that looked specifically at gender issues, and at how aboriginal women and men can better equip themselves to provide the research that is required for us to gain a better understanding of their issues.

We also had our policy conference, the FPT, and INAC again was part of that. I talked about the work we do on matrimonial property, and there are a number of other issues that we deal with.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Bourgeois, go ahead, please.

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

Good morning ladies. I am pleased to see you here this morning.

Ms. Ievers, I am happy that Status of Women Canada is concerned about aboriginal women who have gone missing. I believe that this issue is related to that of the Mexican women of Ciudad Juárez. I believe that you sit on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In my opinion, Canada should act on these two files because it has not yet signed the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights' agreement, but I won't go any further on that.

Congratulations on your appointment. I believe you are the chair?

[Florence Ievers]

I am the coordinator, or coordonnatrice, a feminine title in French.

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

I believe your appointment is quite recent. You have been in the position since last year, is that correct?

I have a number of questions for you.

To continue along the same lines as my colleague, my first question will deal with the Women's Program. Are any groups excluded from the program? What are the selection criteria? What percentage of the money allocated to women's groups goes to Quebec, compared to the rest of Canada?

For some time now, Status of Women Canada has been working on gender-based analysis. You have a great deal of expertise. I would like to know how things are working out in practice. When a bill or government measure is tabled, do you immediately begin to examine how the bill will affect women? Can you apply gender-based analysis to a new program or bill?

My last question deals with employment insurance benefits. Have you looked at the eligibility rates that penalize part-time female workers and women working in a family business? A large number of immigrant women work for their husband and are not eligible for employment insurance benefits.

[Florence Ievers]

I will ask Jackie and then Hélène to answer the first two questions.

[Jackie Claxton]

Thank you for your questions. I will begin with the exclusion of some groups from the Womens' Program.

Our guidelines are positive—we will provide committee members with a copy—because they list which groups are eligible as opposed to stating which ones are not. Eligible groups include women's groups and others that promote gender equality or women's equality, or even volunteer groups. We only fund volunteer groups, and not individuals. Nor do we provide funding to universities or to provinces. Because of the funding that is available to us, we have targeted mainly women's groups and other related groups.

We have no set definition of equality as it applies to women. We refer mainly to the Beijing platform for action and to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We deal with a wide range of groups, including older women, disabled women or aboriginal women. Each group has its own vision. We believe that it is important to identify the issues that relate to equality and that prevent these women from fully participating in Canadian society, be it from an economic, social, political, legal or other standpoint. That is my answer with respect to the groups that are excluded.

As to the selection process, you will find our objectives in the guidelines. We have three funding streams: the economy, social justice, and violence. There are many issues affecting women, but we have identified the above-mentioned three, which we feel are broad enough to support a large number of groups. We look at the group's objectives, the relevance of the issue and the group itself. Who are the members, is it democratic, are the issues that it espouses relevant to the community? That is where the guidelines become useful.

I will now deal with your question on the share of the Women's Program budget that is allocated to Quebec groups. As a follow-up to Ms. Ivers' comments, our budget is about $10 million. Close to 30% of the budget goes to support Canada-wide initiatives, and the rest goes to the provinces. Quebec receives $1.5 million and Ontario gets $1.8 million.

We can't give you any more details. I don't have the exact percentage, but a formula was devised to ensure that the budget would be allocated according to objective criteria.

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

Could you provide us with those documents? Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Yes, please. I think it's important that we get the responses.

[Hélène Dwyer-Renaud]

You compare the role of Status of Women Canada to that of a department. In the past, we have noted that if we waited for the documents to work their way through the entire process before they reached Status of Women Canada, it was quite unlikely that gender be included in the drafting of a bill, a program or a policy. That is why we are stressing capability. We want the departments to consider all of the consequences and include gender as they begin to develop a policy.

The training that we provide deals with every stage in the development of a regular policy, while including the concept of gender throughout the entire process. We explain to the departments how to itemize the data, to undertake a consultation and develop options. We try to give them the tools that will ensure that the data are included in the proposal as it is approved. That does not mean that Status of Women Canada does not have an important role to play within the departments, but it is almost impossible for us to cover all of the initiatives that are developed.

That said, it is at this point that accountability comes into play. This is also when we work in conjunction with the central agencies so that they might have a greater role and ask the departments to provide the data that had been requested from the outset and the impact this will have on women.

In answer to an earlier question, there are already various accountability mechanisms. The departments must target their initiatives and, for a given year, they must track gender and the accountability framework in their report on planning and priorities. There are tools for accountability within the public service, to ensure that public servants produce quality analyses and take into account the impact of their policies and programs on various social groups. That is what we are doing with the central agencies, and, eventually, that is what we will do with all government departments.

I will not deal with employment insurance. However, when we last appeared before the previous committee, we provided training on comparative analysis. The committee worked in conjunction with one of our trainers to draft a very popular policy. If the committee would like a half-day of training on gender-based analysis, we would be happy to do it again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Mathyssen.

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

I'm quite interested in the gender equality consultation process and the themes that emerged from it. According to the document, 34% of the respondents were professionals working in organizations on gender equality, or members of NGOs--women's organizations.

What efforts were made to ensure that the online consultation reached a representative sample of Canadian men and women? How did the responses of those actively involved in gender equality activities through memberships and groups differ from other respondents? Were the responses different from region to region? Did you find variation in terms of the various regions?

I'm wondering specifically about Quebec. I know, for example, that in Quebec they have a universal regulated child care system. Were issues around child care different in Quebec than in other regions where we have nothing?

[Nanci-Jean Waugh, Director General, Governance and Communications Directorate, Status of Women Canada]

Perhaps I could just answer that question. The on-line questionnaire, the electronic consultation, was a first for us. What we wanted to do was to try to reach out to a greater number of Canadians than we had been able to in the past, and also in terms of that, we could through in-person consultations. So that was a first.

It was by no means a scientific survey, and I think that's important to put down. It's not of the Statistics Canada variety in terms of where we could say that out of 2,000 people, this was a representative sample in terms of women, men, age groups, the diversity of Canadians throughout.

Through the Government of Canada website it was advertised as one of the new initiatives of the government during the period of time it was up last fall.

We had between 2,600 and 3,000 responses, which we considered actually a very good first start in terms of finding out what people were thinking. When you get into a little more of the detail as to the themes, we weren't able to, as I would say, peel the onion in terms of more detail in the differences from one region to the other.

We did certainly find a correlation of the key themes. Obviously, poverty was identified. The issues of aboriginal women were strongly identified and then underneath those, for example, under poverty...older women, women with disabilities....

One of the things we did that was a little unique was to try to reach out. One of our staff was in the north at a conference on aboriginal women's issues, and because some of the participants in the north were unfamiliar with using the technology, this person made herself available for a number of hours or days to sit down with the respondents to help them in terms of navigating the technology. That was also done in some cases in each of the regions of the country.

It's certainly something we experimented with. It was a good experiment and we would like to try to do it again.

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

I was going to ask, in terms of a tool there was obviously a learning process, and I'm sure you discovered many things that you would do differently, how you would hone this to make it work.

[Nanci-Jean Waugh]

I say the most important thing is that it was not scientific, but the correlation was very strong in terms of our in-person consultations. And it is a good way to talk to individual Canadians, recognizing that there are a number of people who don't have access to the technology.

Also, I should mention on that, we also made it available via paper to poverty groups, for example. Women's organizations and poverty groups did use it and transmit it through their own organizations and vehicles. So we did try to do both.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I'm sorry, Ms. Mathyssen, your time is up.

Ms. Davidson.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

First of all, thanks very much for your presentations this morning. They have certainly been very interesting and enlightening.

Ms. Ievers, one of the things you said during your presentation that I found to be an extremely good statement was that gender equality is everyone's business. I sometimes think we do ourselves and the Status of Women a disservice by having this committee, actually. We do great work, and this committee is very important, but I think we make it easier for other areas to say they don't need to be involved, and they don't need to carry forth with so much of the equality issues because they're being looked after here.

Perhaps if more emphasis were put on having to handle equality at every step and stage in every committee as it goes along, it might get more attention than it does--and rightly so. It needs to have more attention than it's getting. So that's my first comment, and I don't know if you want to respond to that.

Secondly, I was extremely interested in Ms. Mathyssen's questions about the consultation process. In the different areas that I've been involved in over the years, I've found that consultation is one of the most difficult areas in which to get the correct and most meaningful information. I've often found that those who respond in the consultative process are the ones we're least looking for to respond. We always get responses from a certain segment of society, but to get the responses from those we want to help the most and get the message to the most is sometimes the most challenging.

I was very interested to hear what you had to say regarding the online survey and how it went much further than we would be led to believe in reading about it. So I think that part of it's good.

I'm not sure that I caught the answer--and maybe the question wasn't actually asked--about the different type of response you got from those who were professionals working on gender equality, as opposed to those who were non-organizational or non-governmental. Maybe you could respond a bit more to that, please.

[Florence Ievers]

I want to touch on the first point you made. I think it's extremely important, and I repeated it twice in my remarks because it's so important. It is the business of everyone, and for the longest time people thought it was just the business of Status of Women Canada.

We were very pleased when we saw that Parliament had decided to have a committee on the status of women, and we are pleased that this Parliament has decided to continue the work you have done--and I think Hélène and others have touched on it--to ensure that key players in the federal government are now paying more attention to equality for women and men. I'm talking about the central agencies, so that's very key.

When I talk about accountability, it's accountability for all of the government. As you say, there is often a risk when issues are dealt with in one area--for example, on your committee--that they are excluded from all the work of all other committees. We have for many years encouraged parliamentarians to ask questions about gender equality in all of the committees.

The question was asked as to whether we are doing gender-based analyses on every policy and legislation that the government does. Obviously we cannot, but good questions put at those committees will go a long way toward making sure that happens.

You also have departments appear before this committee--not only the usual list of suspects like Status Women and others, but Finance and other departments--to explain the work they do, the challenges they encounter, and how they can improve to make sure the results on equality are what you, as parliamentarians and as the Government of Canada, want to have happen. I think there is an important role that your committee can play, and it's far from ghettoizing the issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I would like to thank our witnesses very much.

I think it has been very helpful to all of us to have you come this morning and give us an idea of some of the research that you're doing and the ongoing work of the Status of Women as well.

You referred to several reports. Could you please ensure that we will get them, including the policy research that you're doing on the timelines, the list of the programs funded through Status of Women, the information on matrimonial property, the research on unpaid work and on seniors and unpaid work, and the table of the breakdown of funding through the women's program? If you could supply those to the committee, it would be helpful.

Committee members, the other reports that were referred to, regarding matrimonial rights, are being delivered to your office. They should be in your office when you go back, to prepare us for next week.

Thank you very much to the witnesses. We appreciate your coming and your continuing to work with us as we move the agenda forward.

[Florence Ievers]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

We really appreciate the opportunity to dialogue with you and your committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We expect to see a lot of you.

I will suspend for a moment while the witnesses leave.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We can call our meeting back to order.

Thank you, again.

We have a variety of things to deal with. I would like to acknowledge a couple of representatives from the YWCA who have now joined us, and who will hopefully be presenting to us later on, before the break.

I want to congratulate them because they just announced a report they had been working on, A Turning Point for Women. We'll hear more about that throughout the day, I'm sure. I hope the media will give us some coverage on that.

I'm glad to see that you had a few minutes to come back and sit in on our meetings.

All of you will also receive a report that they've released this morning, so we'll have lots of information as we move forward.

The first order of business that we need to discuss is the motion by Ms. Mourani. It's very much a technical issue that arose from the tabling of the previous reports that we had concurred in.

Ms. Mourani, would you like to address the reason you have the motion before us?