Status of Women Committee on June 1st, 2006

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

The second, on matrimonial property rights of aboriginal women, is:

That the proposed budget for the study on matrimonial property rights of aboriginal women in the amount of $34,400, for the period of May 29, 2006, to December 29, 2006, be adopted.

Moved by Ms. Smith.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

And the third, on the economic security for women, is:

That the proposed budget for the study on economic security for women in the amount of $32,000, for the period of May 29, 2006 to December 29, 2006, be adopted.

Moved by Ms. Ratansi.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Madam Bourgeois, do you have a question?

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

I would like to clarify a point relating to a previous committee meeting. Once you have finished, Madam Chair, I would like to ask you a question on that, if I may.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Okay. We've completed our work on the budgets and so on. Go ahead, Ms. Bourgeois, you can make your point now.

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

Madam Chair, I read the minutes of our May 11 meeting. I believe that we had all agreed, since Mr. Cotler was here, to once again table last year's committee reports. We had even considered re-adopting them.

Has anything been done?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Yes, they've been tabled in the House. All three of them were tabled in the House, I believe on May 18.

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

Does that mean that we won't be able to recover them, or re-read them? We had produced reports but the government had not yet responded to some of them, including the last one.

We will have to read what was said on May 11. I think it was an oversight. We didn't simply want to table them so that the current government could respond and see if it would act on them, but we also wanted to check the progress of our committee.

We have a procedural problem. I think that from now on, our intentions should be worded in straightforward, clear motions and, in my opinion, in view of what I have read in the minutes, we must do more than simply table the reports. That is all well and good, but then what happens to them? Nobody has taken them on, nobody has discussed them here.

A women's group asked me where we were heading and pointed out that the motion was lacking in substance. I had to agree.

I will leave this in your hands, since I don't know what can be done. What it comes down to is a technical irregularity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I think that as a committee I agree with what you're saying. We want to know that we're moving forward on those issues and not just tabling them. I think it's imperative that we hear from the minister and from the government. We have to give them the time that they require, and they have 120 days to respond back. I think it's important for us to get that response and then have that kind of a discussion on those issues to see where we can move along with the government in doing our jobs.

With the 120 days we should have a report by the time we come back in September. We may get a response earlier than that, and of course through the summer we will do our best to make sure that any responses are circulated to the committee members, but they do have 120 days to respond. In fairness, for us not to redo things, it is my suggestion that we should get that response, and then we would move forward on it, given the fact that we have a fair amount of issues that we want to cover off between now and the next couple of weeks as well.

Ms. Minna, to that issue.

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

Yes, Madam Chair, I understand the frustration. However, possibly for those of us who weren't on the committee last time but have read the reports, when the minister comes in front of us we certainly can use the reports as a basis for questioning in addition to any other directions as to what, if anything, the minister herself and the various departments are now doing to get ready to respond.

While I understand the government has 120 days, I presume they have read the reports even before they were elected and currently the minister may already have some plans. We should probably take that opportunity to find out. After that we can see where we go.

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

Madam Chair, I'd like to add that I am not the one who is frustrated, it is the women's groups, particularly one group who told me that some excellent work had been done, that they had appeared before the committee but had received no response. It has been more than 120 days since the reports were tabled. Now, as a courtesy to them, we have tabled a new report: we have to wait another 120 days. I'm not familiar with how it works.

We need to know what is important to us, as committee members. Depending on the nature of the response, and whether or not the government is interested, what does the committee intend to do? Must we ensure that the report is brought forward and implemented? I don't know the answer and I don't know what to tell these people.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

May I suggest, since you're raising it—and it's very important because I think we need to make sure we have enough time ourselves to be able to respond back to whatever the government says and whatever additional work we need to do on those issues—that as we're moving forward with our September schedule we will allocate a specific meeting. I expect we will get that answer over the summer and maybe one of the first meetings we have will be to deal with the response from the government and move that along. We'll make sure to allocate some time on that issue if that's okay.

On the calendar you have in front of you, on our meetings next week, we've had great difficulty. The logistics of trying to coordinate a meeting together with the aboriginal committee or the justice committee is very difficult. Knowing our own schedules, one of the suggestions might be that we ask the chair of the aboriginal committee as well as the chair of the justice committee and some of the departmental people to come before us, which would be an easier thing to coordinate on those two issues.

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

Perhaps we could had a three-way meeting that makes sense and we could just get on with it. I have no problem with that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Sure. What we've got planned for next week is the matrimonial real property rights on June 6, and we've asked the Native Womens' Association of Canada to come before us and the Assembly of First Nations. INAC is meeting with the minister and was unable to come before us at that particular time. That would give us a good briefing on the matrimonial property rights issue.

On Thursday would be the economic security of senior women, and we are waiting for HRSD to come. As we move forward to June 13, again would be the economic security of senior women. If we have an opportunity to have the individuals from the YWCA report on a turning point for women, as well, before the end of June, we would try to fit them in as well. We will try to continue to have people before us who will address the issues that we are most interested in as we move forward.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Madam Chair, will we be hearing from someone from the justice department or from the justice committee before June 22? Things do not look very promising.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We were going to ask that at the June 20 meeting, if not before, we have the chair of the justice committee and some departmental officials come before us, if that is satisfactory. I'm trying to move forward. We still very much want the meeting with the minister.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

I think we should meet with them before the fall, because we have a great deal of work to do on violence against women, human trafficking, etc.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Exactly, that's agreed.

I think part of what we need to be looking at is what do we want to accomplish with those meetings?

If we can get the chair of the aboriginal committee to come before us and some officials, I think we know where we're going with that, because we don't want to redo that work, but we want to embrace it and do a little bit of our own work with it.

On justice issues, these are very much tied into the role of the justice department in addressing violence against women. We just need to narrow what kinds of questions we are going to ask the departmental officials.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

What do you mean?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

When we have the departmental officials from the justice department, specifically, what were the issues we wanted them to focus on or that we were going to be asking them about, so that they can come fully prepared for that meeting?

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Yes, of course. Would you like us to do that now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I think you've indicated that we know where we're going with it. I think you've been clear as well.

As well, next Tuesday we will be considering the draft report on Ms. Mourani's motion. We'll have something ready for Tuesday for consideration by the committee as well.

We had a request here on a budget issue. Okay, we are fine with that. All right.

I see we're at 11 o'clock. Thank you all very much.

I move that the committee be adjourned.