Status of Women Committee on May 1st, 2007

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

I see.

And in Canada, how much...?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

That's it.

Madame Demers, pour cinq minutes.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for joining us, Ms. Maund.

I am rather annoyed. I don't know where, as a society and as human beings, we got off on the wrong track. We now have a third generation of people living on social assistance. It is more lucrative for people to stay home than it is for them to go to work. The only employment available is either part-time or unstable. Everyone who works contributes to EI, but when layoffs occur, people aren't eligible for benefits.

So a woman with children is better off saying home and living on social assistance than finding fulfilment by working. It makes no sense. I imagine you have given some thought to ways that we could work together to reduce child poverty, of course, but we must also help the parent.

In your report, you state that little progress has been made to eliminate child poverty. Nevertheless, a number of positives or strengths are listed, including a strong financial position to make needed investments—a projected federal surplus of over $13.2 billion for 2005-06. The surplus was actually greater than that. Also, other provinces have already committed to provincial poverty reduction strategies. As for the weaknesses, you state that there is insufficient political will and leadership to establish a plan with targets and timetables, federal-provincial inter-jurisdictional issues can complicate implementation, and competing/shifting political priorities compromise progress.

Your group has been around for 18 years now. I am sure that you have given some thought to implementing a strategy and timetables that are almost achievable, because, as legislators, we don't seem to be clever enough to do it ourselves. It is a hot topic one year, and completely forgotten the next. This is something that must be addressed on a ongoing basis, rather than sporadically.

Can you provide us with a plan that we could then bring forward? In view of what Irene and Mr. Pearson have said, and what they have done elsewhere, I think we could benefit from your expertise in order to help our children find a way out of this misery that should not be occurring in 2007.

[Jacquie Maund]

I'm sounding repetitive, but I guess I would just refer again to the success that other countries, Ireland and the United Kingdom, are having by setting out a plan, as you say, and not just a one-year proposal, but a long-term plan that is monitored, that is tracked.

In the United Kingdom they did not have a minimum wage, but they decided to set one as part of their child poverty reduction plan. They set up what's called the U.K. Low Pay Commission and they established a minimum wage, and it was the key part of their strategy to reduce poverty. Because they were tracking poverty and it wasn't going down as fast as they wanted, they realized they had to raise their minimum wage in order to achieve their poverty reduction targets. It's that kind of rigour that I think is required in order to achieve success.

In Newfoundland, I'm told that there is a minister who's responsible for implementing their poverty reduction strategy and then there are ministers in the other key ministries. They meet on a regular basis, this across-cabinet committee. So all of their programs are aligned in terms of continuing to monitor to achieve their strategy so that it's not just one part of the government that's responsible, it's a concerted package.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Do you think the government should legislate to prevent companies from laying off employees in order to improve their bottom line? In the past, when a company felt that it wasn't making enough money, it would lay off some of its employees. Today, people are being laid off when the company doesn't generate enough dividends for its shareholders. That type of thing should not be allowed. Do you think that the government should legislate to prevent that type of thing from happening?

[Jacquie Maund]

It has not been a policy that we've advocated. We're looking more at the big picture in terms of what is happening to the changing workforce and what protections can be put in place for precarious workers, which is a big discussion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Madame Demers, she's not an economist. Let's be kind to her.

It's okay. You were seeking an opinion.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

We'll go to Ms. Mathyssen for five minutes, and then I'll give Ms. Minna one minute.

She had some suggestions for you, Ms. Davidson. She had information for you.

Ms. Mathyssen.

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

Thank you very much.

Do we need proactive pay equity legislation in this country?

[Jacquie Maund]

I can give my personal opinion, but—

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

Yes, that would be wonderful.

[Jacquie Maund]

I would say yes, but Campaign 2000 has not taken a specific position on that issue. As a representative of Campaign 2000, I can only really speak to issues that we've written on and stated.

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

Okay, but obviously you've done some thinking. Would it address some of the issues we've talked about in terms of women's poverty?

[Jacquie Maund]

The findings are that women earn—if you look at comparable jobs in terms of education—74% of what men are earning. So pay equity might be one way to address that.

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

You made reference to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. It's interesting that in their article they talked about the 2004 earnings of the richest 10% of Canadians being now 82 times those of the poorest 10%, and that is nearly three times as much as it was in 1976. So we have these horrific statistics and we look at them.

Have you given much thought to the prosperity gap as a result of systemic discrimination, the root causes of this? Where does it come from? Why are women in particular so behind the eight ball?

[Jacquie Maund]

I can't specifically address that, just because our work focuses more on child and family poverty, but you'll see in the report card that we do have some information on inequality in terms of how the poorest 10% of families are doing versus the richest 10%, and that is also captured in the Growing Gap, Growing Concerns report.

Just going back to this issue of the cost, there are numerous sociological studies that look at that. If you have growing inequality in a society during a time of great economic boom, which is what we have, and if you have numbers.... These are true numbers from the last census: 47% of all new-immigrant children, children in families who have arrived in the past five years, live in poverty, and you'll see in the report card aboriginal poverty numbers. So with poverty numbers are disproportionately high among certain sectors of our society, there is a great risk at some point for social instability. A very vivid example of that, not to sound too extreme, is the race riots that were seen in Paris a couple of years ago, where new immigrants were obviously being very socially excluded and marginalized, and it erupts.

So again, if we're talking about costs and we're talking about investment, these are investments that need to be made in order to make a difference.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

You have two minutes.

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

We've been talking a great deal about the connection between economic disparity and some of the violence that we see in our communities. Has Campaign 2000 looked at all at the connection between women's poverty and the violence that many of them face, the violence they're subjected to or are vulnerable to?

[Jacquie Maund]

I can only speak anecdotally in terms of a number of the women we work with who are on social assistance, who are in that situation because they've left abusive relationships. They left because it was safer for their children to get out of that relationship than to continue. Actually, they're in a situation where they're living in poverty because they left an abusive relationship and that's what they decided was better for their family.

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

The lack of affordable housing, child care, and the support systems that are so desperately needed condemned them to stay either in poverty or in a situation of abuse.

[Jacquie Maund]

That's right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Do you have one more quick one?

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

Yes, very quickly, I wondered if you've had a chance to look at Bill C-303, the Early Learning and Child Care Act, which Olivia Chow and Denise Savoie put forward. One of the things about it is that it makes a child care system empowered by legislation. It is secured in legislation. I wonder if you could comment on that.

[Jacquie Maund]

We feel that legislation establishing a national child care system is an important part of what we are proposing. The programs flow from the legislation, and the legislation establishes the principles.