Status of Women Committee on May 8th, 2007

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I would like to know whether the cutbacks at Status of Women Canada and the changes made in the Women's Program, for example, have been harmful to the equality of women. My question is to Ms. Oliver.

[John Staple]

I'll have Noreen speak to that.

[Noreen O'Haire]

I think in general the cuts to the status of women and literacy programs have affected women, not so much women who are teachers but women in general, women who perhaps lack the connections to be able to improve their lot, to improve their education.

I don't suspect that those cuts have really had a detrimental effect for women teachers, but certainly for the parents of the kids women teach and are concerned about, many of our people are really advocates. They are people who perhaps don't have some of the advantages teachers do have, and the teachers are really cognizant of the fact that this is an important part of the social fabric. It needs constant care and attention.

[John Staple]

Canada ranks 38th in the world in terms of the wage gap ratio between men and women. As long as that exists, then there is a very strong requirement for funding of those programs.

[Sheri Oliver]

Primarily for nurses, health care issues really are affected by child care and access and availability of education. In terms of any disparity between wages for male and female nurses, there really isn't that much work in terms of what disparity there is; however, we do know that 95% of nurses are greatly affected by access to education and to other opportunities, primarily child care.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I am from Quebec. I am sure you have heard about the child care system we developed there. When I was a trustee on a school board, we set up child care services in schools in order to provide teachers with easier access to the service and to help them continue working.

In Quebec, the child care system is designed not only to have children looked after by a caregiver, but also to provide a stimulating, responsible environment. It is possible to determine at an early age whether children need additional services. I do not know whether you have heard about the child care services in Quebec. Could this type of system apply throughout Canada?

[Sheri Oliver]

I actually have heard comments from different colleagues about the system in Quebec, and we've heard nothing but raves, positive things. I think certainly that it's an area that could be very well investigated, and principles of that could probably be adopted elsewhere.

[Noreen O'Haire]

We would echo that as well. When we did some research on this, the Quebec system was far superior.

I think it was one of the reasons the Canadian Council on Learning put their early childhood centre there. When they decided where to put it, it was founded in Quebec for that reason, because there were so many good programs that could then be rolled out across Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

We will now go to Mr. Stanton and Ms. Smith, for seven minutes.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm going to defer to Monsieur Harvey to start. If he has some time left, I'll pick it up from there.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

I didn't think we would get to the questions so quickly.

Ms. O'Haire, you said earlier that the Women's Program may not have had a negative impact on your clients, but that it may have had a negative impact on parents.

As a result of the changes made at Status of Women Canada, the number of employees has been reduced from 131 to 71. This freed up $5 million for investment in front-line services, that is services to parents and to women.

How can you say that this may have a negative impact on the parents of the children you teach? Did you understand my question correctly?

[Noreen O'Haire]

I was making the comparison that it wasn't a direct loss to women who are teachers. But we heard from many of our constituencies and many of our teachers that they've noticed the loss of programs in the communities in which they work.

I know there was a movement to transfer some of the money in more direct programs to child care work and other kinds of direct benefits. We spoke with a couple of people last week who talked about some of the programs that were done. Although those programs, the direct service programs, were greatly appreciated by the people in those communities, we find the network of support for people is still missing.

Sometimes when a program already existed, the money has made the program stronger. But in areas where no programs existed, the loss of the Status of Women organization meant a loss of the ability to write briefs, to investigate things, or to find some support networks. Those were the losses that are being reported to us.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

In any case, this additional $5 million is reserved for women's programs. I fail to see how this could result in a reduction in services for Canadian women, whether they live in Ontario, Quebec or elsewhere.

I have another question. I am sure you have heard about the universal child benefit, where $100 is paid to parents with children six and under in Canada. As the father of four children, I have paid particular attention to this issue, based on my personal experience. I realized that the $205 million given to Quebec under the previous agreement amounted to approximately $1,200 per child for 200,000 children. That means that the 200,000 children in Quebec's child care system were getting about $1,200 a year. Since over 500,000 children are getting $1,200 a year, that is $100 a month, why do you think this is a step backward compared to the previous program?

In terms of child care costs, at the moment, there is 2.5 times more money available than under the previous program. We should not forget that mothers generally decide to stay home with their children from the time of their birth until they are one year old. Under the previous program, these mothers got no financial assistance at all, while under the current program, they get $1,200 a year. So I do not see what basis you have for saying that this is a step backward compared to the previous program. Can you explain that to me?

[John Staple]

Let me offer a comment that reflects how I feel personally about it, and reflects the way I hope our organization looks at it and deals with it from a conceptual perspective.

I come from the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and I guess I'm a naturalized Canadian because I was born before Confederation. I remember the basis on which that Confederation deal was made. I remember a province whose families for many years eked out very sparse livings from the resources they had available. They came to rely on what they lovingly called “the baby bonus”. It was a significant part of the family income, and I think that's abysmal. To me, the child credit is going back to those days.

My daughter is not one who earns a lot. What she needs is child care—a space and appropriate programs for child care. She does not need to rely upon additional income in the form of a baby bonus. That is the biggest conceptual social drawback to the program.

[Sheri Oliver]

A key thing you mentioned was women at home. Not very many women are at home. If you look around the table here, women are in the greater majority.

I feel compelled to tell you a personal story. A family member was called by the babysitter organization to pick up his child because he had chicken pox. The dad was penalized by his boss because his wife could have picked up the ball and taken care of the child.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Ms. Mathyssen is next for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair;

And thank you for being here. Your information is truly very appreciated.

I want to start with Mr. Staple and Ms. O'Haire. It's interesting that we've heard about this $5 million that's supposed to be floating out there and be accessible. I've been talking to various groups who are desperately trying to access it, and they can't find it. It doesn't seem to have any criteria attached to it. Even the bureaucrats have no idea about access or implementation. So I guess time will tell whether it actually materializes.

I was very interested in what was presented in the brief, “Investing in the Future”. This is excellent. You cover a number of important topics. But I want to get back to Status of Women Canada.

It says here, “We believe that funding must continue to be available for advocacy and research specific to women's issues.” That's a very forceful statement. Why is it so important that the research and the advocacy be there, particularly in regard to women's economic security?

[John Staple]

I think the facts speak fairly loudly about the circumstances surrounding issues related to economic security for women in this country. Admittedly we've come a long way, but there's much more to be done.

If you cut off the root and the ability of people to say what they think, to research what they believe to be the case, and to provide appropriate evidence on the issues they're attempting to address, then I think you're saying, we don't want to listen to the problems they have; we'll simply do what we want, but don't tell us anything new. That's the feeling I get. It's like I'm standing in front of a class of children trying to get them to think for themselves, but I don't want to hear what they're thinking. It's that kind of approach that we have considerable difficulty with.

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

It has been a while, but do you have any idea how much it costs for regulated, safe child care that does have the all-important educational component? I come from a teaching background, and I believe absolutely in early childhood development and the need for that. Have you any idea of how much it costs on a weekly basis?

[Sheri Oliver]

I haven't actually accessed child care for a few years now, but when I was, it was approximately $300 a week, and that was with a subsidy.

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

So $100 a month is not going to cut it.

[Sheri Oliver]

No, ma'am.

[John Staple]

That doesn't even cover babysitting circumstances.

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

And certainly babysitting, as valuable as it may be, does not have that important component that addresses the needs of a child when they're at that very important age, that zero to six. Thank you very much.

I wanted to ask Ms. Oliver—and by the way, happy National Nursing Week.

I was looking through some material, and it talks about the 300,000 hours of overtime every week that nurses put in and how that equates to 10,000 full-time positions, and yet across the country only 46.5% of nurses work in full-time positions. It seems to me that has a profound and negative impact on that balance that women are trying to achieve in terms of their family life and work. Because we're going to be making recommendations to the federal government, what do we need to do as a federal government to help nurses achieve a better balance, to get over what is very clearly a difficult kind of reality?

[Sheri Oliver]

I think it needs to be heavily ingrained into the culture of our health care system that there must be flexibility. I'm here today with you, a single mother of an 11-year-old boy. I need to be able to put my son into school, come here, and then go home. I still need to be able to find someone responsible enough to be able to look after him. I'm a lucky nurse. I don't have to work from 7:30 until 11:30, or from 11:30 until 7:30, and not have child care.

There needs to be flexibility within the system, whereby employers such as mine allow individuals to be able to find work-life balance.