Evidence of meeting #18 for Status of Women in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was departments.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
You were probably sleeping.
On today's meeting, because it was revised as of February 13, we claimed it was cancelled, but we did what we did, and I think it was important that we did it. I think what we need from Status of Women Canada is their analysis, because we need to know about the tools they are using. Because they are the ones who are the lead on gender analysis or gender budgeting, we need to work with them, we need to understand the tools they are using and the gaps that are taking place.
We also need to get the Library of Parliament to help us understand, because that has been a resource assigned to us, to analyze Budget 2008, to see how they perceive the budget from a gender lens. For that I'd like to get the committee's okay to say let's get the Library of Parliament to do that for us as well.
Is the committee in agreement with that?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Good. I see no objection.
The contract person will come.
Ms. Minna, I know we need the contract person, but the liaison committee will ask me, “Have you done A, B, C, D, E? How much money is that person going to charge?” We will get the contract person as soon as we understand....
I still don't think all of us have grappled with the complete picture of what's going on here. Do we all understand the tools that are being used in government? No. Do we understand what we want to give the consultant? No. If we can get the Library of Parliament and the Status of Women...then we can say “that's interesting”. Then we can do some logical analysis of what we need to go forward with.
I think the majority of committee members are not yet there. You may be the only one there, but I think the majority of us are not there. I think this was a suggested, logical move. Once we get it there, then we can contract out if we know what we're doing. We don't even know what those indicators are, so we need to understand a few things. We have to put all our ducks in a row before we go forward.
If we're in agreement, then I'll ask the clerk to ask the Library of Parliament to have the economists do the gender analysis of the budget.
On Thursday, February 28, if you go to your work plan, instead of Dr. Luc Juillet, we have Claire Young, from the University of British Columbia. Then from the central agencies, we have PCO coming on March 4 and March 6, and we also have Treasury Board. Interestingly enough, Jeanne Flemming was promoted so she's no longer with Treasury Board as of Friday, so we're getting a replacement. Whoever the replacement is is going to be good enough to know what you're talking about. Instead of Daniel Ricard, we're getting Mr. Joe Wilde.
Those are the only changes I would like to let the committee know about.
Other than that, on March 13, if we're here, the experts from different universities will be doing an analysis of the budget as well, so we have three different documents to look at and we can logically connect the dots ourselves.
Is it agreeable? Are there any questions?
Yes.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Have both Professor Lahey and Armine Yalnizyan been confirmed for that date?
Liberal
Liberal
The Clerk
Nancy Peckford is to be confirmed. She's out of town, but somebody from her organization is supposed to get back to me.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
If you have any other suggestions for witnesses to do gender-based....
Yes.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
A question of clarification, Madam Chair. The Library of Parliament is going to give us a thing on the budget. I know they need time, so when would that be?
