Evidence of meeting #19 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 budget.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
I appreciate it. I look forward to getting a copy.
I don't have too much time, Professor Good, but I wonder if you could comment. There has been some discussion about the notion of gender-based analysis achieving equality of outcomes as opposed to equality of access or opportunity. When one sets out—and I know this is big picture or grand scale—could you comment on the key objectives of what GBA should be? What is it really striving to achieve?
Professor, School of Public Administration, University of Victoria
Certainly in the end we're all looking at equality of outcome and equality of result, but to get there we have to look at equality of opportunity. What gender-based analysis is really fundamentally doing is elevating the level of informed debate about these issues. I think it needs to be done publicly and privately. I think it needs to be done within society, within government, and across organizations. It's through the interaction across these things that we'll have better informed debates on these issues than we will if we do it just internally and quietly. We can then begin to look at the ramifications of these issues and have those debates.
As much as governments would like to do it, I think they find it very hard to get outcomes. There are many other factors that affect whether or not Johnny reads than whether we have good education public policy. There are many other factors; the loops are much greater. So we need much broader participation and much greater engagement in these issues than just what governments themselves can do.
Liberal
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. You have provided a great deal of light. You've shed light on a rather complicated study undertaken by this committee.
One of the biggest problems with GBA is the lack of accountability and transparency. What measures would you recommend Treasury Board and Finance put in place to ensure the highest level of transparency and accountability of GBA in the budgetary process?
I'd love to hear from both of you.
Prof. Claire Young
Okay, I'd be happy to go first.
I think the key is the word “transparency”. Dr. Good referred earlier to undertaking this prior to policies being implemented, making it part of the development of policies, making it as natural an analysis as would occur with any program you're talking about, any social or economic program.
The differential impact on women and men needs to be focused on, and the material is there to do that. We certainly have excellent statistical material telling us all kinds of things about the socio-economic status of women. You can basically use that. You take your proposed measures, and do so at all levels, as Dr. Good said. The measures may emerge from a discussion in a think tank, or from a discussion within a political party at a conference, or whatever. But applying that gender analysis at that stage is absolutely key.
Professor, School of Public Administration, University of Victoria
I guess I would respond in this way: I would be very careful—and I don't hear people doing this—about asking for more action plans and more audits of whether gender-based analysis has been done and more reports telling us after that fact that you've done a gender-based analysis, and putting that into a report and sending it somewhere. In some reports, I've even seen recommendations that the analysis be sent to parliamentarians. Well, parliamentarians already get a thousand reports a year. I don't know whether you read all of them; I doubt you do. All I can say is that if I had 1,000 term papers every year, I would have a lot of difficulty doing a very good job grading those term papers. So I think we need to be very careful that we don't unleash a bureaucratic approach to this.
I think the initiatives that have been taken are good ones. The requirement that Treasury Board submissions—which are really interactions between a spending department and Treasury Board for getting new money for something, usually of a small amount—have a gender-based analysis is important. It becomes embedded in the normal decision-making process. I think we need to find new ways of doing that, particularly around the tax areas, which tend to be done almost exclusively in the Department of Finance, as I've indicated. I would strengthen some of the tax capacity of some policy units across government, so there'd be better interaction, and hence better gender analysis across these issues as they are being done.
I'd be very careful about the checklist approach to gender-based analysis, in other words saying, aha, show me your analysis and we will check it off as if you've done it. That's not the objective. Gender-based analysis is a tool to a broader end, not an end in itself.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
It's interesting talking about tax law, because I know that section 63 of the Income Tax Act has been the subject of much debate. I'm thinking of the case of Symes v. Canada, wherein Ms. Symes wanted to claim her child care as a business expense, but lost in that regard. From that, it's very clear that the Income Tax Act affects women much differently than it does men.
We've heard today a very clear statement that gender-based analysis needs to be conducted specifically on the Income Tax Act, a point that has been around for a while. We've heard that for a while, but what's stopping it? Why hasn't this step been taken?
Prof. Claire Young
I think it is being taken, but not in as comprehensive a manner as we'd wish.
You mentioned the Symes case, and I have to confess that I was actually involved in that case. I think it's a really good example of how a gender-based approach to something gives you a completely different view of the result.
As you mentioned, Beth Symes was arguing that her child care expenses were a business expense because she couldn't practise law without having her children taken care of. It's interesting, you want a really good gender-based analysis at the Supreme Court of Canada. The only two women judges both found for Beth Symes; the male judges did not. That's quite extraordinary, because both the women judges, Claire L’Heureux-Dubé, who is no longer on the bench, and Beverley McLachlin, now the Chief Justice, would agree that politically they are in very different camps. And I think both of them would say that. Frankly it was the first time I've seen them agree on anything in a decision. But they both had experience as women--single mothers for a certain period of time--and they brought it to bear. When you read the judgment you can see that.
They were judges at the Supreme Court of Canada bringing to bear their analysis, and I think it means that we all have to do that. Everybody involved in the process, at every stage, has something to contribute.
Particularly from the perspective of gender, for example, I think we know that single, elderly women are the poorest in Canada. We have to ask how we redress that. Obviously it's a huge problem. But then you work your way to the tax system, you draw the links, and you say that one of the ways we're trying to redress it is to help women save for their retirement. That's laudable too, but it isn't working, so then you go back and again connect the dots and so on.
That's a brief response.
Liberal
Professor, School of Public Administration, University of Victoria
I don't think I have anything further to add on that question.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
People have a tendency to think of this whole process of putting a budget together as mysterious, a matter of staring into entrails and tea leaves. One of the things I discovered was that budgeting can be very practical and not a complex matter. We look at what we need and proceed from there.
This week the committee passed a motion--
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
--that the status of women committee have pre-budget oversight and talk to experts about what we need to make sure gender has been applied to a budget and that there's fairness. Is this something you would see as a positive?
Prof. Claire Young
Absolutely, there's no question. Again, it is enlarging the consultative process and enabling a focus on gender to take place at an earlier stage, which is key to it all. And not to keep knocking Finance, but really, when you're talking about sophisticated and important social programs, you need as much input from those with knowledge about those issues as you do from the financial experts.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Thank you.
We'll go to the second round of five minutes.
Sorry, Dr. Good. Did you want to say something?
Professor, School of Public Administration, University of Victoria
Let me make a short comment on that question. Most budgets in a parliamentary system are not examined very much by the legislature. Certainly in a congressional /presidential system the President of the United States proposes a budget and Congress and the Senate decide. In a parliamentary system the Minister of Finance announces the budget and the legislature approves the budget, and we have interesting cases in minority government as we are seeing today. But the real interactions take place in the pre-budget stage, and they happen between ministers and the Minister of Finance surrounded by a series of interest groups and strong views from the outside.
One of the more significant committees is the finance committee, because they, unlike the supply committees and the committees that look at estimates after they've been decided, can shape and influence the budget. So I would encourage committees to begin to use those things to ensure that not only is the finance committee looking to set the fiscal issues--how big is the surplus and things of that nature--but they are also looking at the ramifications of these issues in terms of gender, in terms of all the other things, and they afford the opportunity to raise these issues in the pre-budget consultations and to raise them forcefully with the Minister of Finance and with others in that process.
The other process of course, and Professor Young has alluded to this, is the consultation process in which various interests groups, including groups who represent women and many other groups, have an opportunity to raise these issues with the Minister of Finance. I think it is significant when a Minister of Finance, like the previous one, said...I think his words were that to the best of his ability he would be examining the gender-based implications of his budgets. That is a very significant statement. That is something I think needs to be followed up and examined.
I don't know if this Minister of Finance has said that, but it certainly would be wonderful if he did. That gives one a hook and an angle on which to come back on these things and examine the commitments that finance ministers are making about how they're putting their budgets and the implications and the analysis they're doing.
Liberal
Liberal
Glen Pearson Liberal London North Centre, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
You both brought some remarkable clarity, because this is a pretty complex issue, and I thank you very much for doing that. You both brought a bit of a different slant this morning from what we've been hearing from other witnesses. The whole idea of data collection has been very important to other witnesses who have spoken to us.
But you said, Professor Good, we've been ten years at this process in Canada and we're working at it, and maybe the time has come to take some action. You were talking about incentives and other things. I'm wondering about that. Our other witnesses have felt we still need to continue to compile and compile. You have said although that is important, perhaps we should look more toward incentivizing that.
I wonder if you could give us some examples of what you're talking about.
Professor, School of Public Administration, University of Victoria
I think on the data and the information, we have the best statistical agency in the world, StatsCan, and they have done some remarkable research on a number of these issues. I think they lead the world with regard to their surveys and research analysis with respect to the economic benefits of working in the home and in recognizing that and the importance of the contribution it makes.
So I agree with you wholeheartedly. I don't think we need analysis. I think it's a matter of connecting some of these dots and providing some incentive within it. I think a lot of it begins at the political level. What is the stance of a political party with respect to how it wants to deal with issues of gender? We know that gender can be quite divisive, but we know it's also an important part of fairness. It's an important part of dignity in society and it's an important part of who we are and the kind of people we want to become. All those aspects become very important.
It then becomes looking at those issues in a broader context and in the political debate and asking fundamental questions: do we want to work on the demand side with respect to child care, as one government did? Another government wanted to work on the supply side with respect child care. We should fundamentally analyze the implications that is going to have with respect to gender, not just with respect to how efficient it's going to be or the federal-provincial ramifications of this. Let's face it, one of the reasons we have such large federal tax expenditures is largely that it allows the federal government to enter areas that are often in provincial jurisdiction.
In terms of the incentives, I think what we need are better opportunities for--and I come back to this word “interaction”--interactions across the individuals and across the parties. I think we've failed to realize there are human elements and fundamental political questions to this. When political questions need to be resolved, analysis can take you part of the way in solving some of those disputes and differences. In the end of course it may well be a political decision, as most big tough budget decisions are, and that's well understood, but we need to have the analysis and have the work done. As others have said, it's not just in government that it has to be done; it has to be done in the universities, in the think tanks, in the media across these issues as well as within the political parties themselves.