Status of Women Committee on Nov. 19th, 2007

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

I understand that under the coordinator, there is a deputy coordinator. We can ask her--it has to be a her, I'm sure--to attend, because the coordinator is out.

So the invitation goes to the minister, the deputy minister or ADM--it depends on who is there--and the deputy coordinator.

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

I'm saying they should all come.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Even if the four witnesses came we would be fine.

[The Clerk]

And whoever could come will come--or do we wait for the time when the minister can come?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

We can start off with three people, or two people, whoever can come.

The ministers are generally busy and we cannot keep on postponing it. When she is available we'll be able to. Is it Immigration or Human Resources? Immigration. I'm getting those two ministries mixed up.

Madame Findley, and Mr. Nicholson.

Yes, Mr. Stanton.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Perhaps you've answered the question already.

You're thinking how many ministers for each report. Because we cover such a wide berth on this, I'd be inclined to think it's a good idea. I just don't know how long it might take; as you mentioned, there are layers here. There's Citizenship, there's Justice, there's HRSDC. It might be considered to think of the minister who has the most significant role perhaps in some of those recommendations. That's the difficulty, I would say, here. We could take a lot of time on this.

Alternatively, you could take one meeting per report and try to do two at the same meeting. I don't know how improbable that might be.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

When we did the report, and if we look at the responses, remember that trafficking under the justice bill has become a Criminal Code.... We could have the justice department, but we also stated, and I think we were very clear, the last time that it is the immigration law that has to be amended or issues have to be addressed in terms of how do you sensitize the immigration officer's training to understand that this person is being trafficked, because the other front-line workers understand.

When I was in Australia and I spoke with the Australians on their trafficking issues, they said that because they're an island they fly in, so they're not trafficked. So they determine trafficking in a very different way. Canada is far and people fly in, so we have to find out from our ministers what their thought process is immigration-wise. Justice and immigration will be the two areas that will be very useful.

Madame Demers.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Madam Chair, I would also like to hear from officials from the Department of Public Safety, given that the Olympics and ParaOlympics will be held in 2010 in Vancouver. Everyone knows that human trafficking increases during these events. The traffic in young people has increased, and I fear that if we are not adequately prepared, the number of young children and young women who are victimized will increase.

What measures do we intend to take? What measures have we already put into place? What measures will be put in place, not only in terms of immigration and justice, but also in terms of public safety, to prevent these persons from being victimized? What measures will we take?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Ms. Neville, then Ms. Davidson, Ms. Mathyssen, and Ms. Minna.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

I have a brief comment, Madame Chair.

I recall that this committee passed a motion that I introduced at the last session on asking the government for a response on what they are planning to do to deal with the issue of trafficking around the Olympics. I'm prepared to reintroduce the motion if necessary to facilitate a response, and I'll do so.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you. The chair suggests you should do so.

Ms. Davidson.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you, Madame Chair.

I just want to support what Madame Demers was saying. I think public safety is very important.

One of the biggest things we identified was the lack of awareness in the community and the lack of awareness in the police forces in general. I think that we do need to speak with the public safety department. I think that's very important.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Ms. Mathyssen.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Most certainly I would concur that we do need to hear from these ministers. My concern is that, like with all ministers, there may be some problems in getting them here in a timely fashion. I wanted to make sure that we didn't lose precious time in regard to this committee. So I would suggest that given the fact that last June, as those of us who went to the meeting of Commonwealth ministers in Uganda know, gender budgeting was a very key issue and it is going to come up again at the CHOGM this fall, I would like that item to be moved up in terms of your deliberations. I think that it's important, in terms of our response to the Commonwealth. I would like to know more about it, and we're going to move into a budgeting process very quickly. In fact it's already begun.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Ms. Minna.

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

I was going to say that with respect to studying the responses to the reports with respect to the trafficking, that's two departments, Justice and Immigration. The economic, that's HRSDC. It tends to be the department that deals with most of it, in terms of training, in terms of pensions, in terms of employment insurance. It's got tons of stuff there. You could mine that forever, in terms of the impacts it has, apart from health and all that. That's the major one, and child care. It's all in there. So there are three departments.

And the impacts of funding from the changes of Status of Women Canada, again, that we could deal with when we have the officials from Status of Women Canada and the deputies in front of us. That topic can be dealt with at the same time. Those don't need to be separate.

So I would suggest that we do the Status of Women Canada one at the same time that we do the estimates, or at least when we have the officials in, or when the minister comes, as well. For the other two, we would look to getting the ministers and deputies of those three departments: Justice, Immigration, and HRSD. Those are the three, basically, that impact on those issues the most. I think if we manage those three, we've done reasonably well.

Then, for the moment, with respect to the last comment Ms. Mathyssen made, I'm going to make a comment here that may be out, but I have to make it just because of what I'm facing. This document we're just going through is a document that we were told at the last meeting we were going to be given and that we would be discussing and seeing what issues we had already approved. One of them was in fact gender-based analysis. Now I see there's a motion.

I have to say that I find it difficult dealing with this committee, where instead of going by consensus, as we had done before, and looking at the list that we had put forward previously and then suggesting other items, we've got members coming across with motions on stuff that was already on that list. People are trying to say here is my motion, so it's the NDP or it's the Conservatives or it's whoever who really cares about this issue, they're putting forward motions. I'm sorry, but I had to comment, because these motions are not really....

We've got a list here, and I don't have a problem dealing with gender budgeting because of course it is important, and I support going to that immediately after the estimates and these others, because I think it's critical; I just don't think we need to have all these motions, that's all, with the exception of---

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Ms. Demers, Ms. Mathyssen has the floor.

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

Just to finish, Madame Demers' motion, though, is not the same thing. She's not duplicating stuff that's there, although Ms. Davidson's got some new ones. But there's a lot of duplication, and that's all I was saying.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Okay.

Mr. Mathyssen, you wanted to respond?

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

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair.

While I am very appreciative of the list that came from our June meeting, when I received the motions from Madam Davidson, it seemed to me prudent to make it clear that these are important matters that I wish to bring before the committee. So it's in response to motions that were made and it's to make clear that I regard the suggestions on this list as very significant and the ones we should indeed focus on, because the ones from Madam Davidson did deviate from this list.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Okay. And that is why, committee members, what I suggested was I saw these motions and said we have submitted a proposed study list, and we can always vote on what is our priority and move forward with it.

So I guess at the moment, if I understand what we have discussed so far, we are talking about the supplementary estimates and the performance reports.

We would like to see the minister being invited, the ADM or the deputy being invited, and the deputy coordinator being invited to come before us. We can at that time address some of the issues, as Ms. Minna pointed out, on the funding to Status of Women Canada. Those responses are important and they are timely.

The trafficking one, not only does it have immigration and justice, but it might have the Minister of Public Safety, and that is important.

What I'd like to get from you is, if we can't get the ministers, can we have parliamentary secretaries or deputy heads to come and talk to us? Would it be worth our discussion, or is there...?

Yes, Mr. Stanton.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I think the parliamentary secretaries would be okay, but I would sense that if we're looking for a government response here and we're dealing with that, it's really more in the political vein. The kinds of questions I think one would expect the committee to be putting to officials on those reports really has more of a political dimension, so I would say it's not at the administrative level.

Perhaps I'm speaking out of turn, but I think the parliamentary secretaries should be able to speak on those so we can get on with other business, as well. Obviously, we'd prefer the ministers, though.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Ms. Minna.

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

On the government responses, I agree with Mr. Stanton. Also, Madame Demers in her lists is quite right.

These are government positions, political positions. I've seen these things before. It seems to me that the ministers, who have to sign off on those responses because they are political responses, should be the ones coming. Even the parliamentary secretaries are limited in what they will be allowed to say or not say. The minister has much more latitude. At the end of the day, he or she is the one who signs off on the response and gives direction to the system as to how to respond and how to word it.

I would think that on this government response one, we need to have the ministers come. I would hope that we'd agree to that.

I hope the ministers make themselves available as soon as they can, because I think this is very important work. We certainly should send the letters out immediately to them and get on with it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Yes, Mr. Stanton.