Status of Women Committee on Nov. 19th, 2007

Evidence of meeting #2 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 motions.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Committee Business

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Clerk of the Committee Ms. Danielle Bélisle

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

Sylvie Boucher Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC

I am going to ask you to clarify a few things for me, as I want to make sure that I am understanding you properly. It is the Minister who has final responsibility for the Status of Women, and it should, therefore, be the Minister whom we question. I am struggling to understand why we would invite officials here to question them on matters that are the responsibility of the Minister. I appreciate that they have a certain expertise, but it is the Minister who is responsible for the Status of Women. If we are going to meet with somebody to discuss these issues, then it ought to be the Minister. I do not think that it is appropriate to ask officials to answer such specific questions.

4:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi

Ms. Boucher, you have brought in a good point. We have had not the Minister of Finance but the Deputy Minister of Finance coming in to give us supplementary estimates updates and to tell us how they do budgeting--for instance, gender-based budgeting. The minister does not come down to the nitty-gritty operational level. That is why we need, from an operational perspective, the person. Civil servants have come before the committee. We have Statistics Canada coming. We have civil servants from HRSDC. We have civil servants coming because they are accountable to this committee.

On public accounts, we wanted the deputy minister to account for what they were doing. The ministers are accountable. They are always accountable in the House. But we need to see here, from the deputy minister, what they have been doing, or hear from their staff on what they have been doing.

Ms. Minna.

4:30 p.m.

Liberal

Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON

Madam Chair, I have sat on committees before where we have had HRDC...or I guess it's not called that now. It's HRSDC. I'm getting all the various acronyms mixed up from all the different changes.

We have had, as you say, representatives from various departments. Certainly while the coordinator is out, or may not be available immediately, there is a deputy or assistant deputy in the department responsible for Status of Women Canada. I'm sure this coordinator reports to somebody. She doesn't report directly only to the minister. I think the assistant deputy minister or deputy minister should be invited, and of course the minister as well. If the minister is not available immediately, it could be in a week's time or two, but certainly we could try to make sure that she comes as well.

What's our timeline for these estimates to be reported back, first of all?

4:30 p.m.

The Clerk

Maybe Clara could explain a little more in terms of the difference between a department here and an agency.

In this case, my understanding is that the minister is, politically, the one who would answer why there have been cuts and so on and so forth, but it is administered by this Status of Women agency. So when you're going to your deputy minister, you're talking of a deputy minister of another department. What you want are people from the agency plus the minister, Madam Verner.

Am I right, Clara? Here I'm getting into places--

4:30 p.m.

Liberal

Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON

I'm sorry, it's rude to interject, but I was involved in the department for quite some time. Yes, Status of Women Canada is an agency, but it reports, through its coordinator, to another bureaucrat. She does not report directly to the minister. I know that much. There is, obviously, an assistant deputy minister or a deputy minister to whom that coordinator reports, and that's who makes.... They have much more power than the coordinator does.

4:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi

We'll go to Madame Demers.

4:30 p.m.

Bloc

Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC

I agree with Ms. Boucher, Madam Chair; it is important that the Minister appears before the committee. However, I have experience of other committees where even the Minister could not answer all of the questions because he had so many different files to juggle. Remember that last year the Minister of Health delegated the responsibility of answering our questions to his deputy ministers. The current minister is the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages. She obviously would not be able to answer all of our questions off the top of her head.

Status of Women Canada, the agency responsible for managing the program, already has a good grasp of the issues. With the help of departmental officials, we too can get a handle on the issues. If the Minister has time to come to see us later, then so much the better. We can use the opportunity to ask her more specific questions as to where Status of Women Canada is heading, after having come to grips with the basics.

November 19th, 2007 / 4:35 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi

I'm hearing consensus, then, that we send an invitation to the minister and to whichever department head the coordinator reports to. So we'll have to find out the reporting relationship. We can extend the invitation to the administrators, if they can come, without the coordinator. If the minister comes, I think she will need some backup, as well.

Are we in agreement?