Status of Women Committee on March 11th, 2008

[Louise Levonian]

No, but that's not the purpose. The purpose of the gender-based analysis is to see what the differential impacts are on men and women. You're asking, was a good policy analysis done as to whether the $100 would provide enough funding for child care? That's a completely different question from what the gender-based analysis—

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

Okay, but even on a GBA level, the lower-income women still lose out on this; they get less money.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Ms. Minna, can I test your patience for a minute?

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Who does the policy analysis?

[Louise Levonian]

Of the universal child care benefit?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Yes.

[Louise Levonian]

Tax policy would do it on the universal child care benefit. As to funding overall, as I was saying earlier, I believe $250 million was provided to provinces to provide child care.

It's a comprehensive analysis that's done. I believe that would be by HRSDC.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

I'm going to give you back your time.

I just want to know, because we need to call witnesses for the next round—because we're getting questions from everyone that perhaps are not pertinent to you—Ms. Levonian, who in the tax department could we call as a witness to give us these answers? There are certain questions you haven't been able to answer, and that's clear. For a policy issue, because we thought you were from the tax policy department as well—

[Louise Levonian]

I am from tax policy, but this isn't a tax policy question. Providing child care is, first of all, a provincial responsibility, so the federal government, when it provided funding, provided it to the provinces to provide child care.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

So it transferred money?

[Louise Levonian]

To the provinces.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Was there a transfer payment specifically allocated, or was it part of the CHST transfer?

[Louise Levonian]

Again, that's not my area of expertise. I don't know, but I read in the budget that $250 million was provided to the provinces. I don't know how it was provided. I'm not 100% sure. This is provincial jurisdiction, and I don't know. I know the federal government has transferred money, and our social policy people at the Department of Finance might be able to help in that respect. They wouldn't be the primary people responsible for this, but they'd know a little more about it than I do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Fair enough, thank you.

Ms. Minna.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will go on to something else.

Was a proper gender-based analysis done on pension splitting? Can you tell us what the analysis showed with respect to women in this country, especially low-income women and women living alone?

[Louise Levonian]

I've read the transcripts, and you've asked this question on pension income splitting before. If I took a step back and tried to explain why this measure was put forward, it might be helpful in understanding what the policy rationale behind it was.

This was put together in a package when measures were put forward to tax income trusts. This was called the tax fairness plan, and it was announced on October 31. There was what you could call a loophole in the tax system that allowed income trusts to not pay tax when corporations were. The government thought that was an inequitable situation and they increased the tax on income trusts to match the tax on corporations.

They knew that meant there would be an impact on investors in income trusts. A large majority were seniors who were going to be impacted by that. To try to mitigate those impacts they put forward two measures. One was increasing the age credit and also providing pension income splitting for seniors. A gender-based analysis was conducted, and we can provide that to you.

The purpose of the measure itself was not to help low-income women. The purpose of the measure was to try to mitigate some of the concerns that came out of the impact that could result when you tax income trusts.

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

Was there a gender-based analysis done, apart from the low income? Even high-income women get nothing from it if they never worked. If their husbands get money they don't. Was there a gender-based analysis done on that particular measure?

[Louise Levonian]

There was, and we can provide that to you, but the point of the measure is not to help women; it is to help households. Women are part of households. When the income is split, the household tax falls.

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

I have a last comment. Household income is not equitably shared, and we all know that. This is a very discriminatory piece of legislation. It was meant to benefit high-income males, as you said, and that's the reality.

[Louise Levonian]

I didn't say that.

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

No, I'm saying that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

We now go to Mr. Stanton for five minutes.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

In your opening statement you made a comparison of those policies that were seen in the aggregate in the macro versus those that were structural. You gave us some good examples of those that required a gender-based analysis. They were the structural types of issues, and you included tax, tariffs, transfers, and the like. Could you give us some examples on the other side? These were financial measures essentially that really were outside the bounds of gender-based analysis. Could you give us some examples of what that might include?

I assume these were issues around the fiscal framework of the government. Could you explain a little further?

[Louise Levonian]

I'm not the macro fiscal policy expert, but for example, one type of measure would be a decision to pay down debt and another would be to maintain a fiscal surplus.