Status of Women Committee on March 11th, 2008

[Louise Levonian]

I think, generally speaking, personal income tax measures are more conducive to gender-type analysis than are corporate-type measures. In the personal income tax system, when you make a change to it, you're directly affecting individuals. So when you're directly affecting individuals, you can do a gender-based analysis on that: What's the impact for women? What's the impact for aboriginal groups, etc.? But when you're targeting a corporation, then it becomes more difficult to do the gender-based analysis because it's a corporation as opposed to the people you're actually trying to target.

So generally speaking, yes.

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

So is it the intent that business will not receive the same amount of GBA scrutiny as personal tax issues will, or is the intent to increase that down the road? What is the training teaching? What's happening there?

[Louise Levonian]

The training tries to make people think about what the implications are that could result from any measure. So whenever any measure is going forward, the analysts are trained to think about what the implications could be.

Let's say we had a measure that was very directed at a small business in the scientific and research type of analysis or businesses that are health oriented, then in some ways you could try to determine.... Analysts are supposed to be critical and look at all the different aspects and ask if the employment in those areas is greater in a specific area relative...or if there are more women employed in this area than there are men. And in that sense, if there's a measure that's more targeted in the corporate area, then there could be gender-based analysis, and the analysts and managers are trained to take that into consideration.

The analysts are trained to look at all measures critically from a gender perspective, from an environmental perspective. All those perspectives are supposed to be taken into account. So these two in particular are not conducive to gender-type analysis. It's a transfer to the province, and one of them is just a simplification measure. It just reduces the compliance burden. So those aren't conducive.

If you reduce the corporate tax base, reduce the corporate tax rate across the board, that approaches more of a macro policy. It's too broad. It's too difficult to analyze from a gender perspective. But as you get more specific, more targeted, analysts and managers are trained to look at that and see if there are any gender differences in the measure itself.

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

When you were doing the GBA on the 2008 budget, what policies, programs, or initiatives did you find favoured women more than men or favoured men more than women, and which ones would be gender neutral?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Ms. Davidson, I was so carried away with your questions that I forgot you're out of time. But I will allow that question to be answered.

[Louise Levonian]

Specifically, which ones favour women and which ones favour men?

What we can do is this. As we did with the 2006 and 2007 budgets, we've compiled the gender-based analysis for the 2008 budget. We can provide that to the committee, and it'll elaborate on which ones are more conducive to women and which ones are more conducive to men.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

We now go to Ms. Mathyssen for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for being here.

I get the sense from looking at your presentation that as a champion and as a department, you've worked very hard at gender-based analysis. I see the checklist that the deputy reported on in regard to “Building Blocks for Success” and certainly, as I say, the work that you've done. But ultimately it comes down to the minister and the policy of the government, and I think that's where my frustration sets in.

I'm going to ask you some questions. I understand the division between what you do and the political master that makes the final decision.

I wanted to refer to the document on the 2007 analysis. I'm at the business tax portion, the last two paragraphs, just above sales and excise tax. It talks about the $100 per month child tax benefit, which has been featured quite prominently in the 2007 budget. I wondered whether, in looking at that, the government considered the real cost of licensed or even casual child care for a family. Do you know what those costs are?

Secondly, what impact does that $100 a month have on single working mothers or caregivers? We know a lot of senior women are providing child care because it's very expensive in licensed places.

I also wonder why the government decided to give a tax credit and then decided to tax back that $100.

The last piece of it talks about the measure that would encourage businesses to create additional child care spaces in the workplace. How many have been created, and where were they created? Is there documentation available that looks at those child care spaces, and can it come to the committee?

[Louise Levonian]

I'll try to address each one, but I might have missed some of the questions.

On the $100 a month that's provided, you asked how that benefits low-income individuals, I think, or low-income single women?

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

Yes, and senior women who are providing child care. Also, did you consider the real cost of regulated and casual child care?

[Louise Levonian]

From a global perspective, I know the government took other action on providing funding to the provinces to provide child care. I believe it was $250 million, but that's not my area of expertise, so I can't speak to that.

I know that the government wanted to provide funding to individuals for child care to take into consideration the expenses of raising children. They did that through the universal child care benefit, which was a payment to everyone with children under the age of six. This amount goes to all families, and as a result, all families are better off. It is taxable. This is added to the individual's income. As you go up the income scale, the tax system is designed to be a progressive tax system, so lower-income individuals would pay proportionally less than higher-income individuals. So that's brought into income. If the individual is at the lower end of the income scale, generally speaking, with children, etc., at a very low end they're not paying any tax, so they're going to benefit from the entire $100 a month from the universal child care benefit. As you go up the income scale, you're going to pay more and more tax on that universal benefit, but that's going up the income scale.

All families are better off as a result of the universal child care benefit. It takes into account the ability of an individual to pay tax, so as you go up, the ability is taken into account.

The universal child care benefit, although included in income, doesn't actually affect benefits like the Canada child tax benefit or the goods and services tax credit. Although it's brought into income, where there are low-income benefits provided, it's not taken into account for those benefits. Because of the progressive nature of the tax system, it was designed to help lower-income individuals more than higher-income individuals.

With respect to the child care spaces, I understand that funding was provided to the provinces to do that. In addition, they supplemented that with a credit for businesses to create child care spaces to help with that. It was a global package, not just “We're going to provide child care space credits”. Other elements were provided in that.

As to how much it costs to create a child care space, that was taken into account in designing the credit.

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

But I wondered if the cost to the parent, to the individual, was considered, because child care spaces, particularly regulated ones, are quite expensive. Also, I wondered how many of these spaces were created with this tax credit for business.

[Louise Levonian]

On the credit side for business, it's too early to tell. The credit was, I believe, effective in 2007, so it's too early to tell how many spaces it's going to create.

On the cost to the parents, I'm here as the gender-based analysis champion. I happen to also work in the tax policy group, so I can answer to certain things. But as to how much it costs for individual child care, I can't speak to that, because it's more on the side of the money that was provided to the provinces, and my group didn't work on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

One last question.

[Louise Levonian]

The other thing I'd add is that the tax system itself provides a deduction for expenses for child care. So if I incur expenses to put my child in day care, I get to deduct those costs up to a limit. So the tax system itself does account for the costs associated with child care.

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

What is the limit?

[Louise Levonian]

I believe it's $7,000 per child.

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

Does the Department of Finance plan to perform GBA on previous government expenditures, the old ones, so that we have a sense of what's sort of ingrained as impacting women?

[Louise Levonian]

As I was saying, the department has made significant progress in its ability to conduct gender-based analysis and to inform ministers in the aspects of gender-based analysis. The current approach is that as measures come forward, this information is provided to ministers to allow them to make the choices that they make.

You're talking about the tax system, right?

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

Yes.

[Louise Levonian]

Analyzing the tax system in its entirety from the perspective of gender-based analysis is a huge, significant undertaking. Currently the resources within the Department of Finance don't exist to undertake that kind of analysis. If this were to become priority for ministers, then funding would have to be allocated to that resource to be able to undertake that kind of analysis, but currently the resources aren't available within the department to be able to do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

We'll now go to the five-minute round.

Ms. Neville.

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

Thank you very much for being here today.

I have just a couple of quick follow-ups on previous questions, and then I have a number of my own.

Ms. Davidson raised the issue of how we received this material. Is it normal for you to give material without “Department of Finance” on it, or not dated? I was a little surprised that we received it in this form, without any acknowledgement of where it's coming from, the Department of Finance.

I just raise that, I don't mean to be picky, but it struck me as odd.

[Mireille Éthier]

I am sorry if it didn't get to you in the proper format. I think we had a request to submit it, and we submitted it through our parliamentary affairs person. But I will make sure that this doesn't happen again and that it is very clear next time.

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

Thank you.

I just want to follow up on the questioning that Ms. Mathyssen talked about on the child care benefit and your comment that all families are far better off. I'm really having a hard time understanding that.