Evidence of meeting #25 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 scottish.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
You're a special advisor to the equal opportunities committee, and I'm assuming you're appointed by that committee. Is that correct? Are you paid by that committee?
Conservative
Professor of Economics, Glasgow Caledonian University
There is a token remuneration that all committees pay all their budget advisors. I think it's public knowledge; it's a very token payment. It's not a consultant fee.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
I'm not questioning the process. I just want to understand it.
In our process, we look after the revenue side, not just the spending side. This is slightly different from your system. We have a pre-budget consultation that lasts basically all fall and sometimes, as this year, into January. We see 300 to 400 Canadians or Canadian groups, plus there are written submissions from hundreds of others. Is the process the same for your finance committee? Do they have a pre-budget consultation process under which they hear from a variety of Scottish interests? Just say yes or no.
Professor of Economics, Glasgow Caledonian University
Yes, normally, but this year was different.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Does the equal opportunities committee then look at all the submissions to the finance committee and determine whether they have a positive or a negative effect on gender issues?
Professor of Economics, Glasgow Caledonian University
No, I'm afraid there's not that much joined-up thinking, and I'm not being unfair to the parliamentarians in that. The equal opportunities committee would take their own evidence on looking at the budget and then feed it back to the finance committee.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
And the equal opportunities committee is made up of all parliamentarians? It's a parliamentary committee?
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
So this committee then gives advice or recommendations to the finance committee. Is that correct?
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
I have a question for you, just for my understanding. Before the budget, we introduced a program of private pension income splitting, which didn't previously exist. Couples who are seniors benefit because they're able to split their income. In my riding I'm hearing lots of stories that it's saving them $4,000 to $5,000 worth of tax. However, it doesn't do anything for senior women who are alone, because they have no one to split a pension with them.
From your perspective as special advisor, would you look at that and think it's not a good policy because it doesn't help senior women? What's your role when it comes to specific policy issues?
Professor of Economics, Glasgow Caledonian University
For a start, we wouldn't look at that policy because that remains a reserved matter. In Scotland we wouldn't be looking at pensions and tax, because they remain the responsibility of the U.K. government.
Professor of Economics, Glasgow Caledonian University
As an academic, yes.
In terms of gender budget analysis and advising the committee, I would be loath to advise that policy as being a bad policy, but rather to point out the perhaps unintended consequences of that policy and to be sufficiently cognizant of them in the evaluation process.
Conservative
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you very much, Ms. O'Hagan and Professor McKay.
I have a question for each of you.
Ms. O'Hagan, you said the Scottish Women's Budget Group had been punching above its weight. You also said you didn't receive any funding for the work you do. I assume you do a lot of research, lobbying, and advocacy work.
Would it be helpful to you to have some kind of government funding to pursue that?
The second part of that question is this. In Canada, the status of women department has cut funding for women's groups that are pursuing research, advocacy, and lobbying. What would your advice be to Canada?
Convenor, Scottish Women's Budget Group
Thank you very much, Ms. Mathyssen.
I cannot be so bold as to offer advice to Canada. I can offer my personal opinion.
I think both the opinion within our group, the Scottish Women's Budget Group, and independent assessment of the Scottish Women's Budget Group as a lobbying group attest that we have become, as I said, a credible and authoritative voice. I think that is evidenced by the fact that we are continually asked for our opinion. We are invited to parliamentary committees. We are invited to participate in government initiatives.
That brings with it its own frustrations. Are we being used by government by being drawn in? When the approach to policy making that we advocate is not being followed through, it leaves us very frustrated, but having been part of the process is something to be positive about. We constantly have a tension, I think, between the extent to which we are being mollified by being brought into the process and yet continually frustrated by the time it's taking to advance progress on gender budgeting.
We have received funding in the past from charitable sources. Oxfam in the United Kingdom has a poverty program, and we have accessed money from Oxfam and previously from the statutory commission on sex equality, the Equal Opportunities Commission. It has now been subsumed within the new Equality and Human Rights Commission, which has a grant-making capability. It would be possible for the Scottish Women's Budget Group to access or to apply for grant funding from that new commission, should we wish to.
That then opens another question about how robust we are. Are we in a position to be able to receive and manage public moneys? We have in the past taken a very clear decision not to access government money directly from the Scottish government equality unit, on the basis that we wished to remain outside government and to retain the autonomy and independence of voice that we felt may be, if not compromised, questioned if we were in receipt of government funding.
I personally think it sounds very unfortunate that Status of Women Canada is reducing funding for women-specific and gender-specific activities, just as I would feel it would be most unfortunate if that were to happen in Scotland, if the equality unit or the EHRC were to reprioritize in such a way that women, either directly or indirectly, by failure to subsume gender analysis into all aspects of equality work, were lost.
