Status of Women Committee on April 29th, 2008

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

You also said you traveled across the country to meet with representatives of certain organizations to see firsthand the concrete results of changes you have made to the WP, or of the change in direction of Status of Women Canada. You said that this has changed the way people work, it has changed the lives of women, of their families and their communities. But putting it like that is a distortion of the truth. If I compare what you are telling us with what certain witnesses have told us in the course of our study on the economic security of women, I get the impression there is a disconnect. It's as if we are getting away from the basics. It's all very well and good to talk about security. Your government has implemented several programs to fight violence against women.

However, most heads of single-parent families are women. It is not easy for these women to benefit from the government's proposed tax measure. More specifically, in terms of tax credits, I am thinking about the $100 benefit given for young children. How is it possible for a single mom, who receives $100 or $200 a month, to place her child in a good day care and find a job to give her economic security?

I don't think this is a reflection of what women want, many of whom are poor and vulnerable, and live off unstable or seasonal jobs. I have the impression that we are not addressing these concerns, which in the majority of cases affect women.

[Josée Verner, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you. I will try to address all of the aspects of your question.

Indeed, over the last few months, I have traveled to Vancouver and Calgary, and more recently, last week in fact, to Montreal, where we announced funding in the amount of $5.69 million with 21 women's groups in attendance. These groups were very happy with the additional funding. Of course, the more financial resources they have, the easier it is for them to create programs which will help more women.

Take the Centre Marie-Vincent in Montreal, for instance, which received funding in the amount of $1.5 million over three years. The chairman of the board told us that he did not want to be successful; rather, he wished that one day, he would never have to deal again with violence against children, particularly those between the ages of 4 and 12. However, receiving the additional funding, which translates into a certain degree of stability—the funding is for three years—will enable the organization to create programs to help children who have been victimized—we were told that 72% of these kids were girls—and their mothers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Madam Minister, can you please wrap up your answer? We are running out of time.

[Josée Verner, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Indeed, from an economic point of view, the aim is to support groups who help women acquire the necessary skills to find a job and earn a living and to get out of poverty.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Ms. Boucher, you have seven minutes, if you will.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Good morning, Madam Minister and officials from Status of Women Canada. I will ask the minister a very brief question to give her time to reply at length.

Madam Minister, having heard many representations and heard from many witnesses, can you tell the committee which women's groups have received funding under the new criteria? Have those announcements been made?

[Josée Verner, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Of course. We have made many announcements, including some with our colleagues. In fact, this year, 181 projects have been announced. As I said in my opening remarks, close to $34 million have been earmarked to help 1.5 million women and girls. There have been many announcements. I mentioned the one which was made in Montreal last week. There were also other announcements in Vancouver which will help a dozen groups or so, as well as in Calgary, when another dozen or so groups were present.

Indeed, the additional money will enable the government to help more women's groups who are on the front lines to provide services and opportunities to a greater number of girls and women in the country.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you.

On another subject, in the 2007 budget, the Government of Canada announced an additional $10 million a year for Status of Women Canada.

Can you tell us what types of projects will be supported with this money?

[Josée Verner, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

In fact, our priority is to make sure that women can be helped in many areas. The first ones who come to mind are victims of violence, but we also want to help women who want to go farther in life, who have already acquired a certain degree of economic security, but who would like to become economically prosperous; women who want to go farther and play leadership roles.

Take for instance a project we supported financially; it was announced in Quebec City alongside with Groupe Femmes, Politique et Démocratie and the Government of Quebec. This project will help many women work alongside mentors so they can become leaders in our society, be it in politics or economics, on boards of directors, on elsewhere.

Of course, we also want to help homeless women, who are extremely vulnerable. We have to give them the tools, the skills and the necessary experience so they can get out of the cycle of poverty and find jobs so they can stand on their own two feet.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Mr. Stanton.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and welcome, Minister. It's great to have you back. I appreciate your comments on the work our committee has been conducting on the issue of gender budgeting.

One of the issues that has arisen in the course of that study is about research and making sure there are proper comparisons and indices that can be used to measure the impact of policies and legislation that impact women across Canada.

I wonder if you could give us an update on what Status of Women Canada in particular is doing. We know that in the past some concerns were expressed about withdrawal of research services. I wonder if you could give us an update on where we sit now and what our go-forward plan is for research on these important issues.

[Josée Verner, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Stanton.

Status of Women Canada is conducting ongoing internal research to help it carry out its mandate. The department calls upon experts in the area of policy development and will continue to work with other federal organizations.

Status of Women Canada can, amongst other things, use studies conducted by Statistics Canada. Other indicators may be provided by Human Resources and Social Development Canada. Health Canada can also provide indicators on the health of women. Today, Status of Women Canada is also working on forward-looking projects on gender equality in cooperation with other departments. In fact, it is this exchange of information between the various departments which allows Status of Women Canada to carry out its mandate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Do you have a very short question?

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I can probably squeeze in a very short question.

Madam Minister, I think it is welcome news that the government is planning to go ahead with the action plan. You've begun to suggest how that might be done. Is there anything more you can tell us about plans for proceeding with this action plan?

[Josée Verner, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Indeed, I also thought that was very good news and a wonderful victory for women. In my opinion, everyone will come on board to help us meet our objectives.

As for the plan of action, as I mentioned earlier to another colleague here, we are establishing the parameters and our strategy to see how all of society can participate, including all stakeholders and communities. How will we hear from everyone and which themes will be put forward? We are working on that in close cooperation with Status of Women Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Merci, Madame.

We'll go Ms. Mathyssen for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for being here, Minister.

I'd like to follow up on some of Mr. Stanton's questions.

Do you believe that Status of Women Canada achieves balance between both of its program activities?

[Josée Verner, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

In fact, this year, because it received additional funding, Status of Women Canada received a record number of funding requests for projects. Of course, it was a transition year. Status of Women Canada held information sessions with women's groups and it made sure that each of these groups could put in its funding application. It was a great success with women's groups who put in their funding applications to complete their projects.

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

Thank you.

I want to follow up. I've been looking at the estimates from 2005-06 through to 2008-09, and one of the program activities at Status of Women Canada is the development of strategic policy advice and partnerships, which replaced the promotion of equitable public policy. I'm wondering why SWC no longer seeks to influence the development of government policies. I say that, because if you look at the estimates from 2005-06, there was just under $8 million devoted to that, and by the time we get to 2007-08 we're looking at less than $2 million.

So, basically, it would seem to me there is no longer this effort to influence the policies of government and the research programs and services that take into account the diversity of women's perspectives and reality.

I'll let you answer that, and I will have some more questions in that vein.

[Josée Verner, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

In fact, Status of Women Canada is proceeding differently. I will let Ms. Beckton give you the details as to how Status of Women is proceeding to meet that objective.

[Clare Beckton]

What we've been doing over the last few years is refining our approaches of how we look at the best ways of influencing policy. One of the things that happened was a reorganization of Status of Women to bring together the elements of GBA, strategic policy, and our international work, so that we could better look at where we needed to influence or work with other government departments and also to try to be much more strategic in our approach.

So it's a refinement, not a departure. I think it's made our ability to work along more strategic lines more effective.

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

So why exactly was promoting public policy replaced by strategic policy advice, and what does that mean? What does strategic policy advice actually mean? I was having some difficulty understanding the subtleties of that.

[Clare Beckton]

I think it was just to better reflect what we actually do and how we're trying to influence policy development. We do that through working in partnership with other departments, rather than the approaches we've sometimes used in the past. It has also allowed us or enabled us to focus on indicators—how we measure the success of public policy as it's being developed through the use of gender-based analysis, and then how we're measuring the success by working on indicators.

So it is just taking a different focus, and I think it better reflects how we're doing our work and how we're moving to do that work in the future.

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

You talked about working with other departments. I wonder if SWC is also collaborating with provincial and territorial governments, civil society, key international partners. If so, could you please provide some details to the committee about that collaborative work.