Status of Women Committee on April 29th, 2008

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

No. The only way we can have a motion here is if I have unanimous consent. If I have unanimous consent, the motion comes before committee and we will.... If I do not have--

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

There is no consent. We'll go through the normal channels, and then we'll consider a notice of motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

There is no unanimous consent. You will have to give 48 hours' notice.

Merci, madame.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

I'm sorry, Madam Chair, but since the subject is on the table, unanimous consent is not required. This is the topic that we have discussed this morning. The motion is in order, especially since it's a motion dealing with the subject discussed this morning.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Today we are discussing the main estimates, not the trip to APEC; therefore, if you have any specific issues around the main estimates and you have a motion on that, yes, I can take it, but because this is a sidebar--the minister just let us know what she was doing--it has to have the normal procedure, and I do not have unanimous consent. For a motion from the floor, I need unanimous consent on a topic that is not relevant to the estimates.

Ms. Neville.

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

Madam Chair, I just want to make certain that the department is aware of this. When I'm asking for a list of the funded programs, I'd like a clear breakdown of what were profit, what were not profit, what were multi-year, what were single year, what were faith-based organizations. I want the department to give that breakdown, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

I have asked the clerk to write that down and we will send a written request to the department.

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

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Yes, Mr. Stanton.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Madam Chair, I would just like a clarification on that. Is that being asked for the current year? Are we seeking that for the fiscal year ended 2008--like 2007-08?

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

I would like it for 2007-08. We're into a new year--not far into it. If there are some that have been funded in the current year, that would be informative as well.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Okay, so starting from April 1, 2007, then, to the current....

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

That's fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Welcome again, Ms. Beckton, Ms. Waugh, and Ms. Paquette.

Do you have any opening remarks, Ms. Beckton?

[Clare Beckton]

I don't have any opening remarks per se, but perhaps it would be helpful to have Cindy Paquette, who is our director general of corporate affairs, explain the budget for the last years, which would indicate that the budget has not in fact gone down, but we are now at $29 million ongoing, with the exception of this year because of some funds that were re-profiled from last year.

I want to say that the re-profiling was a matter of good management. Because we received the second $5 million in funding through the supplementary estimates (B) last year, that meant we would only receive the funding in March. So we asked to re-profile some of the program funds to ensure that we would have adequate funding this year, because for some of our agreements that are over three years, we have a heavy demand on the funding this year, and we also wanted to make sure that none of that money would lapse. We were very successful in having no money lapse from our funds. So that's the reason we asked to re-profile some of the money into this fiscal year.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Is this in response to what I stated, that from 2002-03 onwards, the budget--actually that's what the estimates show--was $24 million? Then the minister made a statement in 2006. The budget went down to $10 million, so there's a $14 million shortfall. I don't want to get into mathematical confusion here, and I would like the committee to proceed with their questions. Perhaps I could take it aside and understand what the issue is.

[Clare Beckton]

I think there's some confusion between the program funding and the overall budget of Status of Women. The program funding was $10 million, up until the addition of the $10 million ongoing for each year.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Mr. Pearson, a fresh round now, for seven minutes.

[Glen Pearson, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Welcome to everyone this morning.

Ms. Beckton, we've had a number of witnesses come to these sessions who've talked about these equality indicators. Some feel, and I guess I'm one of them, a certain level of frustration--and you've probably read about that. It's just that we seem to have this model set up, but the outcomes do not seem to be achieving what we believe the desired ends should be. Many of the witnesses have said the same thing. What they were saying is that they would like to see the equality indicators much better integrated into the gender budget approach.

I have a couple of questions for you.

First, what are the indicators you are using at present? I think you mentioned those before. You also mentioned to Ms. Mathyssen, I believe it was, looking at new things such as employment, democratic participation, and things like that.

Secondly, has there been any discussion within your department about the indicators identified at the United Nations session in 2003? Those included things like affordable housing, civil legal aid, affordable and regulated child care, education and training, employment insurance, and shelters and transition houses for women experiencing violence. When you talked about where you were thinking of going, you didn't really mention any of those.

I wonder if you could answer those two things for me and give me some light at the end of the tunnel.

[Clare Beckton]

I'm not sure I can give you light at the end of the tunnel, only to say that we've been working with the recognition that our indicators are not perfect.

One of the reasons we have the indicator project is so we can better measure the results. We're also trying to work with our central agencies to integrate it into the management accountability framework and program activity architecture, which is the way outcomes of departmental work are now measured. They've moved with the new frameworks to having more specific outcomes. My team of gender specialists has been working very closely with the board to see how we can integrate that into those frameworks, rather than create new ones.

At the same time, we do have the indicators project, and as part of the development of the indicators project, our person who is leading it for Status of Women has done extensive research looking at what other countries do, at what the United Nations has put forward, working with other departments that have been working on indicators in their area of responsibility--for example, Human Resources and Social Development Canada and Health Canada--and creating a framework that we will then take out to consultation with the groups to ask, “Are there things missing? Do we have it right? Do we need to have different sets of indicators?”

I think that will be very important as we move forward with action plans and specific goals, to make sure we're satisfied that the indicators will be able to tell us if we've achieved success and how we're progressing.

[Glen Pearson, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

So there has been discussion about the UN ones, from 2003?

[Clare Beckton]

Yes, there would be discussion about all of the work that's been done internationally. I know that Suzanne Cooper--who appeared before you--has done a literature review and looked at the work that's being done, for example, in the World Economic Forum. We know that sometimes each country needs to have ones that work best for them, given their culture and their legislative and social frameworks.

[Glen Pearson, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Just for the sake of time, I have one other quick question. It's about the gender budget champions that were talked about, putting them in various departments. We spoke with the gender budget champion in the Department of Finance, and she specifically put the tax policy side into it, which I realize is a very important area. But when she was here and we tried to ask questions that related to other parts of Finance, she said she wasn't really qualified to answer about those various areas.

I'm wondering if it's a good scheme or a good plan to sequester somebody in just one department of Finance--which may be her field of expertise--but not have her able to speak to these other areas of Finance that gender budgeting is supposed to be applied to as well.

[Clare Beckton]

We are working with the central agencies to ensure that the champions do have access to all the work that's being done in the department. As you're aware, we were doing some training this winter to expand the gender-based analysis work of Finance from tax policy into their economic and other policy areas. The deputy minister has been extremely supportive and interested in advancing the gender work in the Department of Finance.

But we recognize it's still a work in progress. We're not yet where we'd like to be.

[Glen Pearson, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you.

That's good enough for me, Madam Chair.