Evidence of meeting #31 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 languages.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:55 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
No, it doesn't. The report, as you've been told, is going to be ready, if you go to your work plan, by the end of May.
It's the 13th and 15th of May.
11 a.m.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
I guess my concern is that there are a lot of witnesses here, and we're really plowing a lot of the same field. We could probably write an action plan without listening to any more witnesses. All we need to do is review the economic security plan, all of the reports we've written, and all of what we've done on.... Essentially our report on gender equity could be turned into a work plan; I'm not quite sure we need all of the hearings again.
What we could do is set up some work sessions and use what we have to draw up a plan.
Maybe I'm being unreasonable, but it seems to me we'd be hearing a lot of the same stuff from these groups.
11 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Ms. Minna, the reason it was put in a work plan is that the witnesses who came before us said, “The government has started an action plan. Why don't you study it?” We will be finished with the report and will be going through the report, so we have some spare time within which we can do it.
11 a.m.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Madam Chair, I'm not arguing with that. I understand that we want to do an action plan. All I'm suggesting is that before we start going to a long hearing listening to organizations, we take a step back and look at what we've already done and use all of the information we have, including the many hearings we've had on gender equality, as the basis for the work plan, because essentially that's what it's about.
I'm just trying to suggest that maybe we could save ourselves a whole lot of time.
11 a.m.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
Madam Chair, I just want to make sure that you're going to give me the floor before we adjourn the meeting. I would like to add some information.
11 a.m.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Some of our colleagues went to Cape Town a few weeks ago with a parliamentary mission. While they were there, they met some of the Afghan parliamentarians who had come to visit us here—you will recall, Madam Chair—to speak to us about the progress of Afghan women.
During that meeting, the women parliamentarians told our colleagues very clearly that they had been forced to make those statements, that they had been coerced into giving that testimony, which was not true and which did not reflect the current situation in Afghanistan with respect to women parliamentarians and women in general in Afghanistan.
I don't know what we can do. I don't think we can serve as a sounding board for people who come here to take advantage of the Status of Women Committee and to provide false information. These women were very angry and they were threatened with dire consequences if they spoke out.
I personally intend on contacting Amnesty International and other organizations to tell them this. This is a very unhealthy situation. We will have to be cautious in the future when we meet with delegations, we will have to make sure that these individuals are free to tell us the truth about what is happening in their country, that they are free to speak.
11 a.m.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
On Madame Demers's point, this is rather disturbing, and if you have any information that would shed some light on this situation, I think we should all be concerned about it.
On Madam Minna's point, I'm inclined to agree. I don't think two meetings to finish up the report is sufficient, given the volume of work we've had on gender budgeting. I realize it's a lot of work for the analysts to pull this together, but I wonder if, before we jump into our work on the action plan, we should forge ahead to finish up on gender budgeting. If I might make a suggestion, if the analysts could take a first cut, at least some sample recommendations without having to do all the text, then we could begin to take a look at the key recommendations that came out of that. At least we could begin with that as a first look. I believe two meetings is insufficient to wrap up this file properly. I'd say it would be more like four or six meetings, perhaps, including the recommendations and some of the text.
11 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
I will tell you what the technical difficulty is at the moment. The analysts had come up with a synopsis of the report and kept the recommendation at the back of the page. They themselves do not want to put in the recommendations, because a slew of recommendations have been made, and I guess it's up to us to say what we would like to put within the context of these witnesses. A translation of the report is taking place as well. The translation takes time.
So within that timeframe we, as a committee, need to move forward with something else. That is the action plan. As the report is in translation and it's 100-odd pages, we won't be ready for it. May 8 is when we would like to start a study on the action plan. If you don't want a study on the action plan and you don't want a meeting, that's fine. It's up to the committee.
11:05 a.m.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Madam Chair, getting an action plan is good, because I think that's a bit of a blueprint of how we want to move forward. All I was saying is that before we start hearing a lot of people--and we should hear some people--maybe what we want to do is agree on what we want to ask when they come, so we focus. We could use the materials we have and maybe have a session among ourselves, without necessarily having anyone here, and put down what we think the action plan might look like on the basis of what we now know and then have an idea of who we want to come before us. This is a very long list, and we may never finish it. If we're going to do an action plan, I'd like to finish it, because we have a lot of material already.
11:05 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
That's fine. So May 8 is committee business. A lot of the other parties have not submitted the names of who they would have as witnesses. So what we will do is leave May 8 to study how we move forward with all the information we've gathered.
So does that mean Mr. Pearson's motion does not pass?
11:05 a.m.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
No, that's fine, because I think we should do an action plan. All I'm asking is how we approach it, because we don't want to take two months with hearings on things we already know.
11:05 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
So before anybody leaves, I want that motion.
Mr. Pearson has moved that the Standing Committee on the Status of Women undertake a study to hear testimony from different women's groups on the proposed action plan for gender equality that was put forward in budget 2008.
11:05 a.m.
Liberal
11:05 a.m.
Liberal