Status of Women Committee on Nov. 26th, 2007

[Clare Beckton]

I'll do my best.

Yes, we do track all travel expenditures, of course. It's required as part of our mandate.

One of the ways that we are also getting out to people is we do work through our Service Canada offices, which are in many more communities than we are. We do send information through there—

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

As a member of Parliament, I'm getting countless complaints, so....

[Clare Beckton]

We are mindful of the groups that have less access. We're trying to make sure the information goes out in many different formats, including community newspapers. We don't rely on just the Internet to get it out.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

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

Can I just follow up on something?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Quickly.

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

Could we have a list of those organizations that have been refused funding?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Fair enough. I'll make a request when we're done.

Madame Boucher

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

Good afternoon, ladies. We are pleased to see you here today, because you can tell us about how your organization operates.

We hear a lot about the budget cuts made, but $5 million was provided directly for the program. This is witnessed by the fact that 260,000 women will be directly affected by the first round of the Women's Community Fund that was announced in October. This is a significant number of women and we hope it will be maintained at that level.

I would like to understand how the Women's Partnership Fund works. What does that fund do today that could not have been done in the past?

[Clare Beckton]

With respect, what the partnership fund does is it gives us an opportunity to actually create genuine partnerships where other partners are involved from the beginning of the project through to its completion and the evaluation. What that does is say that we know that other sectors of society—not just government, but the private sector, non-governmental, other levels of government—equally have responsibility towards ensuring that women will have full participation.

The partnership fund is an opportunity to create this kind of partnership. It's not impossible under the community fund, but that's not what the focus of the community fund is. For example, we're working on a project now that will be around homelessness in the north. The fund enables us to bring in a whole range of people from the private sector, from other levels of government, from some very fine non-profit organizations, so that every sector is contributing its expertise and adding value to that project. We think we will get much larger benefits from some of these kinds of projects that individual groups could not do.

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

I am often approached by people asking me how Status of Women Canada operates. People don't really know whether it is a department, whether you are a deputy minister, etc. You are an agency, but you come within the responsibilities of the Minister.

If I had to explain to someone in my riding who needs your services how Status of Women operates, what should I tell them?

[Clare Beckton]

We are, I think, officially called a departmental agency, whatever that means. The coordonnatrice reports directly to the minister responsible for status of women and heritage. While we are part of the portfolio that the heritage minister has responsibility for, we are an independent agency.

We tend to work more with groups in terms of providing the funding through the women's program and also working on systemic barriers, which takes us into other governments' work around policy and their program and evaluation.

Although we don't have a tremendous amount of resources to do this, we do attempt to assist a number of individual women who call us with personal issues. For example, we have had women who call because they've been beaten by their husband and they don't know where to go. If we possibly can, we try to direct them to the appropriate resources.

Unfortunately, we don't have psychologists--and some days I feel like I would need that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

You have only 30 seconds.

Ms. Demers.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for being here today. This is the first time I have had an opportunity to meet you. We have so many questions to ask you and so little time to do it. There are so many things we are concerned about. You have given us a document that tells us what you want to do with Status of Women Canada. The thing is that it was working well. We are wondering why something was changed when it was working well.

How many employees do you have at present?

[Clare Beckton]

Prior to the efficiency review, there were 130 FTEs, which is the term that is used to describe the staff. With supplementary estimates (A), we now have 77 FTEs in the department. So there are 76 people working with me when we're at full staff.

The actual mandate of Status of Women was not changed. It remains the same. The changes were primarily to the women's program and that was refocused to provide more direct management.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you. You said that you are trying to do the work with half the staff, and that's fine. Did the staff all come at the same time as you, or were they there before? How many employees were already there when you arrived?

[Clare Beckton]

Yes. Indeed there are people who are working with us who were there before, and we value their corporate memory tremendously. We have a very good mix of new people and people who have corporate memory. We of course have to be more strategic and focused on the issues that we're looking at, and that's what we're trying to do, be very focused and strategic.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Are the people who are no longer there the ones who had strongly suggested to the Minister not to change anything in the Status of Women Canada program? We know that some employees had recommended that nothing be changed, because they considered that to be a serious mistake.

Groups that do research and lobbying no longer receive funding. How will you achieve one of the objectives you refer to at the end of your document, which reads as follows:

... by becoming actively involved to influence the development of policies and programs in important priority areas, and monitoring results;

Where are you going to get your studies and your research?

You have worked with the Attorney General. You have worked in human rights. Because you are a lawyer, you probably know that in 1983 we had the pay equity act, which is part of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That act has not yet been implemented for federal public servants. We are wondering why and how this is. You know, as a lawyer, that rights must be respected, so do you intend to pressure the Minister to have a pay equity act introduced as soon as possible?

I would have other questions to ask you, but I am out of time. In fact, I have one last question: are you a member of Real Women of Canada?

[Clare Beckton]

To start with the last one, I'm not a member of any organization. The reason I'm not a member of any organization is that in my position in the government, and now, I need to be impartial and to deal with all organizations that put applications before us.

In terms of people who left, many people left because they worked in places where we no longer have offices and they were unable to move. Some people decided to retire because they had been with Status of Women a long time. Some people decided to pursue new opportunities. And some people were tired and wanted a change. There is a fairly significant turnover, as you're aware, within the public service, and Status of Women is no exception.

So I don't think they were turned over for any ulterior reasons. Whenever you have a transition, you have a number of people who will change.

In terms of research, we do have some internal research capacity, but we also work extensively with existing research sources. For example, we take advantage of the Public Policy Forum's research work. We look at the research that's been done around the world. We look at the research in other departments. We talk to the research granting councils, as well, and try to ensure that they're doing research.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you, Ms. Beckton.

The last question is from Ms. Mathyssen.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to take a look now at the performance report. On page 17, subactivity 2.2 talks about fund research and community-based action. It says subactivity 2.2 focuses on funding research and community-based action that address selected issues of significance to Status of Women Canada in a “coordinated manner”.

I wonder, did this research had value? Did it have value? I know this is 2006-07, but did this research have value in terms of the full participation of women?

[Clare Beckton]

It's a challenging question to answer because I think research, in most instances, does add some value. There is always a question of how much value the particular research adds, as opposed to funding for direct benefits. In a generic way, I find research to be useful in many cases, but not always.

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

Now that it's gone, how will the useful part of that research be acquired?

[Clare Beckton]

As we said, we are looking and we have been talking to the research granting councils, such as the social science research council and the science granting councils, to ensure they are doing research that relates to the concerns and needs of women and maybe have gender-based analysis in terms of how their research money is being allocated in terms of men and women.

We do have access to whole bodies of research and we're trying to encourage other departments who have the substantive responsibility for an area, such as HRSDC and Health Canada, to be doing that kind of research. They do some significant research that we can access, of course, throughout the government.

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

At the top of page 4 in your presentation, you speak about gender-based analysis on policy measures conducted by the Department of Finance. Last June Ms. Guergis indicated that the 2007 budget was indeed done with that gender lens, that there was significant documentation to illustrate that, and that this committee could have that documentation.

I wonder when might we expect it. It seems to have fallen off the radar, but I'm still very interested in having it so that we can look at it.