Status of Women Committee on Nov. 28th, 2007

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Gender budgeting involves analysis of any form of public revenue expenditure, so identifying the impacts on men and women, girls and boys, is not a simple task, is it? Governments do not simply take money from some and hand it over to the others. No, governments spend billions of dollars on programs that benefit both sexes. To what degree? Who knows.

How much would gender budgeting cost the government, and how many public servants would be involved in this complicated endeavour? I would like to know that.

I have two more short questions. Why budget with only gender in mind? What about other groups in the population? Those interests have received insufficient attention.

The other question is, who determines the benefits women derive from a particular policy, and how would these benefits be measured?

[Prof. Kathleen Lahey]

As to the first question, how many people would have to be hired and how much would it cost, I really don't know the answer, but it is not surprising that there is a tremendous amount of research already in existence in Canada on a whole range of issues.

Take, for example, defence spending. Some people would say women account for 51% of the population, so they get 51% of the benefit of defence spending. That is one way of looking at it. Another way to look at it is to start examining how many women receive salaries, employment benefits, specific training opportunities, and so on, as the result of military spending, how many women receive after-service care that is available to military, and how is public and social support distributed through various organizations on bases distributed between women and men. Those are the kinds of questions that would start breaking down how the spending side affects people by gender. It will cost some money to do it; however, if the UN, the IMF, and the World Bank are correct in saying that the GDP will grow faster when both women and men are working in their most economically productive fashion, then I think the long-term economic gains would outweigh the costs.

I agree with you completely on the diversity aspect of your question, but what has been shown is that until gender analysis is in place, it's very difficult to begin making sense of other diversity characteristics as well, because whether you do an analysis of impact by race, by disability, by sexual orientation, by age—pick any demographic characteristic you want—women are always in second place. So you need a gender analysis. You can either do a global gender analysis to get started and then start looking at additional characteristics, which will always enrich your analysis and help further target effective government policy, or you can do the breakdown by other characteristics and then gather all the gender data together at the end.

I think going after gender first, because it's one of the most fundamental human divisions, male and female—perhaps far too important—is the place to start. Who determines what is a benefit and what is a detriment? I think we need to listen to people talk about that.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Do I have any more time left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

No. Thank you so much.

If there's one last question that the Bloc has, we can proceed with that.

Ms. Demers, you have five minutes.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Lahey, I have not been sitting on the Standing Committee on the Status of Women for very long, that is to say for a little less than one year.

I therefore did not take part in the drafting of a number of reports that have been prepared. Earlier you surprised me when you said that Canada was a pioneer in gender-based analysis and that it had even exported its discoveries in this field. You also said that the UN used it for its own bases.

In your view, what happened between the time when we were leaders, when we moved forward with analyses, studies and policy choices that favour this type of study and policy, and the time when we slipped to eighteenth in the world? What do you think happened? What happened between that time and the time when CIDA drew from our studies and research?

Consequently, since so much work was done in advance... People seem very concerned by the amount of work that we will have to do to ensure that this study is properly done. Since so many things have already been done, couldn't we take advantage of that and start off on a solid footing? I think your idea of focusing on income splitting is excellent. I think that will probably be part of our talks.

Would it be important to be able to use what has already been done in order to continue and not reinvent the wheel?

[Prof. Kathleen Lahey]

Yes, to answer the first part of your question, I think one of the factors that had a big impact on where Canada was and where Canada has got to is that there have been changes in economic currents, not only in Canada but also around the globe. At a certain point in Canada's history, the emphasis was very intensely focused on attempting to contain costs at the federal and provincial levels. I believe a gender-based analysis, if it had been used at that time, could have alerted people to the fact that some of the cuts that were made had a more devastating effect on women than they did on men, by virtue of both the nature of the cuts that were made and the overall economic vulnerability of women going into it.

So I think what happened to make women less equal in recent years is very much a product of not having implemented the gender-based analysis of fiscal instruments quickly enough. Remember, Canada went to the 1995 Beijing conference saying it had already secured agreement from all government departments to do gender-based analysis, and some departments did begin doing it right away.

I agree a lot can be done to build on the past, and a tremendous amount of work can be brought into the process. However, we all know the law that seems to change the most quickly is the Income Tax Act, right? It's twice a year, as regular as...what? I don't know. It's probably the most regular thing I know of.

Because of this, the rules are always changing, and they always need to be looked at again. Every time you change one provision in a budget, it will interface with other provisions. It's a fluid process. So this analysis, once it's put in place, needs to be carried out over and over again as quarterly economic reports become available, as new budgets are put in place, etc.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Merci, Madame Demers.

I had shortchanged Ms. Grewal, so I've got one minute for Mr. Stanton.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you.

Just a brief question, Professor, about something you said a little earlier in your testimony. What information do you have that would suggest the decisions around bringing pension income splitting was somehow motivated by what happened in the United States?

[Prof. Kathleen Lahey]

What information...?

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Is that just an opinion, or is there something...?

[Prof. Kathleen Lahey]

No, it's not an opinion. I reached that conclusion after having followed the Reform Party's platform for years, and then reading the Alliance Party's platform and then reading the Conservative Party's platform. Income splitting has always been something of importance to that particular sector of the political landscape, and the reference to the United States in a lot of these political discussions has been frequent and recurring.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

There was another comment as well about some notion of income.... It is pension splitting, and I know of no such policy the government has proposed around general income splitting, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you, Mr. Stanton.

Professor Lahey, I'd like to thank you. You've given us a lot of information to chew on. You've also given us a parameter to make us focus. Both you and Professor Philipps have opened our eyes to.... We could go all over the map, but the focus has been.... We have been in the forefront. If we're really keen on it, and if we want to see the return on our tax dollars, it is important for us to focus again on the revenue side and the spending side as well.

So I'd like to thank you for giving us this analysis. I have a request for you. You talked about Status of Women Canada, the Department of Finance, and external experts. If you have any names of external experts who could give us some ideas around how this could be better framed, our clerks would appreciate it. Thank you very much.

[Prof. Kathleen Lahey]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

We'd like to suspend the meeting for one minute.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Order, please.

I'd like to bring to the attention of the committee that at the last meeting we discussed that for the court challenges program to be studied we would ask around to see who was available on what dates.

For Tuesday, December 4, we have two Conservatives confirmed, three Liberals confirmed, one NDP confirmed, but no Bloc.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

I don't know at what time we'll have to leave, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

This is for Tuesday, from 11 to 1. The majority told us they'll be here on Tuesday, December 4, for this court challenges program.

This is what we left it at. We said we could only study it if people were available, and if you wanted an extra meeting, we could get an extra meeting. We had asked which members were available. We had requested a list of witnesses, and we have received only one witness, one person.

Oui, madame.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Madam Chair, I didn't answer because I don't know at what time we'll have to leave for Geneva on Tuesday. And you have to go with us. So you won't be here either.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you, Ms. Demers, I had forgotten.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

We come back on December 9 and we will be back in committee on December 10.

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

Did you want to be present for the discussion of the Court Challenges Program?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Sorry, Madame Boucher.

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

Ms. Demers would have liked to be present for the discussions on the Court Challenges Program, since she had requested it. She therefore won't be present on December 4. This item should therefore be postponed until we return from Geneva.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

So she's not going to be in town, and that's true, and neither am I, but we can always have Ms. Davidson—