Status of Women Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2007

[Dr. Ellen Russell]

There are various ways of approaching problems. One is to make a provision in the tax system to address a problem. There may be ways of spending money to address the same problem.

So the question boils down to which would be the most effective, cost-effective for the government and also effective vis-à-vis the intended beneficiaries of this. How best to provide for child care, for example, might be an example of this.

You would need to roll up your sleeves and figure out who benefits under one set of policy options versus another set of policy options. I guarantee you that when you start digging you'll find that some policies tend to support certain types of people over other types of people. So in effect whenever you make a policy choice, you are, whether you acknowledge it or not, tending to support some people rather than others.

To be accountable it's useful to have all the information on the table of who's the likely beneficiary. So if you propose a tax cut or a tax credit, then give us a table. Say who is likely to get how much money out of this. Or if you propose spending instead, then show us your analysis of who's likely to benefit from it. Then everybody has the information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you, Professor Russell.

We'll now go on to Mr. Stanton for seven minutes.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon to both of our witnesses here today. It's terrific to have you both here--and tuned in, Dr. Bartle--from university.

I'm going to put the following question to both of you, if I can, for a couple of minutes. Hopefully there will be a little bit of time left at the end. It might seem like a simple question, but we're undertaking a study on gender budgeting. We have so far had a glimpse of what that process would be like.

I wonder what you would best describe as what should be the desired outcome of gender budgeting. What is it we're actually trying to do as a matter of public policy? How will we know when we've arrived, and that our budgeting process has achieved what we set out to do?

I'll go first to Madam Russell and then Dr. Bartle.

[Dr. Ellen Russell]

There are many ways of answering that question. My answer would be that my first priority is to have the information so that we actually know what the consequences are of policies based on gender.

We could go further than that and put some sort of goal attached to it. Once we have all the information on the table, then our goal is such-and-such. You will all come up with some sort of statement about a preferred outcome vis-à-vis gender.

I'm not discussing the preferred outcome at this point. I am saying please provide us the information of how policies are currently impacting Canadians based on gender. Then we'll have the full public debate. To have a democratic debate we have to have the information, otherwise we're just tossing platitudes around about what we'd like to see. We don't know what the evidence is.

I think the finance department currently has lots of tools at its disposal to give us more evidence than we currently have about the impacts of policies. Why not just put those on the table, and then we'll all discuss it.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Okay, good.

Dr. Bartle.

[Dr. John R. Bartle]

My answer is quite simple, I think. The question that I think you should look towards is this: did the innovation alter the basis for making a budgetary decision?

It seems to me a good budgetary process means that the right information is brought to bear at the right time, to the right decision-makers. That doesn't mean any specific outcome is going to happen. It could be that people decide, “Oh well, things are inequitable, and we're comfortable with that.” I would hope not, but that's possible.

I think the point is that the process should allow for consideration of the right decision. I would say that you know you've gotten there when there is a sense that the innovation of gender budgeting has had an impact on the process of consideration.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I have another question to follow up, Dr. Bartle. On one of the items you mentioned in your presentation, you used the term “incidence of spending”. I think you were talking about the expenditure side of budgeting as opposed to the revenue side.

What did you mean by that, the “incidence of spending”?

[Dr. John R. Bartle]

Here I make a distinction between “impact” and “incidence”. Impact is the initial effect of where the dollars go. Incidence is the long-term effect of how the money was used and who has benefited.

For example, if you had a maternal and child health clinic that was hypothetically staffed all by men--not too likely, but just as a hypothetical--the initial impact of that would be that all the dollars would be spent on salaries for men and equipment and so forth.

But the incidence of that might be, one would hope, an important benefit to women and children.

So the gender impact can be different from the gender incidence.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Okay.

Do I have some time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Yes, you do. You have two minutes and forty-five seconds.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Very good. I'm not accustomed to this long question time here, so thank you.

Professor Russell, you've obviously had some workings with the Department of Finance, I assume, over the years, and some connectedness there. Are you familiar with some of the measures that Canada, over this last while, has been doing to develop or to look through a gender lens at issues around budgeting and budget planning?

[Dr. Ellen Russell]

Within the finance department?

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Yes.

[Dr. Ellen Russell]

I've been involved in conversations where it's been explained to me that something is happening. I just haven't seen any report or something that would concretely lay out for me just exactly what is happening. So I hesitate to comment, because while I've been assured that something is going on, I'm not too sure what that something is.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I think you even referred in your opening remarks about seeing at least a page in there that made some reference. Describe or suggest what assurance you would take, knowing there had been some gender considerations in the budget? How would you identify it, if you saw a budget where all of a sudden you could tell right away that this was what process had been used?

[Dr. Ellen Russell]

Well, at the very minimum--it's quite simple--I'd see a table. A given tax cut would be described, and how much it would cost. Then there would be a table, with men on one side and women on the other side, and then different income groups. Women earning less than x thousand dollars a year would get so many dollars, and men in the same income category would get so many dollars. It would compare that for me for all the income categories.

I would be able to look at the bottom and see the value of this tax cut, and how much is going to men and women.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Okay.

I have just one more question for Dr. Bartle.

In terms of commencing this study, what would be the major categories of study that we should be sure to include as we look at this in the months ahead? What are the key areas on which we need to be hearing from witnesses in the course of this study?

[Dr. John R. Bartle]

I think the most important thing is how you're going to weave it into all the phases of the budgetary process. I don't have to tell you folks that it doesn't do much good to have the executive, in the budget that they give to the legislature, say, “Here are my goals”, and then for it to stop there. It doesn't do much good, on the other end of it, to audit for compliance with gender goals if there were no gender goals in the first place.

What's important is looking at each of the phases from the beginning, when the executive formulates the budget and then passes it to the legislature, and then, in turn, the legislature enacts it. That phase, again, needs to have explicit consideration.

And then I think maybe the most important and often forgotten thing is what's going on in the agencies. When the agencies have money to spend, do they take that into account? Do they factor that into their decision-making? They're the ones spending the money, they're the ones who are actually directly writing the cheques, so that's very important.

There has been a lot of progress in other countries on gender audits, and I think that's fairly straightforward. Any good auditor, I think, can look for that, and if an agency isn't giving that information, then they will not be in compliance with the audit and that gets the attention of any agency.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you, Dr. Bartle.

We will now go to Ms. Mathyssen for seven minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

Thank you to Professor Bartle and Professor Russell. You've brought an incredible level of expertise. I'm very grateful that you're here and are able to help us.

I'm going to ask a number of questions and certainly would welcome answers from both of you, if that's appropriate. If you don't feel comfortable, that's fine.

I was quite interested, Professor Bartle, in your description of Sweden. You said Sweden has done a good job. I understand there still is work to do, and we don't know the results, but in the interim, has there been a noticeable improvement or change or impact on the Swedish economy, social benefits that have emanated from their work in terms of gender budgeting?

[Dr. John R. Bartle]

I don't know the answer to that. I think it would be hard to know the answer, in part because there are two things going on--the social changes that create the implementation and adoption of gender budgeting, and then in turn the effect of gender budgeting on the social conditions and the economy.

It would be a little hard, I think, to tease out. I don't know, in the case of Sweden, if they've found anything one way or the other.

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

Okay.

You said in your presentation that budgets are gender blind, and we've heard that from other presenters in this committee.

Why should Canada then go ahead and look at gender budgeting? What is the rationale for going ahead if we don't know if Sweden's been successful and we're not sure of outcomes?

[Dr. John R. Bartle]

I think the simple word is “equity”. If you think government policy should be equitable, if budgets should pay attention to criteria such as equity goals, and if gender equity is a particular concern, then I think you want to do it.

There's a saying with performance budgeting that unless you're keeping score, you're not really playing the game. I would say the same thing here. If you're not tracking your progress toward your goals, how do you know if you're achieving your goals?

This goes a little bit beyond your question, but one point I would add is that I think that's true not just for gender equity but for all types of equity, whether it be race, class, regional, and so forth.

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

Thank you.

My next question is directed more toward Professor Russell. You talked about the first steps and you talked about available software packages and I wonder if you've done any modelling. If you've used these software packages, could you give us a sense of what difference they would make, an example with regard to public policy, some good, some bad?

[Dr. Ellen Russell]

Sure. Various tax measures that either have recently been enacted or are being considered or debated in the public sphere don't have any obvious...or at least from the superficial level, they do not look like they speak much at all to gender.

One example--and I think it was debated during the last election--is the possibility of having a change to reduce the taxation of capital gains. On first glance, that does not look like it has an obvious gender connotation, except if you are able to discern whether there's a pattern in terms of who has capital gains. Is it more likely to be men or women who have assets that they are able to sell at a profit and thereby realize a capital gain?

So if you were able to do the research that figured out the likely beneficiaries of such a tax, there's going to be a discernible pattern in terms of gender, then you have a different lens through which to debate that possible policy proposal.

The various tools in the toolbox would help you parse these things so before you even enact them, you can foresee the possible consequences in terms of gender equity.