Status of Women Committee on Dec. 5th, 2007

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Maybe you can do it on your next round as you answer other people.

[Lissa Donner]

If I can begin, we need a national child care program. I did work with this committee. It was over 20 years ago when this committee considered child care in the mid-1980s. I was advocating for a national child care program here.

Since then I've had a child and she's now past day care age, and why am I still here advocating for a national child care program? That's what we need.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

Thank you. We will now move on to Madam Boucher for five minutes please.

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

Good afternoon, mesdames. Welcome to gender budgeting.

The ideas you've brought are very interesting. I'm going to start with Ms. Sharp, from Australia.

You've been working in the field of gender budgeting for more than 20 years. I believe the success of that kind of budgeting depended solely on government. However, have you faced any other constraints as a result of which the effort was not sustained?

[Dr. Rhonda Sharp]

When I say I've been in gender budgeting for 22 years, it's not just in Australia. I'm involved in advising governments and in providing technical advice elsewhere.

In Australia, different forms of gender budgeting were undertaken by both the Liberal Party—which is our conservative party of government—and the Labour Party, but the way they constructed the process was different. As I said before, with the Labour Party for the first 12 years, it was about giving a lot of power to institutions within the state, particularly women's policy offices. When it shifted to the conservative parties, the emphasis initially shifted to publishing ministerial statements as part of the budget, which said this is how we're doing good for women, but the analysis was much, much weaker.

So, yes, the political colour is important. The macro-economic conditions are important. You have a budget surplus situation, which we do, and that is an opportunity, a wonderful opportunity, to do gender budgeting. It's much harder when you're in a deficit situation.

Is there anything more specific I can say?

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

If I understood correctly, that depends on the thinking of the government, whatever it may be. But have you faced other constraints elsewhere?

[Dr. Rhonda Sharp]

Of course.

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

Efforts have to be sustained. So how do you go about making those constraints positive, so that the effort isn't made solely for a certain period of time, but over the long term?

[Dr. Rhonda Sharp]

One of the things your standing committee could do is find ways in which Parliament would oversee the process—that worked very well in South Africa for a period, and in Uganda—to get the politicians trained in this area and to make sure the questions are asked in Parliament, so that when it comes through to the budget stage, there's parliamentary involvement in putting gender on the table. You no doubt have expenditure review committees. Do they have any responsibility to review gender impacts, as they did in South Africa for a period of time?

You can overcome some of the major constraints by thinking how you can use the structures that you have to give importance to this, to monitor it, to give it a push and make sure it keeps on happening. If questions aren't asked in Parliament, then it falls by the wayside.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

You have 15 seconds left, Madame Boucher, if you wish to use them.

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

All right. I don't know who will be able to answer my question.

When a government has completed the analysis and has decided to prepare a budget that takes gender specificity into account, where does it start? What is the first thing it should do?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

Your time is up. We will perhaps get back to that later.

We will now move to Madame Gagnon, for five minutes, please.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm a former status of women critic, and I went to Beijing. There was quite extraordinary momentum at the time and there was considerable hope that the various programs supporting women would be improved over the years.

The first step in this direction by the government, whether it be Liberal or Conservative, is the Canada Social Transfer. You want us to be able to improve certain programs, to enhance them, but you're also calling on the various provincial and federal governments.

If the Canada Social Transfer in health, education and human resources... You talked about that earlier. Not all that money was restored by the provinces. The provincial governments must meet the needs of their populations, including those of women. So it's somewhat disappointing to see currently how...

The question my colleague asked is very relevant. In Quebec, we have the Conseil du statut de la femme. There was a federal counterpart to that organization, but the Liberals abolished it. Who can advise the government? That was an independent organization, but it no longer exists. The departments were told to conduct studies on programs, on the impact on women. Such studies no longer exist. We don't know what will happen. They said they would report to the House.

How can a government, which is in place for a very short period of time, accurately target the issues and see the impact on each program? They say the Department of Finance should... Don't you think it is somewhat difficult to come up with something concrete and well thought out? An independent organization could advise the government and the minister, but they abolished the one they had. The Liberals abolished it and the Conservatives are very far from wanting an advisory committee consisting of women. In addition, you need highly specialized people, as you said. Where are we going to get advice when we don't have that kind of committee? The purpose of the Conseil du statut de la femme is to advise the Quebec government. I think there are different directions, the impact of programs...

So I'm quite pessimistic about everything we're told. This morning, there was a question on that subject in the House of Commons. I don't remember the amount—$2 or $3 million—but there's no impact on the programs because we don't see them. You can say you're investing $1.6 million in social housing, but exactly what does that mean?

I'd like to hear from you on that subject.

[Armine Yalnizyan]

I'd just like to say thank you very much for your question.

Yes, it is disheartening for those of us who have been in the women's movement for decades to have lost the ground we've lost in the last couple of years.

That having been said, as our colleague from Australia has said, you can't do it just with institutions of expertise within government. You can't do it just with parliamentarians who are champions. You can't do it just with civil society. You need people everywhere to champion this stuff, and the expertise is never lost. We don't have the capacity in the NGO movement to do the work that you can do in treasury or in finance, as we are discussing. With a bit of luck, committees like this can actually push the process so that some of that work does get done where it properly belongs--at the heart of government.

But that's not enough, as our colleague from Australia has said. You need civil society pressure, and, frankly, even if we disappeared for the next 20 years, we have the touchstone of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to tell us what it is people need. People need freedom from fear and violence. People need access to an affordable place where they are safe--shelter. People need enough food. People need clean water. People need health and education. It's a very short list. We know what to do in order to do right by people; we know that when we spend new money, how we spend it makes a difference. This is not rocket science; it is not complex. Let us not fall into the trap of thinking it's complex.

Let us understand that it is actually not the complexity of poverty but actually the effrontery of poverty. In a country that is this blessed with so many resources economically and fiscally, can we not do something to make sure that everybody is an equal player, that everybody can run the race--men and women, children of both genders, immigrants as well as people who are born here?

There's no reason for us to not do better, so while I completely understand your frustration, I don't think the game is over. It is never over as long as there are people like you on this committee willing to take up the challenge on how to make it a vital part of political life.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

Thank you very much.

We will now move to Mrs. Mathyssen again, for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This committee is going to make a report on all that we've heard. If you had a wish list, what would you hope to see in that report from this committee?

[Armine Yalnizyan]

If I had a wish list I would ask for you to argue vigorously for a process wherein you do some of the things you've heard today: that every new initiative taken out of the surplus budget, every new initiative that comes from program allocation and reallocation, be assessed as to what you are cutting, what you are doing, and whom it impacts.

Please make some progress on housing, child care, and access to education. You can do it. You can also set the tone as a federal government in saying what a living minimum wage is. It costs you very little; it sets a very important message for people who are working at minimum wages, which in no jurisdiction come close to a living wage at full-time, full-year work—which is offensive.

That would be my short list.

[Lissa Donner]

My short list is quite similar. You've been charged with looking at gender budgeting. Come out of this with a recommendation, I would ask, that, as Armine has said and I've said earlier, requires those very talented and very knowledgeable staff in the Department of Finance to ask and answer the question: will this initiative, whether it's an expenditure reduction or a new program, have a differential impact on women and men, boys and girls, and if so, in what ways?

Lay it out. Make it clear, so that you as parliamentarians and your other colleagues can vote, clear in the knowledge that if you vote for this initiative you're increasing the gap or decreasing the gap between women and men.

The second item on my wish list—and although in my housing case study I've touched on it, we've not really had an opportunity to discuss it much here today—is the importance of understanding that neither women nor men are homogenous. You'll see in the case study I did on housing that we looked at women and men first, then we looked at women and men of aboriginal identity in my city and our province; we looked at women and men and boys and girls with and without disabilities; and we looked at immigrants. It's a real mistake to assume that all women are homogeneous and all men are homogenous, because they're not.

However, having said that, whichever group we looked at—immigrants, aboriginal people and non-aboriginal people, people with disabilities, people without disabilities—however you sliced it, more women lived in core housing need than men.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

You still have almost two minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

One of the problems with the current gender-based analysis that occurs throughout the federal government is that there's no accountability or transparency. What steps need to be taken to ensure that there is indeed accountability and transparency incorporated into these gender budget initiatives? How do we do it? How do we make sure that transparency is there?

[Dr. Rhonda Sharp]

I think what you've moving on to now is the hard end of gender budgeting, in that ultimately, calling governments to account for their gender equality policies is what we've been on about for decades. There is no ready answer about accountability, except to use those processes that you know about in your particular democracy.

The transparency stuff can be heightened I think with some change in governance arrangements and institutional arrangements around budgeting. Governments can sign off and signal that they are going to give priority to transparency. It then becomes the work of the bureaucracy to work out how that's going to be implemented. I don't think you can just say we're going to have more transparency; you have to actually have a process.

If you had a budget law or a legislative commitment to it, that would give it teeth.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

Thank you very much, and that finishes up your time.

For the last round, the five-minute round, Madame Boucher is next.

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

Once again I'll ask the same question I asked earlier. When a government has decided to put in place a budget that takes gender specificity into account, where should it start?

[Armine Yalnizyan]

I'll start, Madame Boucher.

If you're going to do more tax cuts or if you're going to do debt reduction, show us who benefits from those things.

In anything you do with the surplus, anything you do with spending, show us who the beneficiaries are. That's the very least you can do.

As my colleague Lissa Donner said, when you parliamentarians vote for these things, you're showing us what you're standing up for. She also said it isn't just men and women; it's also income categories. Frankly, much of what we're talking about does not reach women because the majority of women earn less than $30,000 a year, and many of the things we're talking about in terms of investments as well as tax expenditures do not reach low-income Canadians. They just don't. The GST would be the single exclusion of that.

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

If a government, whatever it may be, decided to adopt a gender-specific budget, would it be better to start working with the private sector to determine where it should head, or with the other departments? What department should it start with?