Thank you so much.
It's a real pleasure to be here, and I'm delighted that the members of this committee have taken on the opportunity to study gender budgeting.
We have been a keen and long-term advocate of gender budgeting, for a variety of reasons. We understand gender budgeting much like Ms. Beckton does here. It doesn't mean a separate budget for women, it is not limited to budgetary allocations targeting equal opportunity policies or promoting women, but it encompasses the entire budget. I think that's why your task is so important today, because you're looking at the global federal budget and how it is undertaken and how to ensure equitable outcomes for women.
We identified gender budgeting as a priority in 2005 after we commissioned a retrospective federal budget analysis going 10 years back. So we looked at the year during which Canada signed the Beijing Platform for Action, in 1995, up to 2004. We hired a researcher, who has appeared before your committee, an economist, Armine Yalnizyan, to do an analysis of key priority areas for women and how they were funded during that period.
Essentially, what Armine has told you and what she found for us is that areas that women relied on for the well-being of themselves, their families, and their communities tended to be dramatically underfunded and, in some cases, cut during the deficit-cutting years. During the surplus years, those moneys were never restored. So what we were left with was a situation in which women weren't able to reliably count on programs and services that were very, very important for the stability of themselves and their families.
During this period when we were doing the study, we attempted to find information about what was being done at the federal level on gender-based analysis—this was in 2005. Sadly, we didn't have a lot to work with. There was no information available. We were able to get a commitment in the House at that time from Minister Ralph Goodale that a rigorous GBA would be done of forthcoming federal budgets, but there was no evidence suggesting to us that a rigorous or high-calibre gender-based analysis was being done.
So we've been, in fact, on an exploratory mission over the last couple of years to better discern what's actually happening within the federal government. We recognize that Status of Women Canada has funded some research that has looked specifically at the impacts of tax policy and other budgetary measures, but we were unable to find any meaningful coordinated effort within the federal government, and particularly within the finance department, around gender budgeting and gender budgeting outcomes.
I'll tell you a bit more a little later about what we understand to be happening now, and I'm sure Clare would be happy to elaborate as well.
We understand gender budgeting to be necessary for several reasons. The United Nations has identified what we call equality gaps in a variety of areas in Canada that really impact upon women's daily lives. These include poverty, violence against women, employment, child care, housing, legal aid, discrimination against aboriginal women, immigrant and refugee women, and their access to employment insurance.
We also understand, and no doubt you've done a very long-term study on women's economic security, that women are located differently in the economy, in particular because of their caregiving responsibilities, and those caregiving responsibilities have an impact on their participation in the labour force. I think it's helpful to recognize for the purposes of this committee that 70% of Canada's part-time work force is female. Women consistently share with Statistics Canada that they take more time out of the work force for caregiving, they take more sick days, they take more family days; and in many cases they're opting for part-time work, if their financial situation allows it, so that they can better balance family and employment.
We should also recognize, and I'm sure you've heard this, that nearly 40% of women tax filers don't actually pay tax in Canada. They don't earn enough revenue to pay tax. This is really important when examining federal budget trends over the last decade, which increasingly rely on the tax system to deliver social policy.
In particular, we note the use of tax credits. This has been a long-term—long-term in the last decade and a bit—way in which the federal government has opted to deliver income relief, but in some cases it doesn't work for women if their tax liability is so limited that the tax credit means nothing to them.
So I think this is an important context in which we're working, and you're working, in terms of the gender budgeting study that is currently under way.
Because of these realities, we have endeavoured to better understand what's happening within Finance. One of the issues is that I think there's a profound lack of transparency within the federal government and the finance department. I think that's because the measures have been so modest to date. It's very difficult to be publicly forthcoming about what you're doing when for the most part, I believe, it has been ad hoc and somewhat arbitrary.
We do understand that there has been some gender-based analysis of federal budget measures since 2005. We haven't looked at whether anything preceded that. Our evidence suggests that it has been extremely limited. Perhaps it has been done; we haven't been able to access that information. We believe, and gender budgeting experts worldwide will tell you, that transparency is a really important part of the process.
To better understand what the finance department is doing, we've filed access to information requests. We've discovered that there has been some gender-based analysis, but often it's very superficial and it's not necessarily taking place within an equality rights framework.
I would refer you to a report by Diane Elson, who is a UN-recognized expert on gender budgeting. She has written a document called Budgeting for Women's Rights: Monitoring Government Budgets for Compliance with CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. I don't know why Ms. Elson hasn't been here with you, but I believe she would be of enormous assistance.
This report suggests that gender budgeting needs to be done within a context that recognizes the ways in which women are disadvantaged in the economy, and particularly in their communities. It may be that you have to zero in on specific constituencies of women.
We're aware that Canada did file a report to the Commonwealth finance ministers meeting, as per their commitment to do gender budgeting. We were able to access a copy of that report, again through an access to information request because we simply haven't been able to get the information any other way. The report suggests that GBA in Canada tends to be limited to analysis and is less focused on outcomes. I think we have to have a shift within the federal government so we also look at performance indicators.
I believe that Debbie is correct in saying that Canada is well positioned to look more specifically at performance-based budgeting. We understand--and I look to Clare to clarify if this is true--that the analysis is not in-depth enough. It does not look specifically at women's location. It's not specific to any government, but without that analysis what you risk getting is a public relations exercise. I think no one wants that kind of analysis. It's not helpful, and it doesn't necessarily advance women's interests. I would strongly encourage the committee to look very specifically at performance-based indicators based upon Canada's equality commitments, both internationally and domestically.
I brought a copy of the 23 recommendations that were made by the UN CEDAW committee on discrimination against women. I believe this set of recommendations is a useful place to start in terms of thinking about what you want to achieve with gender budgeting.
I would conclude with two points. One is that I don't think there has been sufficient leadership. I think Status of Women Canada has certainly done what it's been able to in terms of encouraging the finance department; however, I think the finance department to date hasn't embodied the leadership required to take this to the next level. I think it requires collaboration with Status of Women Canada, but I don't think they're there yet.
I recognize that the tax policy unit at the finance department appears to be undertaking a gender-based analysis, but I don't think that analysis is sufficient in terms of what it's identifying as useful to women. I think if the analysis were sufficient, we would see different measures in federal budgets, and we're not seeing them. We're still seeing a heavy reliance on tax credits, for example, and other kinds of tax cuts, which, I don't think, recognize the way in which women rely on public spending and notions of the public good. So I think that we need a different kind of leadership and a different context.
I would also say that I don't think civil society organizations have been adequately consulted. It's partly a capacity issue, and we all recognize that. Women's organizations in Canada are not well versed in gender budgeting, in part because we don't believe that Canada has been doing it in a very public way. So our inputting into the process has been limited by the fact that it appears to be somewhat obscure.
I would note that last year, only two groups were invited to the ministerial round tables with the Minister of Finance in the pre-budget lead-up, and those were REAL Women of Canada and the Native Women's Association of Canada. That's according to the information provided by the finance department. This suggests to me that the consultations are not broad enough, and you're not speaking to enough organizations that can actually tell you about women's economic and social circumstances. If you're not having those conversations, in my view your gender budgeting work will not succeed. It will not be meaningful, and I don't believe it will necessarily produce good outcomes.
I would also note—and this is my last point—that I believe Parliament should have some oversight here. We see it in other areas. For example, there's an environment commissioner who looks at how departments do their sustainable development planning. I don't see any reason why we wouldn't want to consider something like that for the purposes of gender equality and gender budgeting. Finally—I'm sorry, I'll just make this last point—while Canada has made a good start in having departments submit their gender-based analyses to the finance department, I think we need to go a step further. I don't think relying exclusively on departments to do that GBA is sufficient. In some cases, we don't have existing or functional GBA units within those departments. So I don't think we have enough capacity in Canada, and I don't think we have enough oversight.
I'll stop there.