Status of Women Committee on April 2nd, 2009

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

--of representation.

[Janice Charette]

Could I just go back to the OECD, the post-secondary, just to make sure I was clear with the committee members? It's 60% of Canadian women, not 60% of OECD.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Right. Women represent 60% of recent Canadian university graduates.

[Janice Charette]

That's right, which is compared to the similar statistic for other countries in the OECD at the highest.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

So back to women being net benefactors. This government is looking at extending maternity and paternity benefits to the self-employed. Would it be correct in anticipating that the current trend is showing women as net benefactors primarily because of special benefits? If the government does extend benefits to the self-employed, would that trend continue, in your estimation?

[Janice Charette]

That depends very much on the design of the program, but I think we can safely assume, depending on what's contained in the package of special benefits and how it's designed....

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

If you look at the past--

[Janice Charette]

If you extrapolate from the current program and assume the same kind of take-up rates on the part of the self-employed...but it is a hypothetical question at this point. I think it's not unreasonable to assume, with the same kinds of design parameters, that the self-employed population will have similar take-up rates, so yes.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

We've heard some recommendations, things like we need to reduce the number of hours in order to qualify. We still really haven't received a straight answer, but my concern is this. Do we create one system for women and one system for men? If we reduce the number of hours, we have to implement that for all Canadians, not just women.

Am I right in assuming that, or is there a way to create a separate system for women so that women can receive unemployment insurance when they haven't paid into it or they haven't received enough hours? Is that possible, and is it feasible?

[Janice Charette]

The employment insurance program is designed as an insurance program for workers. I'm not sure it would necessarily lend itself to a different program for women over men. It really is looking at the labour force characteristics primarily.

Could it be done? Parliament can choose to pass legislation. I'm not sure it would necessarily make much difference in how we would deliver the program. We'd still have criteria. We'd still have eligibility. I think it's more a question of whether we have the design parameters within the program rather than thinking about....

I would suggest to you that a separate program designed solely for women would be a big departure from a program that is labour-market-based, so we'd have to think through the policy foundation for this kind of a departure from the current system and the advantages and disadvantages.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I think the other group of women who are completely ignored in all these discussions are middle-income women, women who own their own small and medium-sized business, who are paying premiums--families who are paying taxes.

My concern, and we have not discussed it, is the feasibility of some of these suggestions. We've even had suggestions that somehow EI is to provide a minimum guaranteed income for all Canadians.

I'm wondering if you can comment on how that would impact this group of women who are not at all represented in these discussions--women who work hard, pay their taxes, pay their employees, pay the premiums. How would they be affected by some of these suggestions, which could be quite a financial drain on the system as it is right now?

[Janice Charette]

Clearly we'd have to do a pretty thorough analysis of the nature of the recommendations, but the employment insurance program is a program that is financed by employers and employees.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Men and women, who are both--

[Janice Charette]

That's correct.

To the extent that we change the benefit side of the equation, that would have implications for the premiums. I think if you were to have taxation experts before you, they would tell you that payroll-based taxes can actually be a disincentive to employment. One of the things we have certainly looked at as part of our analysis of the employment insurance program in the past is the degree to which we use payroll taxes and this program to deliver benefits that are not strictly labour market related. I know that has been a debate amongst members of Parliament in the past.

But clearly, if you increase benefits, we have to increase premiums, and that is a cost to employers and employees. The government took a decision, in the 2009 budget, to actually freeze the premium rate for the next two years, so there's a cost to the fiscal framework for the next two years as well.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Ultimately, we want to see all Canadians working and doing a job that they enjoy, that they receive satisfaction from, so I think we want to make sure that the people who create those jobs are also able to continue with their businesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Madam Hoeppner.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ms. Mathyssen.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I, too, would like to thank you for being here and providing your expertise.

There are some contradictions, though, that I have noted, and I'd like to address that.

First, you say that women are doing very much better. During the last Parliament, we looked at the economic security of women. We had statistics, from CRIAW, that indicated women are better educated and they are earning on par with men, but only up to about age 25 or 26, and then there's a steep decline in terms of their earning power. It was speculated that it was because they were choosing to marry, choosing to leave the labour market, or they were compelled to leave the labour market because they were providing care to children. But there was a steep decline. This, of course, impacts their future employment insurance benefits and their CPP.

All these factors come into play when we're looking at the economic security of women. In light of that, have you looked at that particular reality in your research? Obviously we want to have a complete picture of what happens to women.

[Janice Charette]

Ms. Mathyssen, thank you for you question.

I wouldn't want to leave the committee with the impression that I would declare victory on the economic security of women. Absolutely not. What I am saying, though, is that the situation is improving. As I said, we look at post-secondary education...and we're seeing that younger women, in particular, are doing better. That isn't true across all women, but the gap is narrowing. The situation is improving, but we have to be vigilant and explore policy and program options to continue to close the gap.

The differential in wages is one that I know the committee has looked at in the past. The proxy we use to look at the differential is the average hourly wage. That's a different statistic than looking at an annual wage, for instance, and looking at all women by comparison to all men, because it does take into consideration some of the caregiving and other responsibilities that women do take in our society.

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

I'm wondering if you could provide details on this strategic training and transition fund.

Do you have the ability to track by gender who will be able to access this fund? I know it's administered by the provinces, but I wonder if you do any tracking in that regard.

[Janice Charette]

We are in the process of negotiating agreements with provinces and territories, who, as you said, will deliver the strategic training and transition fund. I know we're going to be tracking clients who benefit. Certainly for the employment benefits and supports to be delivered under part two of the employment insurance program, the labour market development agreements, LMDAs, we do track by gender.

[Paul Thompson]

We're still in the process of negotiating the reporting protocols around the fund.

[Janice Charette]

We'll take a note of that, though, Ms. Mathyssen. We'll get back to the committee about this.

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

I'm assuming every bit of information you could glean would be of value in terms of all these programs. I appreciate that. We've heard from Statistics Canada that some of the data our committee was looking for is just not available. They've had cutbacks and they simply can't manage to provide all that we were interested in.

We were particularly interested in learning the reasons that Canadian women voluntarily leave their jobs. Do you think this information would help to inform better policy-making? Are there any plans to request that StatsCan begin to keep this? There has been a discussion about voluntary reasons for women leaving work. In my riding women have come to me and said they left their jobs voluntarily but because they were being sexually harassed or they were under a great deal of stress.

I wonder if there are plans to start to collect that kind of data.