Status of Women Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2009

[Louise Levonian]

We'll have to go back and check to see whether we have it by marital status. We'll see what we have.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you.

To my other question about gender-based analysis, can you tell us what kind of gender-based analysis has been done on the proposals put forward by the Minister of Finance or by the federal, provincial, and territorial ministers?

[Louise Levonian]

I'll give you a general overview of what the Department of Finance does from a gender analysis perspective. I'll turn to my colleagues if there are any specifics.

The Department of Finance has a very systematic approach to gender-based analysis. It conducts gender-based analysis for all budget measures that go to the minister. It does that on a systematic basis where data exists and where it's appropriate to do that kind of analysis. In looking at these kinds of low-income measures or tax measures, those are very conducive to gender-based analysis.

So gender-based analysis is conducted on all measures that go forward to the minister. I'm not sure if you were specifically referring to what measures--

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

I'm specifically referring to the recommendations that are here in your presentation today.

[Chris Forbes]

We'll sort of hot-potato you around a bit.

On the changes that the federal, provincial, and territorial ministers of finance propose with respect to the Canada Pension Plan, as Monsieur Ménard suggested in his presentation, there is a fair bit of detail on the implications of the CPP or CPP changes on men versus women. So a lot of those implications would have been taken into account and known during the discussions.

My colleague could answer more specifically if you have detailed questions, but that was certainly available during the development of those policies.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Ms. Neville.

Madame Demers.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much for being here today, Mr. Forbes.

Ms. Schirle, thank you also for being here.

This is not easy to understand. I am not good with numbers, but I have a lot of heart. I have listened to what you said and I really am having trouble understanding everything. However, Ms. Schirle, I understand that a public sector job is better for women, that this type of job is preferable to working as a waitress. At least female public servants receive a good pension.

Mr. Forbes, you work for the Federal-Provincial Relations Branch. When you speak with your counterparts, do you discuss the various measures which are in place? We hear from seniors, who come to our offices, and whose incomes have decreased significantly because their provincial benefits have increased a little bit. So, these seniors went up one income bracket, and as a consequence their incomes fell, both on a monthly and on a yearly basis. Several seniors have told us the same thing.

Can you tell us whether you are aware of this and whether you have discussed this with your counterparts?

[Chris Forbes]

Certainly there are a couple of points.

With the CPP, there are, of course, joint federal, provincial, and territorial consultations. So the two orders of government are in discussion about that and have to be in agreement.

With respect to the relations between federal programs and provincial and territorial programs, nationally we have OAS and GIS in place and the provinces are well aware of those programs. The GIS does have a clawback rate, as it's targeted at very low-income people. As your income rises from other sources, you get less and less GIS.

The extent to which the provinces tailor their programs around that clawback is hard for me to say. It's up to individual provinces. Some will build on that. An example would be Ontario, which has a GIS-like program of its own, a supplement to the GIS. I can't speak specifically on what Quebec does or how they take into account those clawbacks.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you.

My next question is for the representatives of the Department of Finance. Last week, we decided to focus on pension plans because we are conducting two studies at the same time, and we thought we could help you by giving you a copy of our report before the break in December.

Do you think that the committee's studies, which involve meeting with about 30 groups, will help you make decisions and bring about the changes which will have to be made to the Canada Pension Plan?

[Chris Forbes]

Certainly the consultations of this committee and any other committee are important for informing the work the department does. We have just gone through a tri-annual review with the Canada Pension Plan and the next round won't be done for three years. We have a budget-making process ongoing, though, and these are issues that come to the attention of the department. So the work of this committee and any other committee is of course useful to us in how we help to advise the minister.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Laflèche, I would like to know whether you have noted an increase in the number of seniors who have gone back to work since the measure allowing them to earn up to $5,000 a year, without affecting their benefits, was implemented. Do you know whether many seniors went back to work?

[Danielle Laflèche]

I'm sorry, but we don't have that information within our section. However, if you want, we can get those numbers for you.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

I don't know who can answer my next question, which is about private pension plans.

In the last couple of years, we have seen that, when companies go bankrupt, employees lose their pension plans, and some employees, who had worked 16, 17 or 18 years for a company, ended up with $400.

Can anything be done to prevent that from happening? How can we prevent people who have worked many years for a company, and who have paid into their pension plans—sometimes with contributions from both the employer and the employee—from retiring with little or no pension benefits if the company goes belly up?

[Jeremy Rudin, Assistant Deputy Minister, Financial Sector Policy Branch, Department of Finance]

You are referring to private pension plans. At the federal level, we are responsible for regulating federal pension plans, which represent about 7% of all plans.

As Mr. Forbes mentioned a little earlier, in October the minister unveiled proposed changes to the pension plan system, which contained several measures, including increased protection for pension plan contributors. However, these measures would not completely eliminate the risk posed by the bankruptcy of an employer.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Fine.

I have a final question for you, Mr. Forbes.

In your statement, you said, and I quote: “Virtually all seniors receive Old Age Security, regardless of their work histories.” Which seniors do not receive Old Age Security benefits?

[Chris Forbes]

You have to have lived in Canada for 10 years or more. Therefore, those who have lived here for less than 10 years are not eligible.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

They 're not eligible for Old Age Security. Therefore they are not eligible for the Guaranteed Income Supplement either?

[Chris Forbes]

Exactly.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Fine, thank you.

Madam Chair, do I have any time left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 30 seconds.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Madame Demers.

Ms. Hoeppner.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

And thank you to the witnesses for being here.

My first question is to Professor Schirle.

One of the things I'm very interested in hearing about, and maybe you can comment as well as the officials, is that in the last ten years there's been a dramatic difference in the way women are looking at retirement, and the way retirement will actually be for them, as opposed to older Canadian women.

I wonder, first of all, if you can comment on the role of education in financial matters. I'm wondering about the role of financial planning in the big picture and how many women view it as an individual and how many view it in the context of a couple. For example, if a woman decides to stay at home and raise her children, she and her husband make that decision. Part of that decision process is that they'll be losing some of their pension income, which means they need to make greater contributions to a spousal RRSP, which maybe means their taxes will be reduced and they'll have a little more disposable income either to save or.... Obviously that's part of a big plan. Then when they do retire, government has introduced income splitting between seniors, so it won't be as much about how much the woman's pension is and how much the man's is, because they can actually split it.

Can you comment on financial planning and looking at the big picture and how much is done in the context of spouses, as opposed to men or women?

[Dr. Tammy Schirle]

Okay, I can try to comment on that.

I don't think we always have empirical evidence for some of these ideas. Generally we saw a very large increase in the educational levels of women, starting with women who were going to college in the 1960s. They were going to college for the purposes of training for careers, and then that obviously led into their careers.

There is a big generation difference there on how all decisions are being made in the family. For women who were getting married before the 1970s, it was very much taking what their husbands were doing as given, and then maybe joining the labour force, contributing a little bit in terms of income to the household.

Today, though, when you look at how decisions are made by families, we can definitely say that those decisions are made jointly. So a husband and wife are going to sit down together and decide how much each of them is working in the labour market, how much time each of them is spending in the household and on child care, and all of these things, and all of their financial planning would be done jointly as well.

Now, there is some individual aspect to that. To the extent that if a woman spends time out of the labour force for child care, which might just be the choices they make as a family, she's the one who has to take the penalty in the sense that she's lost some labour market experience. She might have given up that raise, given up a job promotion. That happens, and you just take that as part of the package of staying home to take care of your children.

The concern is that if that couple were to get divorced, you couldn't contract how to handle that loss in the labour market. You can try. We do try to account for these things in divorce agreements, at least to some extent, but it's not something we can measure perfectly, so it's not something we can contract perfectly.

To that extent, we don't have perfect contracts for marriage. There is still some individual component to financial planning, and perhaps that's where we see a generation of women now who really independently plan their careers before they even think about getting married and having children. So you might think this really does get built into the individual decision, prior to marriage, before that even starts.

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

Okay, thank you very much.

Would the officials have any comment on that? No, none at all?

Okay, then I'm going to move on to something Madame Demers was talking about, and that's the role of the provinces in pension regulation. If I understand you correctly, 7% of the public plans are regulated by the federal government. Is that correct?