Status of Women Committee on Nov. 16th, 2010

[Jane Badets]

With the GSS, we have collected that information consistently over about 20 years. That will be the way in which we look at it. We always release the GSS by looking at the consistency back with the past information we have collected. That will provide us with the information to know whether we collected it correctly.

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

Ms. Badets, you said that the consultation process was explicitly concerned with unpaid work. Are you saying that the consultation guide was focused on unpaid work in terms of the list of issues that StatsCan itself was concerned with? You were concerned as an organization with the issue of unpaid work; I'm wondering where this concern came from.

[Jane Badets]

In terms of the guide, as we always do going into consultations, the one in 2000 and each census look at all the content, so it wasn't just specifically this issue. There are other issues that we raise in the guide, so it's always re-looking at the census content. Is it relevant? Is it producing high-quality information? Is it what users need?

We do that process for every census, and it was no different for the 2011 census.

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

Unpaid workers are part of the general--

[Jane Badets]

Yes. It was a broader look at the census and the content, and it was one issue that came up.

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

Could we have copies of the memos that led to this discussion in regard to the questions, and particularly to unpaid work? I think that might be helpful in order to understand how the process came about and how it was completed.

Is that possible, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Ms. Mathyssen.

I would like to remind the witnesses that there are requests now for two sets of data. One is for Ms. Neville with regard to consultations, and now Ms. Mathyssen has asked for copies of memos. Could you please send that information on to the clerk for us? Thank you very much.

We have 15 minutes left. If everyone is really good, that could give us two minutes each on a round of four people. That means you're going to have to be crisp and I'm going to have to cut you off, so there is that option.

What I would like to suggest is that we quickly go into a round of two minutes. No, we cannot do three, Ms. Neville, just two. Otherwise, we'll have our next lot of witnesses waiting.

Go ahead, Ms. Simson.

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Thank you.

And I'd like to thank you all for appearing before the committee today.

I'd like to go back to Ms. Badets' opening remarks. I would like some clarification on what “highly focused” really means. “Highly focused” in my world means “very narrow”, in terms of consultation.

How many organizations were consulted in terms of the use of question 33?

[Jane Badets]

I can't, off the top of my head, know that, and sometimes it's not necessarily that we were consulting specifically on unpaid work. When we start off the consultations, it's on all the content, so those comments may have come up as we were consulting on the entire census questionnaire.

In terms of “highly focused”, it's just that we heard this back from a general feedback on consultations, so we took some more specific steps. As I said, there were a number of meetings or teleconferences with provincial and territorial governments and federal departments, and some--

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

You also made mention of the time use surveys, which are in five-year cycles. Typically, how many of those surveys would be distributed in Canada?

[Jane Badets]

Are you referring to the sample size?

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Yes, exactly.

[Jane Badets]

I think the sample size is about 25,000.

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

It's 25,000. How many would typically be getting the long form, the mandatory long form?

[Marc Hamel]

It's one in five dwellings in Canada. In 2011, there would have been approximately 2.9 million.

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Essentially you're saying that we're giving up 2.9 million for 25,000 every five years. Would I be correct?

[Jane Badets]

What we're.... I guess--

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

It is a time use survey--

[Jane Badets]

With the survey, though, you get a much richer set of information.

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

But it's a time use survey. Time use is not necessarily the same thing as unpaid work.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ms. Simson, let's have a quick answer.

That's one of the reasons, Ms. Neville, that I decided on two minutes. It's because everyone goes over two minutes or whatever they're asked to do.

Go ahead quickly, Ms. Badets, if you can answer that.

[Jane Badets]

Okay.

Time use includes unpaid household activities, and we do specifically ask questions in that survey on unpaid work or unpaid household activities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Ms. Brown is next, for the Conservatives.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you very much.

This is just a comment to our presenters. I'd really like to get some definitions of “unpaid work”, because in my household, if I decide to undertake a painting project in one of our bedrooms, to me it's a hobby; if my husband has to do it, it's definitely work. I look at that and say the definitions need to be a little more refined, because my definition doesn't meet the same definition as my husband's.

I have a question for you about changing data collection in other jurisdictions. What we're seeing around the world is an interest in many jurisdictions in changing how we are collecting our data. I was doing a little review on this in getting ready for this meeting, and I was interested to find that in Britain they're saying that data users want a greater range of statistics to be available more frequently to provide an accurate picture of population change. What you're saying is that in the provision of these 25,000 surveys that you're doing on an annual basis, we are getting much richer data that is going to be available on a more timely basis for the data users in providing them with information. Is that correct?

[Marc Hamel]

It's difficult to comment on the various sets of data that are collected internationally in different countries and the contexts for which these data are collected. In Britain, the example that you state, their census is collected on a 10-year basis. In Canada, it's collected on a five-year basis.