Status of Women Committee on Feb. 29th, 2012

[The Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

Thank you very much for being here.

In particular, I want to thank Madame Robichaud, Madame Savoie, and Madame Martino for coming and providing your time and expertise.

Thank you, too, for this document, this summary overview of the women's program.

I'm advised that you have 20 minutes for your presentation, and then we'll proceed into our first and second rounds of questioning. So I'm in your hands. Please proceed as you had prepared.

[Linda Savoie, Director General, Women's Program and Regional Operations Directorate, Status of Women Canada]

Madam Chair, members of the committee, thank you.

My name is Linda Savoie, and I am the Director General of the Women's Program and Regional Operations. I am joined by Pascale Robichaud, Director of Strategic Partnerships and Operations, and Victoria Martino, Senior Program and Policy Analyst.

As you just mentioned, we have provided a handout. It will help keep me on track and hopefully stick to the timing appropriately.

The first chart, on page 2, illustrates the part of Status of Women that we belong to, the part that we will be speaking to today. Next week some of my colleagues will be appearing before you, and they will speak to the other aspects of Status of Women—in particular, policy, commemorative events, International Day of the Girl, and a number of other matters that I'm sure will be of interest to you.

Today, however, we will be focusing on the women's program. I will be starting from a fairly broad perspective about the program, and then I will gradually move toward what is of interest to you today: the issues that relate specifically to girls and their economic perspectives.

The women's program is a grants and contributions program. We have a mandate to advance equality for women in Canada. We are one of the very few programs at any level of government with that mandate.

Our mandate, while focusing on gender equality, is quite well aligned with various other federal priorities or initiatives. Whether we're talking about economic prosperity or family violence, there's quite an alignment between our mandate and the mandates of other departments and agencies within the federal family dealing with those issues.

We have a budget of approximately $19 million per year. With that grants and contributions budget, we fund some 300 projects every year. Approximately 80, sometimes up to 100, of these projects each year are new. The balance are projects that are continuing for a period of more than one year.

Our program is delivered through offices that are located in Edmonton, Montreal, Moncton, and Ottawa. The Ottawa office, under the responsibility of Madame Robichaud, also has the specific responsibility for national projects and for aboriginal projects. We will be touching on some of these as I advance in the briefing.

Page 4 outlines the role of the women's program. Our primary function, of course, is to fund community-based projects across Canada. In addition to that, we also participate in and bring our expertise to various interdepartmental working groups. We are actively involved in human trafficking working groups within the federal family, working groups that deal with seniors, with family violence, as I've mentioned before, and we try to bring the issues that affect women to the forefront in this work.

On a provincial-territorial level, we share information actively with our colleagues at the provincial level. We share about projects, we share about funding priorities, and we seek out opportunities to at times partner on projects or co-fund certain projects. This happens in a number of fields.

For instance, when we're funding projects that deal with employment of women in non-traditional trades, often the province will be funding the actual cost of training the participants, while we will be working with the employer aspect and the institutional barriers that are detrimental to women's recruitment or retention in that trade. So there's good complementarity between our work and what the provinces are doing, and a fair bit of alignment in terms of priorities.

Our projects can be up to 36 months in duration. We work with three pillars. Our three pillars are ending violence against women and girls, improving women and girls' economic security and prosperity, and increasing women and girls' leadership and democratic participation.

These priorities basically reflect the inequalities that continue to exist in Canada and in many parts of the world today, whether you're talking about the persistent issue of spousal or sexual violence, the gap in wage parity, or the underrepresentation of women in political and business positions. Those pillars are in fact consistent with the way most jurisdictions organize their strategies in tackling inequality.

In terms of what we fund, at times we focus on specific populations, whether we're focusing on girls, aboriginal women, or immigrant women. We have a multi-faceted approach. At other times, we focus on issues, for instance, a gap in services for women who are moving out of shelters and need second-stage housing. At other times, it's the issues, as I was mentioning before, of moving women into non-traditional employment.

We also have different approaches in terms of who we work with. We work with communities. We work with employers. We work with a broad range of organizations. What we are trying to do there, for the most part, is remove barriers that women face in participating in the economic, social, and democratic life in Canada.

This being said, at any given time approximately half of our projects are focusing on the issue of violence against women and girls.

If you'll bear with me for a few more slides on generalities about the program, then I will move into some more specifics with respect to girls.

How do groups apply to obtain funding? Organizations apply for funding to our program through two different routes, which we feel gives a fair bit of flexibility. The first is that they can respond to a targeted call for proposal. That's where we issue out a call and state specifically what we want applications to be addressing in terms of issues, or in terms of models we want to see tested, or in terms of populations that we want to see benefit from the project.

For instance, you may be familiar with the rural call that we launched last fall, in September. We were seeking projects that developed community plans to address either the issue of economic security or the issue of violence against women. That's the volet of targeted calls that we use to attract people to our program.

The other way of obtaining funding is simply for a group to identify an issue that they feel they can tackle and develop a proposal and apply it. At any time during the year, bring it to our attention and come up with a good, solid project that's aligned with our pillars.

In terms of the benefits to having this dual approach, we've found that it's allowed us to be responsive and also to be directive. We can do both things by having both the targeted calls and the continuous intake mechanisms. It allows us to invest more strategically than by simply sitting back and waiting to see what the groups are going to come up with. It potentially increases the reach of certain recipes that have shown success in some parts of the country so we can try to get them implemented across the country. We see this as a happy medium that allows us to build positive results from a number of angles.

Who can apply? We have a fairly broad potential market. Incorporated, Canadian, not-for-profit, as well as for-profit organizations can apply. It is an extremely diverse population of groups that apply for funding and that we in fact fund. We have small, local grassroots organizations. We have large national organizations, regional organizations.

Some of these are population-focused. For instance, there are groups that deal primarily with girls. Others are groups that are issue-based, for instance, groups that try to increase the participation of women in politics. Others are service providers. Others offer safe spaces, for instance, the shelters. But statistically, close to half our groups are women's groups in our ongoing analysis of who we're funding in the last four, five, or six years, nearly.

Our reach has been increasing in terms of how many groups are actually receiving funding from us for the first time. At our last assessment, approximately 40% of the groups receiving funding from the women's program were first-time recipients.

Now I'll move to an area of more specific interest to you: what we do with respect to girls. Girls have been and continue to be an important focus for the women's program. In approximately the last two years we have funded some 35 girl-specific projects. In addition to that, we have a number of projects that tackle the issue more broadly so that women and girls are benefiting.

Our approach has been rather holistic. The streams of violence, leadership, and economic security and prosperity tend to overlap and complement one another. This really is an acknowledgment of the complexity of the issues faced by women and girls and the interrelation between them, whether we're talking about the relationship between poverty and violence, role models and economic choices, etc. In our experience we rarely have projects that focus uniquely on one of those pillars.

This is also very much a reflection of the fact that the determinants of a girl's economic situation tend to be outside of her control in early life. Her economic situation will primarily be a function of her surroundings, her parental/family situation, etc. That's why our projects tend to focus on giving the girls skills, creating resilience, and creating conditions for their future success.

Our work varies tremendously in terms of either the approach we take or the population we choose to work with on a project-by-project basis.

For more specifics on some concrete girls' projects, I will defer to my colleagues here. They have much more intimate knowledge of some of the projects we thought we'd present to you as illustrations of our approaches.

Madame Martino will talk to you about the blueprint project theme that had a very girl-focused component last year. Then Madame Robichaud will speak to some aboriginal girls' projects.

Victoria.

[Victoria Martino, Senior Program and Policy Analyst, Program Analysis and Development Section, Women's Program and Regional Operations Directorate, Status of Women Canada]

Blueprint Projects was SWC's first targeted call for proposals, launched in February of 2011. It was designed to test innovative and promising models and to demonstrate how approaches could best be applied to various population groups and settings across Canada.

It was a success, as more than 330 applications were received and a total of 65 projects were approved. There were seven thematic areas, including a specific theme for youth—girls and boys—to address the issue of violence against girls and women, specifically prevention. This theme was the most popular, with the largest number of applications received. Some 15 projects involving girls were approved and are now under way in communities across Canada.

The youth theme had specific features. All projects had to be youth-led, meaning youth identified the issues of concern to them, and youth also determined activities to be carried out within their communities in support of violence prevention.

To engage in violence prevention activities, projects will work to develop and strengthen the leadership skills of youth. This is a good example of how projects tackle multiple SWC priority areas—namely violence, in this case, and leadership.

I will give you two examples of the types of youth projects being funded. The first is targeting rural youth, to develop web-based resources, to engage young people online to assist them in becoming leaders in working to end violence against girls and women. Because it is web-based, the tools are being accessed by a large number of youth, not only in the targeted area but also across Canada. It is creating a safe forum for rural youth to explore issues of violence against girls and women in ways that appeal to young people.

Another project is targeting youth from immigrant communities. The project is developing a resource guide and tool kit for organizing and facilitating workshops on the issue of violence against girls, teens, and young women. Some topics it is planning on addressing are family violence, silence and shaming in communities, and forced marriages. Youth are identifying strategies and organizing and delivering workshops to other youth, families, places of worship, community organizations, and service providers. This is a good example of a culturally specific approach.

[Linda Savoie]

Now, for aboriginal examples....

[Pascale Robichaud, Director, Strategic Partnerships and Operations, Women's Program and Regional Operations Directorate, Status of Women Canada]

The women's program funds many projects for aboriginal girls on reserve, off reserve, in the north, or in urban centres. The projects serve the Inuit, first nations, and Métis populations as well. The projects are being implemented on a national, regional, or community scale. They are being implemented by aboriginal organizations and also by non-aboriginal organizations.

Here is an example of the variety of projects we fund. The Women's Program funded a project in Winnipeg, an urban centre, for girls aged 12 to 17. That project had two main objectives. It aimed to help develop the girls' ability to identify the obstacles that stood in their way and the strategies they could use to get fully involved in the community—be it at their school or in their neighbourhood, in their family or in their community in general. Once they were able to identify the obstacles and strategies, we also provided them with tools and leadership training so that they could assert themselves and take a step forward by participating fully in the community.

To be able to do that, the girls participated in various violence prevention and leadership training workshops adapted to the aboriginal culture.

Afterwards, the girls could also participate in monthly open dialogue forums with aboriginal women who shared their concerns. Representatives of social service agencies also took part in those dialogue forums. So the women could speak with those representatives to determine what was truly feasible, what kinds of resources were available in the communities and how they could become fully involved in the community.

Aboriginal women and girls also had discussions in talking circles. That way, the skills acquired during the training could remain in the community because the young girls did have some support.

Here is another example of how varied our projects are. We also funded a project in remote regions. There are eight communities in remote regions of Quebec, ranging from Abitibi to the North Shore and Mauricie. The project used a three-pronged approach. It was an awareness-raising project for girls on the issue of violence, but it also focused on the fact that violence is often trivialized in the communities. It was an opportunity to discuss that. Once again, those awareness-raising sessions were attended by representatives of social service agencies who could talk about the available resources.

[The Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

Pardon. We have about 30 seconds left, so perhaps you could wrap up, please.

[Pascale Robichaud]

Nationally, there were also joint projects between non-aboriginal and aboriginal organizations. I will now yield the floor to Ms. Savoie.

Thank you.

[Linda Savoie]

In a very broad-stroke nutshell, the types of results we're getting for girls are always related to creating conditions for future success. What that looks like is increased access for girls to information about healthy relationships. It looks like delivering workshops that develop girls' leadership skills. It looks like giving them access to mentorship programs to increase their ability to learn life's lessons. It means creating girls clubs, sometimes specifically targeting immigrant girls.

Those are the types of things we're doing. As we get through the questions and answers, I'm sure we'll have an opportunity to give more illustrations of the type of work we're doing.

[The Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

Thank you very much. That was most helpful and very informative.

My analyst has asked if we could have, please, a complete list of the projects. You referenced some, and you highlighted some initiatives, but a complete list would be very much appreciated.

[Linda Savoie]

For those circumstances where we were referring to specific projects, we will; some were more general comments that relate to multiple projects. But we will make sure that we provide you with something useful.

[The Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

Thank you very much.

We'll begin our first round of questioning with Madam James, please, for seven minutes.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Welcome to our three guests. It's actually quite exciting, I think, for this committee as a whole to have you here today. As you know, we're starting a new committee on the economic prospects of Canadian girls. I think having you here to briefly go over some of the things that Status of Women can actually do and what you have been doing is of big benefit to this committee.

You mentioned that half of the projects are actually geared toward violence against women and girls, and I found that interesting; we actually just studied that particular area, and we found that to be a direct link to economic prospects for girls and women. One of the conclusions we came out with was that when there is an absence of economic stability or status for women, they tend to be more susceptible to a life of violence. So I just wanted to put that on the table.

You mentioned something about “blueprint projects”, although I'm not sure if you actually used that term. I'm just hoping that we're talking about the same thing. You talked about 15 projects that were under way.

Are they actually the same blueprint projects I'm talking about as well?

They are. And I think it was Ms. Martino who had actually talked about it.

[Victoria Martino]

Yes.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Okay.

I'm just wondering if you could explain to the committee how this approach of the blueprint projects is different from the typical approach of accepting and reviewing applications. Why is this particular project different?

[Linda Savoie]

I'll start with some of the key characteristics, and then I'll let Madame Martino give you some examples of actual components of those projects.

The blueprints are very different from the approach of continuous intake. In February 2011 we sought out proposals under seven different themes. One of them was relating to youth, and that's the one that Madame Martino spoke to in more detail.

Now, in terms of the benefits of the blueprint projects, what we had in mind was a streamlined approach so that groups did not invest time and resources as exhaustively as they used to do. It creates less risk for them to be applying for this type of call for proposals. The counterpart to this was that we were prescriptive in certain elements that we wanted to see in the actual projects.

I'll let Madame Martino give you a few examples of some of the prescriptive requirements we had in the blueprint projects, keeping in mind that the intention for us was that we wanted to test a model that seemed promising—or increase the reach of a model that was successful—or learn more about something that various studies were telling us may be helpful.

Over to you.

[Victoria Martino]

On projects, we're still targeting our three priority areas: violence, economic security, and leadership, but under blueprint they were looking at specific issues such as the youth one I mentioned. They had predetermined or predefined elements like maximum duration and funding amount, key activities—which I will speak to—and key deliverables.

Some of the key activities were beginning with—and each of the projects had to include these key components—the adaptation to the local need or population group, so there was a needs assessment in the gender-based analysis and alignment with partners, the development or adaptation of approaches, models, programs, tools, resources, strategies, supports, etc.

In the delivery and implementation it was normally working with women and/or girls in their communities and key stakeholders.

Finally, there was a key component included of expecting groups to share their learnings and results.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

I just want to kind of sum that up. Are you saying that this particular project, the blueprint project, actually reduces the administrative burden on organizations that want to apply?

[Linda Savoie]

Very much so.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

You mentioned it is less of a risk.

[Linda Savoie]

For a group to just go out on a limb and fully dedicate a resource to developing a project, not knowing if it's perfectly aligned with what we would be seeking, involves risk for them, definitely, so the feedback we've received from groups since we first tried this blueprint project approach and from the next two targeted calls that we had in 2011 has been extremely positive. The groups told us it gave them clarity in terms of what their expectations were, what they were expected to provide, do, etc.

Overall, the response has been extremely positive.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

In your brief you mentioned two specific things regarding rural youth: engaging the youth online, and also immigrant youth. You mentioned two projects.

Were they related to violence or were they related to economic prosperity?

[Victoria Martino]

The theme for youth was violence prevention.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

In this committee we're now studying the economic prospects of Canadian girls, so I'm kind of more curious about whether the blueprint projects.... I'm sure you mentioned economic security, so I believe it is included in the blueprint projects.

Could you explain to the committee the different areas or projects that they are related to with regard to economic prosperity?

[Linda Savoie]

Yes. Of the seven themes on which we called for proposals in February 2011, we had three themes that specifically focused on economic prosperity. One was to increase the recruitment of women in non-traditional employment. One was to increase their retention in non-traditional employment, because we found at times that people were successful in attracting women but not successful in retaining the women, so we wanted to test a few models in both of these areas. The third that related to economic prosperity had to do with creating growth and financial opportunities for women business owners. Those were the three out of the seven themes that dealt with economic security and prosperity.

[The Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

Thank you very much.

Now we go to Madam Boutin-Sweet, for seven minutes.