Status of Women Committee on March 14th, 2012

[Suzanne Clément]

And we do have projects across the country, which is wonderful.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Yes.

When you spoke about the B.C. schools that are reaching out, it's really just if a school or a school division seeks this out. There's not a systemic approach. I'm just thinking, is there an approach?

[Suzanne Clément]

Actually, we don't work directly with schools or school boards. You have to have a non-governmental organization within the community that works with the school. One of the things we've also implemented with our calls is a requirement for the organizations to share the work they're doing, both with us and with other organizations we identify that are doing similar work.

So if you're developing a good idea in a community on one project, we want to make sure that other similar organizations or regions with similar issues they want to address can access that. More and more, we're putting emphasis on the sharing of good practices and the sharing of tools and approaches that are being developed.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

You received 250 project applications. The minister has just announced 48 and you're saying there are going to be a lot more. You also mentioned in your preamble comments that you're working on a planning phase. Can you expand on that, give us some illumination on how you're doing? That's very respectful to a community that's not used to applying for money.

[Suzanne Clément]

There's no shortage of organizations and communities that know there's an issue to be addressed. There's a problem in the community. What's difficult is trying to get the right people at the same table. It's hard to pool resources, effort, and knowledge in a way that allows us to determine the best approach, the best solution for the community. In our projects we find that if we support organizations that don't normally do this type of planning we often end up getting better projects with more partners and stronger commitments from everyone involved.

[The Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

Thank you, Madame.

Now to Madame Boivin.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Clément, I would like to go back to basics and talk about your mandate. If we look at your website, it reads that the Status of Women Canada promotes the full participation of women in the economic, social and democratic life of Canada. For many people, the issue of gender equality and promoting gender equality is still not very clear.

In 2007, we were under the impression that it had been removed from your mandate, but your website still says that it is part of your mandate. Could you tell me if your organization is still doing something to address that? If so, what is it exactly, and if not, why?

[Suzanne Clément]

The mandate of our organization has not changed since the 1970s, when, as a result of the order in council, our organization was established. The mandate is to co-ordinate policies that relate to equality in the federal family.

The women's program has terms and conditions. Any transfer of funds from organizations outside the federal government has to be made in compliance with certain terms and conditions. Those terms and conditions usually describe the mandate of the program and the primary objectives of the program. In the women's program, the program and its terms and conditions are available and the mandate clearly indicates that the goal is equality.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Do you still have promotion programs for women's equality? Do you still fund those types of programs?

[Suzanne Clément]

Promotion is done in a number of ways through the women's program; we have various levers. If the project does not deal with harm done specifically to women or with women's issues, it will not be funded under our program.

There are commemorative events. The purpose of commemoration is to raise awareness of this need. The minister promoted the creation of the International Day of the Girl to give us another opportunity during the year to focus on young girls who said that they could not identify with International Women's Day. We are providing them with a platform, but mainly the platform we are providing is for the media.

We talk about gender-based analysis a lot. It is a tool that has a great impact on organizations. When a team of researchers or analysts have to look at data to understand the female population in its diversity, the only thing for us to do is to promote the status of women, and those are the tools we use.

So yes, we promote equality and we use all those levers.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

I would like to continue talking about the gender-based analysis. I am in favour of that approach, because I think it allows for better policies. Sometimes, it is not necessarily directed at women only; it can also be directed at men. The best example is in education. Sometimes, we realize that an issue is particularly related to young men in some programs. If we do something that is reasonable and sensible in terms of the gender-based analysis, we are going to come up with a better policy.

Once again, let me go back to the question I asked the minister. I know that you are doing an outstanding job in terms of coaching, training, supporting various departments, and so on. But do we have mechanisms to measure the results? Let's take the budget from March 29 as an example. Can we say that every line in the budget was prepared with the gender-based analysis in mind? Has that been studied? In your department, you are the experts in GBA. Are you able to issue some sort of seal of approval? We have all heard of ISO 6000, ISO 9000, and so on. Can you give various departments, budgets or policies a seal of approval certifying that GBA has been done? Despite the fact that we have been talking about the GBA for almost two decades, are we still trying to make various departments in this Parliament aware of that policy?

[Suzanne Clément]

As a result of the work that has been done by the auditor general and by the parliamentary committees that looked into that data and the main facts of the study, we can say that this commitment was communicated in a very forceful way. The central agencies have understood their responsibilities very well.

It is not up to Status of Women to implement legislation. We don't have the power to force departments to act. Anyway, I don't think that is necessarily the best way. I think the best way is to make sure that all departmental stakeholders and players involved in policy-making—we know one is not better than the other—have factored in the gender-based analysis, all the research, all the data and all program evaluations.

Central agencies have a role to play and they agree to that. Actually, every time a brief is submitted to the cabinet or a submission is made to the Treasury Board, the issue is raised by a central agency. The Minister of Finance requires all departments that propose measures in the budget to do a gender-based analysis. The Minister of Finance does an overall review of what that means.

So we are not doing that directly and we don't have any levers to force them, but the central agencies have that responsibility and they do play that role.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

You are saying that...

[The Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

We are at seven minutes. Thank you.

Now we'll go to Madame Young, for seven minutes.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you so much for being here today. Some of your answers have been very detailed and quite informative. I thank you for that.

As you were speaking, I noticed that somebody was passing out this information on the latest thing, which I'm quite excited about. That is the International Day of the Girl Child. Can you tell us a bit more about who your Canadian partners are in working on this really great international initiative?

[Suzanne Clément]

Initially, one NGO in Canada was particularly involved on this file, Plan Canada International. It was part of an international movement called "Because I Am A Girl".

They had brought together the efforts and the energies of girls around the world in trying to draw attention to the specific needs of girls, particularly in developing countries. We definitely saw the advantages of having developed countries get into that exercise.

Plan Canada continues to be a key partner with us. Now that we have the International Day of the Girl Child, we're going to be able to seek numerous partners, both in highlighting that day on October 11, but also, I hope, in developing projects in communities and in schools to be able to mark that special event and the issues that girls face.

We have started developing some of our products for October 11. We've put out the look and feel on our website. I have copies of the posters that will be distributed to all parliamentarians very shortly. We have created a visual that will be widely distributed, we hope, in schools and public locations so they will be able to give it a look.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you so much.

In the interest of time, I'm going to ask you a couple of quick questions.

Can you tell us a little about the organization—you said Plan Canada. How big are they, where is their reach, what ages of girls do they work with?

[Suzanne Clément]

I don't have specifics. I'd have to come back to the committee with how large they are, but Plan Canada works predominantly on the international front. They are a long-time partner of CIDA on a number of projects in developing countries. They also work a great deal with young girls in Canada. Their reach is, on this particularly, I would say between the ages of about 12 and 17.

When the minister did an event on International Women's Day last Wednesday in Toronto, it was an event that Plan Canada organized to celebrate International Women's Day. She was at a school board event with over 500 young girls. They were very happy and there was a very strong reaction to the decision on the resolution to create this international day.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

I think it's terrific that we're doing things both within Canada as well as internationally with different countries, because we live in a very global world, and of course we're going to be working more with other countries as we expand our trade ties and cultural ties across the world.

You talked about developing products. In addition to these fabulous products that we see here, I'd like to hear what the goals and outcomes are that the department has identified or achievements of having international girls' day.

[Suzanne Clément]

There isn't one specific goal identified with the International Day of the Girl Child. The goals are supposed to be determined based on the issues that are most pressing in the states where they are marking that day. In a developing country, for example, the goal could be as basic as ensuring access to water for a young girl or access to education.

In a country like Canada, we're hoping to see from the results of this study as well some indications of areas Status of Women Canada could be looking at, but definitely we still know that young girls are not enrolling in IT or computer sciences or maths in post-secondary education. That's a key issue, because most of the traditional occupations that girls prefer, such as health services, are now moving into an IT world. For young girls not to be pursuing studies in that area may prevent them from achieving some of the traditional jobs that girls had normally identified. Health services are becoming more and more influenced by IT.

That's the kind of work.... We've already met with the sector council for information technology to see what we could be doing with them, how they could be doing more work to try to promote young girls in choosing that as an area of study.

There's the situation of violence. Again, what we will do for Canada is that some of our projects will be targeting younger girls. The call that we just did on campuses is an example of our giving girls a specific focus and ensuring their safety on campuses.

It's up to every state to determine what the priority and what the objectives will be, and they can change from year to year, as we do with International Women's Day.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Madam Chair, how much more time do I have?

[The Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

About 45 seconds.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

What I'm hearing from you, then, and this is very positive, is that the International Day of the Girl Child is a national framework and that within each community or within each school or within each region, B.C. or whatever, they can identify specific projects to assist and support the girls and the issues in their community.

[Suzanne Clément]

It's a platform to permit organizations and individuals to focus attention and bring visibility to issues and opportunities for girls.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Given that we're doing the economic study, I'm very pleased to hear that you're also linking some of your work at Status of Women Canada to the gender-based analysis within all the different departments, as we heard from the minister earlier, but that you're also specifically to look at career sectors and career options for girls. So I commend you in that work.

Thank you very much.