Status of Women Committee on May 12th, 2015

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Good morning and welcome to the 59th meeting of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. Today, the committee is continuing its study of the Main Estimates 2015-16.

Today we have the pleasure of welcoming the Honourable Minister of the Status of Women, Dr. K. Kellie Leitch. We also have with us Meena Ballantyne, head of agency, and Anik Lapointe, chief financial officer and director of Corporate Services, both from Status of Women Canada.

Madam Minister, you have about 10 minutes for your presentation, which will be followed by a question period. You have the floor.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Minister of Labour and Minister of Status of Women]

Merci, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the committee for inviting me to discuss the 2015-16 main estimates for Status of Women Canada.

I am joined today by Meena Ballantyne, head of agency for Status of Women Canada, and Anik Lapointe, the chief financial officer and director of Corporate Services.

I want to take a moment to commend all of you in the committee for the important studies on economic leadership and prosperity of Canadian women and on eating disorders among girls and women.

I look forward to the committee's reports on two additional areas of study: the promising practices to prevent violence against women; and women in skilled trades, science and technology, engineering, and mathematical careers. Your work on these studies is making a valuable contribution to advancing our collective knowledge of what works, what doesn't, and more importantly, how we should be moving forward.

All of these issues are also important because they reflect something I think all Canadians agree on — the need to support women, young women and girls in reaching their full potential. Our government is certainly committed to doing its part to help make this happen. As a result of my outreach with Canadians over the past year, I believe our government and Status of Women Canada are on the right track.

To continue making progress, Status of Women Canada will keep its focus on three clear priorities in 2015-16: ending violence against women and girls, promoting women in leadership and decision-making roles, and creating economic opportunities for women.

In terms of the first priority, we believe that ending all forms of gender-based violence is an important building block for helping women and girls reach their full potential. That's why I'm pleased that the implementation of the Government of Canada's action plan to address family violence and violent crimes against aboriginal women and girls began on April 1 with Status of Women Canada in the lead.

The action plan includes actions to prevent violence, support victims and their families, and protect aboriginal women and girls. Investments outlined in the action plan total approximately $200 million over five years.

Collaboration is a significant part of this action plan, and throughout its implementation federal organizations will continue to make a concerted effort to engage with aboriginal organizations, communities, and key stakeholders, as well as with provinces and territories, to ensure that our actions are meeting the needs of first nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples.

For example, in order to increase awareness about funding available under the action plan and related programs and resources, a single window website has been created through Status of Women Canada's website.

We also have a secretariat led by Status of Women Canada in which all the departments involved, including Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, Justice, and Public Safety, come together to discuss funding projects to ensure that there is no duplication of efforts and that projects build upon each other.

We are also working on the steps agreed to by the participants of the round table on murdered and missing indigenous women and girls this past February. At the round table, all participants endorsed a framework for action that outlined three priorities: preventing violence, increasing community safety, and improving justice and policing measures. All of these are addressed in the government's existing plan of action. In addition, participants agreed to meet again in 2016 and to report on the progress made.

With respect to our second priority — promoting women in leadership and decision-making roles — our government continues taking action and seeing progress made.

This June will mark the one-year anniversary of the release of the report by the federal government's Advisory Council for Promoting Women on Boards.

One of its key recommendations was that the public and private sectors in Canada should aspire to seeing women hold 30% of board positions within five years, or by 2019. The feedback I have received so far from companies and CEOs has been extremely positive. I believe there is now real momentum on the issue in Canada, which will lead to more leadership opportunities for women.

We've committed to amending the Canada Business Corporations Act to promote gender diversity on public company boards using the widely recognized “comply or explain” model. Our government is also committed to giving girls a strong foundation for success so they can be the leaders of today and tomorrow. That's why we were early supporters of the United Nations declaring October 11 to be the International Day of the Girl.

I was also pleased to host the Strong Girls, Strong World event in Toronto last October, an event that brought girls together with high-profile Canadians to allow them to talk about their issues and what's important to them, their friends, and their families.

I was also pleased to launch a new project with Plan Canada, the YWCA, and the YMCA on March 8 this year in Toronto to support leadership opportunities for young women and girls in ten communities across Canada. These ten grassroots projects will support the creation of girls committees, which will help young women and girls gain skills in decision-making and leadership by leading special events, community outreach, advocacy, and media initiatives.

We've also established a girls advisory council, which will engage girls 15 to 24 years of age on their priorities and areas of interest and inform the ongoing work of the Government of Canada and of mine at Status of Women Canada.

Finally, with respect to our third priority, over the past year our government has continued to support the economic advancement of women in Canada in a number of ways. We put in place an expert panel on championing and mentorship for women entrepreneurs, which has provided us great feedback. In March we hosted a forum at which over 300 women entrepreneurs were here in Ottawa, with inspiring role models, practical workshops, and valuable networking opportunities and mentorship for those starting or growing their businesses.

In April I was proud to launch a new campaign, It Starts with One—Be her Champion. This campaign is reaching out to leaders in all fields, to men and women, asking them to make a difference by championing a woman in her career and challenging their colleagues and peers to do the same.

As we look to the next fiscal year, economic action plan 2015 builds on our government's track record of support for women's economic empowerment. lt provides for the creation of an action plan for women entrepreneurs, which will be put in place to help connect women with the tools and resources they need to grow their businesses, create jobs, and employ more Canadians. These initiatives under economic action plan 2015 reflect the strong leadership we are showing through a balanced budget and a low-tax plan for jobs, growth, and security.

Finally, as members of the committee know, our government believes in giving communities the tools to help meet the needs of women, young women, and girls through the women's program. Since 2007 this has resulted in investments in over 780 new projects that are improving the lives of women and girls across the country. We intend to continue this support for Status of Women Canada, with funding of approximately $29 million allocated in the main estimates, as you would have seen, for fiscal year 2015-16. The majority of these funds are for grants and contributions under the women's program.

Madam Chair, the actions I've described today add to our government's growing list of promising initiatives and significant accomplishments, which are creating positive and concrete change for women and girls in every region of the country.

I want to thank you and the committee members for the opportunity to appear here today, and would be pleased to answer any of your questions.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much, Madam Minister.

We will now move on to a question period of seven minute rounds.

Mrs. Truppe, you have the floor.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Welcome, Minister, and your department. Thank you for coming. I know that everybody's really busy and what a busy place it is, so I appreciate your taking the time. It's certainly great to have you here. I know that you're passionate about this portfolio and also how hard you work to support women and girls with all of the different initiatives you've put in place. In regard to the initiatives we've had in the past couple of years, I don't think we've had this many in a long time, so kudos to you and your team for doing that.

I'd like to quote Isabelle Hudon, executive chair in Quebec and senior vice-president of client solutions at Sun Life Financial:

It has long been my personal commitment to support women in achieving their goals and realizing their potential. Not only is this good for women, it also makes...sense. I am pleased to see the Government of Canada working with the private sector to support the advancement of women with It Starts with One: Be her Champion.

She says as well that sponsoring and mentoring are two different important ways that we can all commit to helping women succeed.

I'm hoping you can take a few moments to speak about the campaign you launched on April 16, It Starts with One—Be her Champion. Can you highlight the enormous benefits that mentoring can have for both the mentee and the mentor? When I've done round tables, and I know that when you've done them too, mentoring always comes up. I'm really glad you launched this program. It would be great if you could explain it to us.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you very much for the question.

This is a challenge that I'll put out to the entire committee. On April 16 of this year, I launched a campaign through Status of Women Canada called, It Starts with One—Be Her Champion.

I want to challenge all of you to take the pledge. This program is very different from most mentorship programs. In doing the research we have found, particularly for women entrepreneurs, but we see it in other fields, that when young women have a mentor, have a champion, they are more likely to succeed. We know for women entrepreneurs, as outlined on this card, that if a young woman is an entrepreneur and has a champion, a mentor, at the three-year mark, 88% of those businesses are thriving, but if she doesn't have a mentor almost 50% of them are failing at the three-year mark. So this program really puts mentorship on its head.

We're used to young people looking for mentors and signing up for a cup of coffee and wanting to chat, sometimes with us as parliamentarians and those who want to run for office. But what I think is very important, as my sister brought to my attention as a young professional engineer, is that she didn't need to have coffee with someone again; she needed someone to champion her career and be the advocate for her.

This program is asking prominent Canadians, including us as parliamentarians, to choose that one woman under the age of 35 whom you will invest a year of your time in and champion her in her chosen career. As I said, we launched the campaign in Toronto on April 16. We've done a series of other events to encourage Canadians across the country to step up and invest in young Canadians, but particularly young women under the age of 35.

I'd like to encourage all of you parliamentarians to take the pledge and participate in making sure that a young Canadian woman has an opportunity. We know when they are successful, when they see their career path realized, particularly those who are entrepreneurs, they may be in the legal field.... The person I am championing is a young lady named Leah Hillier, who has an undergraduate degree in business, but is now graduating from family practice and will become a physician with a brilliant career. We know they will contribute to the economy and will be able to help grow our country.

So I would like to ask all of you to step up, take the pledge—we'll give out our cards here—and also visit the website we have. It's at women.gc.ca/startwithone. I would encourage all parliamentarians from all parties to participate in this because it's only good for Canadian women. It's particularly great for these young women.

I know that I feel really good about it when I'm investing time with the young Canadian I'm working with, Leah Hillier, and I'm sure you will feel the same, but it's also good for the country.

Thanks for asking, and I encourage everyone to take the pledge.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I was going to ask if you had enough cards, and you've already answered that. It's great if everybody could get a card so they could sign up.

I'm pleased to know that action has been taken by our government to increase representation of women on boards. For instance, in economic action plan 2012 the creation of an advisory council of leaders from the private and public sectors was announced to promote participation of women on corporate boards. Further, in June 2014, the advisory council released their final report, which included 11 recommendations to both the private and public sectors, including a recommendation of a 30% goal for the representation of women in governance positions by 2019. Could you tell us a bit more about the advisory council?

The council also endorsed a comply-and-explain approach to support board gender bias. To what extent does the comply-and-explain approach benefit women? How does that work?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

In June of 2014 I launched a report called “Good For Business”. You can get a copy of it on the Status of Women website. It outlines a number of initiatives to increase the number of women that we have on boards with an aspirational goal of 30% by 2019.

That focuses on the fact that we know that having more women representatives on boards aids a firm in many ways. It could be through recruitment of better top talent, an increase in ROI, or an opportunity to expand the number of jobs they have available. We moved forward with this “nudge” to make sure that corporate Canada was moving forward but with the understanding that we have already set a leadership goal. The Government of Canada has been very focused on making sure that it is representative. Our Governor-in-Council appointments are already at 31% and growing. We know that over 30% of our judicial appointments are women. In fact, here in Canada I think we have something to be proud of. The lead at the Supreme Court of Canada and the new Clerk of the Privy Council of Canada are both women, which is unique for a G-8 country.

The comply-or-explain part of this goes hand in glove with an initiative by the Ontario Securities Commission. We know that comply or explain provides opportunities. Again, it's a nudge to make sure that corporate Canada is doing the right thing, investing in women and providing women with leadership opportunities, because they are being peer-reviewed. We have now adopted that. It was announced in economic action plan 2015 through the implementation of comply or explain in the Canada Business Corporation Act.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Minister.

We will continue with Ms. Freeman.

You have seven minutes.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank the minister for taking the time to be here with us today.

Before I get more to specifics about what has been done, I want to ask a question. Yesterday, the House did vote to remove the GST on feminine hygiene products. I was very glad to see that we were able to accomplish that.

When does the government plan on implementing that measure?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

The government was pleased to support the motion. That's what it was.

We've been very clear that when you look across the board at whether these items should be taxed, they should not be. Our government has been very clear. We've reduced taxes on Canadians over 160 times since coming to office. We lowered the GST from 7% to 6% to 5%. We have a track record of either eliminating tax altogether or lowering tax, and that's where our focus is.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

I do specifically want to speak about the GST.

Sorry to interrupt.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

As I've said, we have supported the motion. I'm delighted that we did so, and we'll continue to promote that.

I think it was the appropriate and smart thing to do, because it lowers a tax on Canadians.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Sorry to have interrupted you.

I do want to move on to make sure I get all the questions I want out.

The Status of Women agency does play a leading role in the capacity of federal organizations to use gender-based analysis plus, “GBA+”, as your government calls it, which is “an analytical process used to assess the potential impacts of policies, programs or initiatives on diverse groups of women and men, girls and boys.”

I would like to hear from you specifically about what progress has been made on implementing this gender-based analysis plus in government programs and policies.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

I'm delighted to say, and my agency head Meena Ballantyne will confirm, that I think over 1,500 individuals in the public service have taken the GBA+ web-based education. I'm delighted to say that I think all of us here at this table have done so, and I would encourage every parliamentarian to do exactly the same. It's a web-based analysis to walk you through the decision points you should be taking when you're analyzing policy. GBA isn't a program per se; it's a separately funded item and online training. I think it's the appropriate sensitivity training to make sure that all Canadians, particularly parliamentarians and public servants, are taking into account the appropriate decision-making tools when they are making policy decisions based on gender.

Our focus has been great. I can give you a list here. You asked for an assessment, so here's the GBA action plan.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

I do have limited time.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Sure, no problem.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

If you could submit it to the clerk as evidence, that would be—

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

You want an entire list of the, I guess, more than 25 or 30 departments that are involved in the GBA action plan?

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

That would be perfect.

I would like to ask specifically whether the status of women agency contributed to the analysis of Budget 2015.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Every component part of policy development for the Government of Canada has a requirement for GBA, so we do that for each piece of policy that moves forward.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

It has a requirement for GBA. Does that need to be implemented in any way?

If there were findings that something were unequal, for instance, the GST being applied to something like tampons, is there any mechanism that kicks in to affect that, or does Status of Women simply play a leading role? Does it actually have an effect on what policy-making is?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Again, as I mentioned before, GBA isn't a program or an enforcement mechanism. GBA is a sensitization program to make sure that when individuals are making a policy decision they are taking into account gender balance.

If you're asking whether this is an enforcement mechanism, no, it's not. It's an issue to focus those who are making policy decisions—public servants, parliamentarians, members of the government—on taking gender into account.

Your question doesn't relate to this program, I guess would be the ultimate answer. GBA isn't a program and it doesn't have enforcement mechanisms like a program. It is an analytical approach.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

I'd like to go back specifically to the 2015-16 main estimates.

There's a reduction of around $1 million under the strategic outcome of advancing equality for women. In main estimates 2014-15, just over $24.2 million was allocated to this program while around $23.2 million is indicated in the main estimates for 2015-16.

What accounts for this planned reduction?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

You'll see—and I'll have Meena Ballantyne walk you through this—that the overall decrease of $6,000 in operating expenditures is a combination of a decrease in web renewal, a decrease in funding allocated to the Canadian School of Public Service, and a decrease for sunsetting of a program through Public Safety. However, there's also been an increase for collective bargaining agreement adjustments.

Those are the actual numbers, but I'll have Meena go through any specifics with respect to other allocations that Status of Women Canada is undergoing.

[Meena Ballantyne, Head of Agency, Status of Women Canada]

Thank you, Minister.

I think you're also asking about the $1 million.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Yes, that's specifically what I'm asking.

[Meena Ballantyne]

I just want to clarify that it's not a reduction of the budget of Status of Women Canada, by any means. What we've done is to transfer resources from one area of the organization to another.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

From advancing equality to where?

[Meena Ballantyne]

To the internal services.

That is because when we looked at the past five years, we noticed that the spending we've done has been in the internal services, which also advances the equality priority as well.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

What kind of internal services are we talking about?

[Meena Ballantyne]

They would be GBA; commemorative events; the Strong Girls, Strong World event last October, which the minister was talking about; the Women Entrepreneurs Forum: the It Starts with One campaign as well; and also for modernizing our website.

We noticed that in the past five years what we spent was very different from what we forecasted at the beginning of the year. We thought we would make this adjustment to reflect the true expenditures, and that's what this is.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.

Mrs. O'Neill Gordon, you have seven minutes.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister and the department for being here. We realize the busy schedule that you all have. It makes it that much more valuable that you're here. We appreciate your time.

My question is about the Status of Women of Canada fund through the women's program initiative, a wide range of community-based projects across the country that address the social and economic situation of women.

Minister, can you please provide examples of the funding that has been approved through these initiatives? We know there are a lot out there and they're very beneficial, so could you elaborate on some of this funding?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you very much for the question.

As I had mentioned at the outset, Status of Women Canada has, since 2007, supported well over 780 programs across the country. Our focus is on the community project. Canada is an extremely large country. We know that the needs and focuses in St. John's, Newfoundland, are very from those than in Collingwood, Ontario, and from what they would be for an individual in Whitehorse in Yukon.

Because of that, our focus has been on a series of calls for proposals that focus on the three main pillars of Status of Women Canada: ending violence against women and girls, economic empowerment, and a focus on leadership opportunities and participation in democracy.

I can give you some examples of what we have been focusing on. With respect to Status of Women Canada's ending of violence against women and girls initiative, one excellent example would be the Shield of Athena project, with just over $340,000 for a 36-month project developed to educate women in the Montreal area on issues of gender-based violence. This project was completed in March of this year. The intent of the project was to network women's groups and workers with six different ethnocultural communities to inform them about violence in the name of so-called honour and about their rights and legal protections, making sure that individual women were trained and equipped through the community liaison workers to detect these situations, to make sure that they were supporting victims of these crimes, and to allow them in their local communities to allocate resources appropriately to protect these women.

The initiative has been outstanding. The dialogue has been on a sensitive issue. I think the Shield of Athena has worked very well with the ethnocultural media to disseminate this information into communities and provide greater assistance to a wider range of women in the Montreal area in those targeted communities.

The group launched their three multilingual tools as part of the tenth National Victims of Crime Awareness Week held in April of this year. It's an example of something that we're doing on ending violence against women and girls, as a specific focus. We also have projects that are focused on economic empowerment for women, as well as on leadership skills for women across the country.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Thank you.

All of these projects certainly are important, but I like it that you give specific thought to each area, because, as you say, not every area needs the same project. It's good that we consider the differences from each area across our great country.

As a government and as a committee, we recognize that cyberbullying and cyberviolence have a devastating impact on Canadian youth and their families. There is evidence to support the fact that more often than not the victims who experience the cyberviolence are at a higher risk of experiencing depression and anxiety as a result. Can you please speak to what is being done to bring awareness to, and address, this issue?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you very much for the question.

Similar to what you were saying, the Government of Canada has been very focused on this issue. Obviously, cyberbullying and cyberviolence have a devastating impact on families and on communities, and particularly on those specific individuals that are affected.

I know that for young girls in my own constituency of in Simcoe—Grey, this is a top of mind concern. In our new girls advisory committee, the young ladies who have put themselves forward to aid us in making good decisions have raised this as one of the top three issues they would like addressed.

We know there is emerging evidence that girls and young women who are victims of cyberviolence experience depression and anxiety. Obviously these are great concerns. We have been focused on a number of initiatives with the Government of Canada. The Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act was put forward, but in addition to that Status of Women Canada has worked hand in glove with Public Safety to create programming to support that act.

Last year we launched a call for proposals. Those are now being disseminated across the country, to focus specifically on community based projects that will support young women and girls to combat cyberviolence and sexual assaults. The focus for us has been particularly on those campus aged individuals. It goes hand in glove, in addition to the act, with our program dollars coupled with the stop hating online campaign run by Public Safety to make Canadians aware of these issues.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Thank you.

The economic action plan of 2015 focuses on economic development, families, and communities. Furthermore, it supports women and their families to apply.

Minister, can you please highlight some of the great things EAP 2015 is doing for families and for women.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

The economic action plan has been very focused on families. The most substantive things have all been focused around making sure that funds are put back in the pockets of parents. We have been very focused. As I mentioned before, this government has lowered taxes multiple times. It has lowered the GST from 7%, to 6%, to 5%; and now through the augmentation of the universal child care benefit, the family tax cut, as well as the doubling of the children's fitness tax credit, there are opportunities for Canadian families to take that money and put it back in their pockets and make choices of where they would like to have it allocated, on either child care, opportunities for fitness for their families, or other items that are important to their families.

So I'm delighted that we're lowering taxes and increasing benefits to Canadians so they can make choices for their families.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Minister and Mrs. O'Neill Gordon.

Ms. Duncan, you have seven minutes.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the minister and her officials for coming today.

Minister, how do you think income splitting will affect women's economic prosperity across their lifetime? The PBO has raised some issues.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

As I just said, we have an economic action plan 2015 that is about lowering taxes and increasing benefits for Canadians. That is a package.

With respect to the universal child care benefit, every Canadian family with a child will see an augmentation. For those who have children under the age of six, it is an increase of several hundred dollars. For those who have a child from six to seventeen, for the first time they will receive $720.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Sorry, Minister, I was asking about income splitting.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

With respect to the family tax cut, over 50% of Canadian families will benefit from that. That's a cut in taxes, a lowering of taxes, which is something our government has been very focused on. As I mentioned earlier, this is about taking funds and putting them back in the pockets of Canadian parents so they can make choices for their families of where they think their funds should be allocated.

We have made a choice. We think that parents and families are making the best choices for their families.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I'm sorry, Minister, I am going to move on. Thank you.

Would you be willing to table the GBA+ analysis for income splitting?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

The GBA+ for—?

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Was there a GBA analysis of income splitting?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

As I said, GBA is used to assess policy. What you're asking about is a specific budget initiative, but GBA is not a program for assessment.

[Meena Ballantyne]

As the minister was saying earlier, every policy program or legislative initiative goes through a GBA analysis, which is part of the cabinet process. So every MC or Treasury Board submission to cabinet has to have that. Then Finance Canada also looks at their own analysis for GBA. But I'm not sure whether it would be—

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Yes, they would do it.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I'm going to move on, thank you. The minister stated earlier, I believe, that GBA+ is separately funded. Is that correct?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

No, I didn't say that. It's not a program.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

It's not a program, but it's—

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

It's an analysis tool.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Yes, but it's not separately funded.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

It is not. It's an analysis tool used on each piece of government policy.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

And my understanding it that it's a core competency, so there is no funding allocated to it.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Not to the analysis component. What we do is we provide on our website an opportunity for public servants and parliamentarians, as well as government officials, to take that training program themselves. So they will then take their knowledge and apply it to their daily interactions and in their daily issues of assessing policy. So it is not a program; it's an analysis tool that we make available, free of charge, through Status of Women Canada on our website, so that every parliamentarian, every public servant, can educate themself and are supported in doing a better job.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I have some concerns there. It's my understanding that there are 263,000 people in the public service and 1,500 have taken the two-hour online course.

[Meena Ballantyne]

Yes. The online course was developed in 2012 and we've gone through a couple of revisions of it. That's one avenue, as the minister said, that we're using to try to get more and more people in the federal public service, as well as in provincial public services, taking it. But in addition to that, we're working with the Canada School of Public Service to make it part of the core curriculum for people working in programs and at the policy level so that it's mainstreamed. We're going to be collecting the statistics on that. In addition, we work with the departments in networking events and pilots to get that everywhere—

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I'm aware of the networking events.

Thank you.

Minister, you've had one round table on missing and murdered indigenous women. We've heard from attendees that this needs to be a first step of many. I'm wondering what your next steps are beyond agreeing to meet in 2016.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

The round table that you're speaking of was the discussion that all provinces, territories, and the aboriginal organizations participated in. For myself, I participated in numerous round table discussions with aboriginal Canadian families prior to that round table, and will continue to do so. I think we would all agree as parliamentarians that we are the best informed when we speak directly to Canadians

In follow-up to that historic event where all of those participants agreed to a framework of action moving forward, we focused on the following issues that were brought up: the first was prevention, the second was supporting victims, and the third was protection, or justice issues.

The Government of Canada's action plan is very clearly stated. It was launched in September 2014. It's a clear plan, and I'm happy to provide you a copy of it. It speaks to the investments that the Government of Canada is making in these three critical areas, which were agreed to at the round table discussions—

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I really do have a specific question here. I think there are concerns that the action plan is a set of re-announcements and money. So I'm really asking, beyond the meeting in 2016, what are your specific actions?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

As I was just saying, we have an action plan and it has three component areas.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I know what the areas are.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

We're moving forward and we announced on April 1 the launch of our website. I would encourage everyone to encourage organizations that would like to access these funds or programs to go to www.women.gc.ca. What comes up immediately on our webpage is a tool for aboriginal organizations or those organizations that are supporting aboriginal families' access to the programming opportunities. That is our coordination function which is outlined in our plan.

We're moving forward in setting up community safety plans through Public Safety, by looking at those areas where aboriginal families have worked with us to identify where they can best create a community safety plan to make their areas safer. We're also augmenting, as outlined in our plan, the victims fund, and therefore making available to these families what they requested, namely liaison individuals to make sure that when they have interactions with law enforcement or individuals whom they don't know, they have a more culturally sensitive liaison opportunity. Those are just some of the things we're moving forward on—

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much. Merci.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

[Inaudible—Editor]...people with the community all the actions that are the follow-up from—

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Yes, we're happy to do that.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you, Madam Minister and Ms. Duncan.

Mr. Barlow, you have five minutes.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being here today.

This is my first time on the committee and I want to commend my colleagues. I've really enjoyed the time in the committee. The issues that we've been addressing have been extremely interesting and quite timely.

Cyberbullying is a great example. My daughter was a victim of cyberbullying in high school, so to see us take steps on that is something I'm very proud of.

What I've learned in the time that I've been here is how we respond to some of the challenges and about those three pillars you talked about— violence, economic security, and democratic participation.

I understand that Status of Women's calls for proposals have provided some opportunities for organizations to improve some of the things that we've talked about here this year: improving economic security for women in rural communities, obviously very important for me, being in rural Alberta; increasing the participation of girls and young women in leadership roles; and something that was very prominent this year in one of studies, the importance of engaging men and boys in gender-based violence education.

How many of these calls for proposals have been approved for funding since 2011? As a secondary question, how many of these projects have been funded on a continuous intake?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Our focus is primarily on our calls for proposals. We've had several calls for proposals just in the last year, but particularly since 2007. The highlights, as you mentioned before, include Cyber and Sexual Violence: Helping Communities Respond. We had a call on Economic Prosperity: Positioning Women for Success in the future. We had a call for Increasing Economic Prosperity for Women. And then, we also had a call for proposals on Working in Partnership to End Violence Against Women and Girls. Since 2011, our calls for proposals have funded more than 330 projects; those have spanned the three theme areas.

With respect to the continuous intake, I'd have to ask Meena Ballantyne. I don't personally track those on a day-to-day basis. Meena may have a number to answer that question.

[Meena Ballantyne]

I don't have the exact number for the continuous intake, but what we do is look at emerging issues and work with communities to respond to those. For example, on skilled trades we're doing an invitational call right now for women in skilled trades and how to promote more women in those fields. That's something we're working on with the community, with the organizations, and for which we're inviting people to apply on a very proactive basis.

We have these targeted calls for proposals. Then, in addition to those, if we know that there are some communities that want to work on something, we'll do it through the continuous intake process.

I can get back to you on the number of projects we've done.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Yes, if you could provide that number, that would be great.

[Meena Ballantyne]

Sure.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Minister, we're in the process of completing our study on attracting women to the skilled trades and STEM fields. This was something that I and several of my colleagues on both sides of the table were very interested in.

Despite the downturn in the oil and gas sector, we in Alberta especially still have a large void in skilled trades. We've heard some witnesses come through saying that if they could get women to go into the skilled trades, they could see their salaries reaching into the six-figure area.

It has really been a challenge for us. How do we change the perspective? How do we get women involved in these types of opportunities? What initiatives are in place through Status of Women Canada by way of an effort to support and advance women in skilled trades and technical professions?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

I will answer your question in two parts.

With respect to the Government of Canada in general, this has been a recognized need. More than 500,000 Canadians have taken part in apprenticeship loans through our investment in that loan program in Economic Action Plan 2014. There is also the Canada job grant to create opportunities for Canadians to have skills for jobs that are available today. These are two signature programs that address the skilled professional trades issues.

With respect to Status of Women Canada, I completely agree with you: these are fabulous jobs. Our agency two years ago would have called these non-traditional jobs for women. My dad just says, these are good jobs. Having grown up in Fort McMurray, Alberta, where there were only a few skilled professional tradespeople, I can recognize how that six-figure income is easily attainable.

Status of Women Canada over the last number of years has undertaken a number of initiatives. One is that we've had a call for proposals in this area and have funded just over 45 ongoing projects to support women in skilled trades and technical professions. These projects focus on construction, some on shipbuilding, manufacturing, some on agriculture.

Our focus, then, is not only to recruit women into these roles, but also to retain them; that has been a substantive focal point for us. As the minister, though, I also have had a high-level round table, and we're moving forward on a number of initiatives to encourage young women to enter these professional fields.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you, Madam Minister and Mr. Barlow.

Ms. Freeman, you have five minutes.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

To pick up on where we just were, we were talking about women on boards, about women in STEM, about creating an environment where women can take on jobs in which they're higher paid and have more leadership. According to our latest numbers—although they're five years old, as we don't have any more recent data—women spend an average of 50 hours a week on unpaid child care, which is double that of men.

Why are we not taking the time to address this issue of unpaid work, the fact that women still bear a disproportionate amount of the burden when it comes to child care, and the fact that we're not giving them the option of being able to use public child care to be able to access child care throughout the country?

We do know, for instance, that in Ottawa one child in child care can cost as much as $1,500 or $2,000 a month.

Certainly, programs such as income splitting that aren't accessible for 85% of women are not directly giving them options, and the child benefit goes nowhere near to being able to make the difference for many women trying to afford child care every month.

Why are we not addressing this important difference in unpaid work?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

I would say that we are very much addressing it on a few fronts.

First, as I outlined before—and I'm happy to go through it again—the universal child care benefit focuses on allowing parents, mom and dad, to make the choices about their child care. We have augmented that for children under the age of six, as well as expanded it to provide parents that have children aged six to seventeen a full new benefit.

Those together, as well as the remaining family tax cut and the children's fitness tax credit augmentation, provide for most families, on average for a family of four, $6,600 more in their pockets this year, in order to allow mom and dad to make the choices about their child care as they deem fit.

We know, and as Minister of Status of Women I hear this all over the country, that not every mom works nine to five; many moms work outside that time frame and want to be able to have a choice in their child care. That goes hand in glove, though, with what Status of Women Canada is doing to support projects to make sure that we allow women to get great jobs. So by way of example, in STEM, or in skilled professional trades, there's a fabulous program called women building futures. It's based in Edmonton—

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

I'm sorry to interrupt you. I'm sure that's a fabulous program, but I do want to go back to the fact that we hear all over the country that women often will stay home to raise their children, because the reality is that child care costs more than many women in this country make. Programs like income splitting, in fact, encourage that.

Is that the kind of option that the Conservative government, your government, is encouraging?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Well, as I just said, the universal child care benefit actually benefits every single parent. Every mother in this country will receive that. So that's one.

As I was going to mention, Status of Women Canada also augments and looks to programs that support making sure women can get great jobs. In this example of skilled professional trades, the women building futures project is supporting the family dynamic and allowing women—many of whom are actually single moms and aboriginal single moms—to receive the skills training that they want and support their child while doing so.

Status of Women Canada is very involved in that program. JudyLynn Archer is an outstanding executive director doing wonderful work in a program that we hope will spread across western Canada, if not into eastern Canada.

So the universal child care benefit is something that every Canadian parent receives. They will be provided—

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

I'd like to move on to another issue.

At CSW this year there was not any mention at all of the issue of violence against aboriginal women, and that was very disappointing to me, because—

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Please address your question.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

—CEDAW has been ongoing in raising that issue with Canada. Why was that not talked about—

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Ms. Freeman.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

—and why is the government not calling an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women in this country?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

We've been very clear on this, having met with aboriginal families. They have asked for action. We don't need another study. We've had over 30. What we do need is to make sure that these families are protected, supported, and that we prevent these actions from ever happening again.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you.

Mrs. Crockatt, you have five minutes.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you very much.

Minister, I'm very interested in the comments you are making on skilled trades and STEM studies, because I think this is an absolutely phenomenal message that our young girls and women need to hear to move themselves up in the wage scale. Not any job makes a difference, but you have been making great strides in letting women know the areas that are going to help them to get into fields where they can make more money.

I'd like you to expand a little further on my colleague's question: What initiatives are in place through the Status of Women so we can advance women in skilled trades and technical professions, and to what degree does mentorship play a role here?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you for the question.

As I said, Status of Women Canada is focused on providing opportunities for women to take on these great jobs. In addition to the support we will have for programming, which I'll come back to, we've developed a plan to address this. First and foremost, we have a group of leaders who are advising Status of Women Canada, including me and Meena Ballantyne, my agency head, on what we should be focused on. This is a group of individuals who represent everyone who would be in this field, whether it be Bob Blakely of the Building Trades, or Jerry Dias from Unifor, or Lorraine Mitchelmore, the president of Shell Canada. It is a group of individuals who cover the span so they can provide us great advice.

From their advice what have we done? We've moved forward on a number of initiatives. First, we're developing a business case. What is the business case for making sure that women should be part of your workforce? We know on the Women On Boards initiative and Women Entrepreneurs that it is only good for business. We believe this is the case with regard to women in skilled professional trades, but we're going to make sure we have that business case, and launch it to make the case.

We're supporting an invitation or call for proposals not only to encourage women to enter skilled professional trades, but also to retain them, because we know that so many of them enter into this or into apprenticeships and then don't complete them or don't stay in their trade. We want to know the answer to that so we can address it.

Finally, I've made this a priority at our federal-provincial-territorial meeting that we'll be having in June. We need to make sure this is on the national stage, that as a group of leaders at the provincial, territorial, and federal levels we take this very seriously and that we know we need to move the numbers to provide those opportunities to women.

We've taken a comprehensive approach to this, and Meena and her team are doing an outstanding job of implementing it. Our goal is similar to Women on Boards and Women Entrepreneurs, where we've moved the numbers, to do the same in this area as well.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you.

There's more I could ask there, but I want to move on because I think the issue of child, early, and forced marriages is really important. This is a basic violation of human rights. I even had someone call my office this week who is being forced to go to another country to get married. You are taking action on this. I would love you to speak to the committee about Bill S-7, and why it's important to address this issue, please. Thank you, Minister.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

This has been a focal point for the Government of Canada and, quite frankly, for me personally. As a pediatric surgeon, the concept that any human right of a child would be violated is abhorrent. Canada itself has strongly condemned child, early, and forced marriages as a violation of basic human rights, and as a form of violence against girls in particular. Obviously, some boys are impacted by this as well, but it's primarily girls. As a foreign policy initiative this has been a priority area, and Canada is playing a leadership role on the international stage. We are the sponsor of the UN's International Day of the Girl Child on October 11, where we focus significantly on priority issues of girls' rights, and, obviously, the elimination and eradication of child, early, and forced marriages is at the top of that list. We also have had program funding support through the Minister of Foreign Affairs recently announcing $20 million to UNICEF for programming to end child, early, and forced marriages, and with Zambia we put forward the first-ever stand-alone resolution on child, early, and forced marriage at the UN General Assembly to move forward in eradicating this practice.

So the legislation that we're moving forward with, Bill S-7, is to go hand in glove in support of our international position on this that there should be a zero-tolerance policy with regard to these practices.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much, Ms. Crockatt.

Madam Minister, the time has gone very quickly. That's already it for now. I would like to thank you very much for speaking to us about the government's programs.

Before you go, would you have time to answer one quick question from Mrs. Perkins?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Okay.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Can you ask one question?

[Pat Perkins, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

Absolutely, I'd love to ask a question. I'll make it a short one.

Thank you, Minister, for being here. I really appreciate the work that you're doing on behalf of these young women and girls. It's so important, and the fact that you're highlighting it the way you do is just remarkable. I'm commending you for the work that you do.

Concerning the TrustLaw poll that ranks G-20 countries on where it's best to a woman, Canada was number one in 2012. This was the best country to be a woman in. Our government has always prided itself on a society where women and men are equal participants in all aspects of life.

Minister, are there any special projects within that framework that you would like to highlight that brings us to this point?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

I think what we're trying to do at Status of Women in Canada is move the bar to provide excellent opportunities for women across the country. Part of that is economic advancement, and part of that is making sure that women's rights are respected and, therefore, we are focused on eliminating violence against women and girls. We have a number of projects, some of which are focused, as we talked about, on women's economic empowerment, particularly our new action plan for women entrepreneurs and the focus that we've had through our expert panel on women entrepreneurs. As Mrs. Crockatt was mentioning before, our focus is also now on skilled professional trades for women and their opportunities to have great jobs.

We're trying to cover, I guess, a bit of the economic waterfront, creating great jobs for women, providing them opportunities, and then also being a focal point on our elimination of violence against women and girls as a hallmark of what Status of Women in Canada has been involved in for decades.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much, Madam Minister.

We will suspend the meeting for a few minutes to give us time to welcome the other witnesses.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

The meeting is suspended

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

We will resume the meeting.

The lights signalling a vote in the House are flashing, but we aren't very far so we'll wait for confirmation.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Let's give the first round of questions to the government party, as usual, and once it is confirmed…

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

I would need unanimous consent to stay and give seven minutes to Mrs. Perkins in the first round of questions.

The vote will take place at 12:35 p.m.

So the vote will be at 12:35. There will be only one vote.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

We'll have time, yes.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Okay.

I want to welcome Ms. Savoie, who is joined by Ms. Ballantyne and Ms. Lapointe.

Mrs. Perkins, you have seven minutes.

[Pat Perkins, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and welcome to all of you. Thank you for being here.

I'd like to ask you about some of the funding that the women's program has provided through grants and contributions since the 2007 timeframe. How much funding has been approved to support Canadian women and girls across our country? Second, how are their issues being addressed?

[Meena Ballantyne]

Thank you very much for the question.

I think everybody knows that the women's program is our grants and contributions funding, which is the majority of the funding for Status of Women Canada. Approximately $19 million has been spent over the past few years, and this is the plan for the coming year as well.

Usually we fund about 300 projects. If you calculate since 2007, we've funded more than $162 million in the areas of violence, economic security, and democratic participation. I think that amounts to about 300 projects.

What we are trying to do is make it easier for applicants. We have an online system, for example, which people can go to and put their submission into. We also provide support so that people can call somebody in the women's program to be walked through the application process; we're trying to make it easier for applicants.

We're also doing targeted calls, as we mentioned earlier, in terms of having priorities. If the priority one year is more on the economic side, as you saw, rather than the violence side, we try to find that balance.

We also have the continuous intake, whereby at any time, should an organization wish to access funding, they can call us, they can work with us, and we can work with them on the project to see whether it's possible to fund it.

[Pat Perkins, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much for that.

Can you please explain how the government has designed the women's program to reach specific issues across Canada. I'm not really sure how many and how diverse those issues might be; that's why I'm asking the question. Could you give us some general idea of what is being funded?

[Meena Ballantyne]

Perhaps I'll turn it over to Linda Savoie, who is the director general of the women's programs, to give you a little more detail on that.

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

Thank you.

The design of the program is fairly flexible. We're fairly nimble, because we have quite broad terms and conditions that allow us to make investments in the three priority areas that you heard of this morning, which are economic empowerment, leadership opportunities, and ending violence. These priority areas in fact are aligned with what is being done internationally as well. So we have a fair bit of flexibility.

We have a program that is designed not to work directly with women and provide them programming, but rather is designed to change systems. We like to say that we fix the systems, not the women. That's what the program attempts to do. We would work more likely at identifying barriers to progress, identifying sources of risk, and helping people to work together to identify the improvements that need to be put in place.

Basically, that's the program design and the way we address those needs. I could go on endlessly, but I'll let you—

[Pat Perkins, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

We were discussing earlier what has happened to funding since 2007, but for the projects that have been submitted to you since 2011, how are the numbers looking? And have the ones you have received been beneficial for the women's program?

[Linda Savoie]

In any given year we receive, I should say, anywhere from 400 to 700 applications. If I look since 2011, I would say we've received approximately 2,000 applications for funding. We have a success rate that varies from one in five to one in seven, depending on the year. We fund approximately 100 new ones each year. Because our projects tend to be multi-year, we often say that we have about 300 on the go at any given moment; that's the number that Meena Ballantyne was referring to.

[Pat Perkins, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

Does that include the STEM programs that have been out there?

[Linda Savoie]

Yes, that's correct.

[Pat Perkins, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

Do you have number of applications that have been received for the fall 2014 call for proposals, and the amount of investment that's been made to date on that program, or is that just too current? I'm not sure.

[Linda Savoie]

Yes, I have those numbers.

For the fall call, we received 161 applications. At this moment in time, we have approximately 30 that have been approved. While it's the fall call and you may expect that that it would be over by now, but it's not necessarily because things that had potential and that were close, but not necessarily sufficiently aligned, continue to be developed with the groups. We're hoping to get a few other projects out from this fall call.

As a point of interest, what was really interesting about the fall call was that it was an open call. We set the topic, which was economic, and we were not any more prescriptive than that because we wanted to get a sense of what was important in the communities across the country.

That allows us to go gauge what is of interest in the different parts of the country. Is it more entrepreneurship, is it more skilled trades, and so on and so forth? The early figures I have is that 30% of the project applications related to entrepreneurship and 40% related to skilled trades and technical professions.

That was interesting to us because we had not set that out. We just let them come to us with what was of interest to the communities.

[Pat Perkins, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

Is that the major trend or shift that you're seeing?

Is there anything else that has come in through this intake that you've found to be a little bit more ground-breaking and new in that regard?

It would be nice to understand if the group of witnesses we are hearing from are consistent with the majority of what you're getting?

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

I'm sorry to interrupt you. Your time is up.

I will now suspend the meeting.

Then we will come back and vote on the main estimates.

The meeting is suspended

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Good afternoon. We are resuming our discussion.

First, I would like to thank our guests who stayed here during the vote.

Ms. Freeman, you have five minutes.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, thank you to our witnesses for still being here. We do have a brief moment so that I can ask a couple of follow-up questions from the minister's appearance.

We were talking about the GBA+, which, from what I now understand, is really an online tool. Can we know how much it's being used and can we even know who's using it? It's open to parliamentarians and ministries and people like that, so can we know who's using it and how much it's being used?

[Meena Ballantyne]

It's on our website and anybody can access it. Even international communities, whoever wants to, can access it. It takes about 2 1/2 hours. I did it on my iPad at home, sitting on my porch, and it was really fantastic. When you finish the course, you can request a certificate that we would sign and send to you, and so far around 1,500 certificates have been sent. A lot of times people just go on it and don't request a certificate, so we're trying to figure out how we can find out how many people are actually taking it. We think it's underestimated because we've heard, for example, that the deputies and ADMs in the Alberta government have been taking the course. It's sort of mandatory for them because they find it's a really good way of learning about the competency.

As I said earlier, we're also trying to work with the Canada School of Public Service to make sure they can give it as part of their core curriculum, and then they will be able to track it as well, so we can find that out.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Did you say that the Government in Alberta was using this specific tool as a mandatory tool? Is there anybody else that's using it as a mandatory tool?

[Meena Ballantyne]

I'm not aware of anybody out there. What we're doing at Status of Women is saying that it's a mandatory tool here, one that every employee, whether they're in the corporate sector or in communications or policy or programs, has to take as part of being at Status of Women Canada. What we're trying to do is to have the same done for the entire public service and make it a part of the core curriculum.

We should have better and better stats as we move along.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

How do we know it's efficient now?

[Meena Ballantyne]

Pardon me.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

How do you evaluate its efficiency right now?

[Meena Ballantyne]

I think it's contributing to awareness of how you analyze policies and programs, how you ask the right questions, how you move beyond only the sex and gender issues. I did bring something that I thought might be of interest to you. For example, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research has a little postcard on sex and gender. Throughout the research granting process, they're implementing a requirement that all grant applicants have to respond to mandatory questions about whether their research designs include gender and sex.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

That's really interesting.

I'm going to move on because I don't have much time.

One thing I do want to raise with you is that when I'm meeting with women's organizations across my riding, across the country, what we often hear is that while new funding programs and initiatives that are being brought forward are interesting, what's frustrating for them is that if they do find funding or if there's something they are trying to apply for, it's something that really only exists for a small period of time and then there's not a renewal of that type of fund. Every couple of years, or even every year, there's no automatic renewal. Organizations that have very limited funds and human resource capacity are spending half their time simply redoing different funding applications in order to try and receive.... Why is there not more core funding toward the groups that do advocacy or research? Why is there not core funding to even service providers, when it comes to women?

[Meena Ballantyne]

I think the terms and conditions of the program have been established for a few years now, and the path chosen has been not to fund service delivery and core programming. What we're trying to do, as the minister and Linda were saying earlier, is to have systemic change and to provide two-to-three year funding, so that it's sustained in the communities by all the partners who then own it. Instead of the government funding it, it's sustained in the communities themselves. Those are the terms and conditions of our program.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

With the last couple of seconds that I have, I want to raise the fact that the last time we had Madam Savoie with us for the STEM research, you said specifically that the responsibilities for child care and even elder care were still primarily with women.

The data that we have on that is almost 10 years old now and in a publication that's five years old. Are there any new data that are going to be collected around that number, or do we have newer data coming out?

[Meena Ballantyne]

I'm not sure if we have data on that specific issue, but I know that in the Stats Canada Women in Canada publication that we're working on, the next edition and the various chapters that are going to be coming out.... But I could look into whether the Women in Canada—

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

If you could provide that to the clerk—

[Meena Ballantyne]

Sure.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

—and to the committee members, that would be much appreciated.

[Meena Ballantyne]

Yes.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Again, I want to thank you all for coming in and for enlightening us following the minister's visit.

Now we will move on to go through our routine to the votes.

We will now vote on items 1 and 5 of the Main Estimates 2015-16.

STATUS OF WOMEN

Vote 1—Office of the Co-ordinator, Status of Women—Operating expenditures.......... $9,364,355

Shall vote 1, less the amount of $2,341,088 granted in interim supply, carry?

(Vote 1 agreed to)

Shall vote 5, less the amount of $4,737,500 granted in interim supply, carry?

Vote 5—Office of the Co-ordinator, Status of Women—Grants and contributions.......... $18,950,000

(Vote 5 agreed to)

Shall the chair report the Main Estimates 2015-16 to the House?

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

I would like to thank all the committee members.

Our next meeting will take place in room 228 of the La Promenade Building.

Have a good day.

The meeting is adjourned.