Status of Women Committee on March 10th, 2016

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

My concern is that the earlier we can sink our teeth into GBA, we may be able to effect some of the very significant decisions that are coming up, both through budget, through departmental considerations. Plus, we have the Auditor General's report that's very fresh, as opposed to this enormous study, which we haven't yet scoped. We don't have terms of reference; we don't know how broad it could go.

It feels a little more beautiful to me to focus on gender-based analysis, which I do think is a more contained subject. The earlier we can sink our teeth into it, the earlier the government can get the benefit of our advice. That's still my preference. Gender-based analysis was also the vote that was unanimous. The violence against young women and sexualization of young girls was not a unanimous vote.

That's just my small pitch. If the train has left that station—

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Is there a motion?

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Part of the difficulty is that we haven't asked the analyst to scope out either of these, and we don't have a witness list.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

True enough.

Ms. Vandenbeld.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

We could start a similar process for GBA as we have for violence against women and girls, say during the course of the constituency week. Then maybe reporting sometime a bit later next week, we could start submitting witness names. At least that gets the process started. In the work plan, we could decide how many meetings.

It doesn't mean we have to do one or the other. We could see how many meetings we dedicate, and it can also be dependent on the availability of witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Right.

I'm hearing a request, then, to submit your ideas for witnesses we'd like to call for the gender-based analysis to the clerk. Do we want to put a timeline on that?

[An hon. member]

March 22.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

You want the same timeline that we had suggested for the other. March 22...?

Very good.

[An hon. member]

Is that the initial list?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That's just the initial list.

We're creating lots of work for our analyst. Should she focus her efforts on gender-based analysis, or should she focus them on what we had previously voted on?

Ms. Damoff.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

We may not have voted on it, but I thought we were doing the violence against young women and girls first, and then gender-based analysis. I remember a discussion about being a new committee and trying to juggle two studies at once.

Rachael, I think it was you who had mentioned that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Is there a motion?

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Yes.

I move that we study violence against young women and girls, followed by a study on gender-based analysis, and while we're studying violence against young women and girls, that the—

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Parliamentary analyst....

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

—parliamentary analyst start to put together potential witnesses for the gender-based analysis committee study.

Can I speak to it for a minute?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Sure.

That's the motion, and now I'll entertain discussion on the motion.

You don't have to include the request for analysts as a motion. She does our bidding without motions, apparently.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I found it really helpful when we did the work plan for public safety this morning, that we decided how many meetings we wanted to spend initially on the study, and then we slotted the witnesses into it, rather than taking the witnesses and making that the length of the study.

I think maybe when the steering committee gets together, we can get a bit better time frame. When I put this forward, I didn't intend for this to be a never-ending study. I think it's big enough that we may, as we're looking at it, say we need to look at just this and that's a separate study that the committee can do later.

I agree with you, Sheila, that I don't think we want it to go on forever. Maybe we can try to get a more concrete work plan. We will maybe do eight meetings on this and then three meeting on GBA, and then we can come back to this if we want.

We could maybe do that at the steering committee level to try to get a more concrete plan in terms of timing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Is there other discussion on the motion?

Mr. Fraser.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

To build on that suggestion, I think your last comment may not have quite dovetailed with the motion on the table. I think the motion is to study one first and then the other.

I think your comment was to say let's talk about this at the steering committee so we can establish a plan.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I think we need a more concrete plan on timing. I guess what I meant to say is, when we look at it, it may be that this one is going to take.... From what I understand, doing a study of eight meetings for a committee like ours is actually quite a long study. Maybe we will have time before the end of June to do both.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Are you making two separate motions?

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

No, I'm not. I'm going to shut up now.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Let me just explore this momentarily. If you were making a motion saying we were going to begin with the violence against women agenda while we are collecting the other information, and then your second motion was that the steering team consider how these two things will be coordinated, that's a possibility.