Status of Women Committee on March 10th, 2016

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

We don't have a special pot of money we're asking for that will be dedicated. We're going to use existing internal funds to do the work. To develop the strategy it will be about pulling the key stakeholders together. I am meeting with colleagues across the country and my ministerial colleagues in Parliament. I have a meeting in the next couple of weeks with some of the significant ministers who have portfolios with these issues so we can start to brainstorm what the structure of this project will look like.

I think we need to make sure we have a broad engagement strategy, just as we're doing with the murdered and missing indigenous women and girls. Perhaps it might not be to the same level where we're hearing family members and that kind of thing, but we must make sure that for all of the work that has been done at the ground level those leaders have an opportunity to weigh in. They are representing a broad group of stakeholders.

I met for example with the Canadian Network of Women's Shelters. They've done a lot of great work. This has been a passion of theirs for years. Although the name is about sheltering, don't let that fool you. They're focused on violence against women, and they've done some very good work. I'm excited to work with people like Lise who have stakeholders from all across the country who are working at the grassroots level.

From my perspective this needs to be inclusive. We need to make sure we're building on the knowledge we already have. In terms of the money, we have the money built into the budget for that.

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

It's a high political priority, and you're going to build on the work that's been done already, which makes it possible to do it without additional budget.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

That's right.

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

Excellent. Thank you.

For gender-based analysis, can you tell us what you are committing in funds that is going to get us a different answer the next time the Auditor General looks at implementation? I think there's probably broad agreement around the table that we haven't come as far as we would like to have come. I'm glad our committee is going to be looking at this because we want there to be a different outcome. What's going to be different next time, and what budget commitments are you making that will get us where we...?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I think there are a couple of things that are different.

One thing is that right now we're planning on using our existing resources, but I think we're planning on doing this a little differently. We have incredibly strong leadership on this issue. There is an expectation from our Prime Minister that cabinet ministers work with me on ensuring that GBA occurs. There's a climate now around gender equality, and you may have felt this in your own work. This isn't going away. This isn't a flash in the pan. This isn't something we add on as a nicety at the end. This is a mandate, and it's interwoven in my mandate that I must work with all of my colleagues. Right now we're working out the accountability frameworks as a government so we can come back to you and show you the outcome measures that we'll be monitoring and be accountable for to you and to Canadians in terms of those mandate letters. Those mandate letters are public, and that's another significant feature that I think will drive momentum. Ministers know they're accountable for producing quality work that reflects gender-based analysis. I think a big part of a commitment to equality is setting the tone and the leadership that needs to happen in order to do this.

Right now we are looking at our resources. We don't want to be under-resourced. We're anticipating a greater demand because there's a greater demand from our Prime Minister that this happens. We will evaluate as we go along to see if we have adequate resources. At this point we're going to work with what we have.

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

Thanks.

With the murdered and missing indigenous women inquiry, you've identified that there are actions you've found that do not need to wait for an inquiry and things you can act on now. Are those built into your budget needs? We want to make sure you're not hamstrung in being able to implement solutions early.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

As my colleague said earlier, some of the work we do provides recommendations and actions to other agencies that have far greater fiscal capacity to act. I look toward our infrastructure spend. Those are the kinds of things on a broad scale that will start to work on alleviating not just violence, but poverty and economic disparity, and improve people's opportunity to gain education.

I must say, working on the ground, if people don't have a safe place to live then they can't focus on the next step. They can't focus on getting a job. They can't focus on.... In some cases they don't even have clothes for the next day. You can't keep your clothes because you have no place to keep them, and they're being stolen.

These kinds of basic needs are what we're talking about when we're talking about social infrastructure, and it's going to be critical in terms of moving forward on this file and many of my colleagues' files. As well we have a number of projects that work on looking at ways to work with women who have experienced violence, but more importantly to work with young women and girls to start to prevent the violence that's happening. We are very focused, and we're expanding our scope to include work with young men and boys because we know that we have focused for so long on young women and girls that we've almost forgotten to have the conversation with young men and boys about their responsibility to end gender-based violence

These are some of the actions we can take right now. I'm excited about the potential in terms of supporting indigenous communities to have a better quality of life and how that will impact on many of the social conditions we see across those communities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

All right, very good.

Now we're back to Ms. Ludwig who I understand is sharing her time with Ms. Sahota.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I am. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Again, thanks to all of you for attending. I'm very pleased to hear about the directions we're going in.

My questions are around funding allocations. You've identified a couple of priority areas, but what about this in terms of geographic regions in Canada? Will there be different funding priorities? Will it be allocated fairly and transparently across the country? Or will it be based on the priority sectors?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

We do have some regional representation in the country, which is working with the various parts of the country. We look at the balance over three years for where funding has gone so that we can actually make sure it is equitable, but we don't necessarily assess each project on a regional basis. What we're really trying to do is make sure that over time we're not favouring Atlantic Canada, say, or Alberta, or for that matter, Ontario, and that over time it does balance out.

We are very well supported by these incredibly hard-working Status of Women employees, who are out in the country and supporting grassroots work through grant management and development.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

That's great. Thank you.

Sometimes we'll read or hear in the media that the rate of violence against women and girls has increased or decreased, but I've often found that the data collection is not consistent. If it's just based on reporting, we know from research that the number of people who actually report is a poor reflection of the actual incidence. If we look at the number of people who are actually convicted, that's significantly lower. Is that one of your priorities in terms of the policing side, the reporting side, and the outcomes as well?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Absolutely, and without data, it's very hard. With the end of the long-form census, we've had a real data lapse. We're really excited about bringing back a tool that will enhance our ability to monitor this more closely.

But we also had, a long time ago—maybe we can speak about it—a specific survey that was very broad and very comprehensive. It looked at rates of violence against women. It was on self-reported rates of violence, but it was very comprehensive. We haven't had any data since then.

[Meena Ballantyne]

Yes, that was in the nineties, and it was the last time that there was a very comprehensive survey done on violence against women.

Since then, as the minister has said, Stats Can has stepped in and has done its victimization survey on self-reported and police-reported cases. We are trying to work with Stats Canada to beef that up and ask them more questions. We're going to use some of the funding for that as well.

Other countries have done comprehensive surveys, which we haven't done here since the early nineties.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I have one last point. Is there a caution, then, in comparing the data in 2016, let's say, to data from the 1990s? We hope people are much more empowered today to come forward than they were in the 1990s.

[Meena Ballantyne]

You get a baseline in the nineties, but you're absolutely right that things have changed. The methodology of data collection, more awareness, and the increased rates of reporting—because people are more empowered and more aware—are all factors there. This is part of the gender violence strategy, this data piece, and how important this is to know in regard to whether the rates are actually going up or down, and if you are making a difference with your prevention efforts.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

That may very well become a recommendation, that we need better data, accurate data, and regular data.

In my previous life in public health in working on substance use, we conducted our own regional substance use survey with students. It was invaluable. When it was cancelled, it was a huge loss because we couldn't drill down to our own specific area. The loss of that kind of very specific data was a real loss to the programming, quite frankly, because we didn't know anymore.

It's the same with this. From my perspective, that would be something we'll be advocating for, that we have good data with which not just to set baselines but to assess our progress over the years.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you.

Ruby.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Hello, Minister, and thanks to you and everyone on the panel for joining us today.

I'm curious as to how the action plan for women entrepreneurs works. I know that there's been an increase in that department, but I'm not even aware of how the funds were allocated previously and how this increase will benefit this program. From the key elements, it seems like.... Does it have to be a larger established organization, or can it be start-ups as well? How do people get funding, how does it get allocated, and how do people find out and get involved?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I'm going to let Meena Ballantyne take this as the action plan for women entrepreneurs predates me.

[Meena Ballantyne]

In terms of the main estimates and the RPP, we work with Industry Canada, or Innovation, Science and Economic Development now, as well as Global Affairs on the action plan for women entrepreneurs.

We provide some funding to women entrepreneurs and we also have done ministerial-led trade missions and promotional campaigns to encourage women to go into entrepreneurship because we know that is part of the economic security pillar of the priorities that we're doing, and we know that women entrepreneurs are looking for tools and networks and mentors.

In budget 2015 we got $350,000; $200,000 of it was in grants and contributions funding, and $150,000 was in O and M. We've deferred some of that grants and contributions funding so the minister can decide on what the priorities for women entrepreneurs might be, moving forward. But the money was for 2015-16, and we've spent it.

We had a big women entrepreneurs forum last March where 350 women entrepreneurs came from across the country. We had a promotional campaign, which is still on our website, which offers resources and tools to women entrepreneurs, and we had the trade mission.

But that's not enough. The money from Industry Canada, or ISED now, and from Global Affairs, which has a business unit that runs the women in international trade program, does a lot of work, and they have a lot more money to invest in this priority.

We also have projects under the pillar of economic security where we have funded women entrepreneurs as well.

[Linda Savoie]

As a preface to all this, the action plan for women entrepreneurs brought together a number of initiatives that were in existence in a range of departments. One of the very big pieces was a piece for the Business Development Bank of Canada that had $700 million of funds that they were going to make available over three years to finance women-owned businesses.

The tiny part that Status of Women Canada has is miniscule in the context of the action plan.

This being said, Status of Women Canada plays an important role. There is an interdepartmental committee where we make sure that the voice of women business owners is heard across the various business development and economic agencies.

To give a bit of momentum to this we have had some calls for proposals where we specifically sought projects that explored the barriers for women business owners. All these projects started in maybe the last 18 months or so, so they're in their fairly early phases but we hope the information this will bring to light will be useful to our colleagues in the economic development agencies and they can adapt and adjust their programs, because that's where the money is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That's excellent.

Now we'll move over to Ms. Harder.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Very quickly, I have a question for clarification, but I also have a series of other questions.

I would ask for succinct answers; that would be really helpful for me so I can get through all my questions.

First, the comment was made that the long-form census somehow helps us with regard to the violence against women question. Am I misunderstanding or is that the statement, and could you help me understand why that would be?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

From my perspective the long-form census provides a lot of information about the status of people's wellness and health, their socio-economic conditions, their living conditions, and a number of factors that are going to interplay with women's equality.

I think the more data you have about the wellness of people, and you can actually then desegregate it by gender.... It gives us a sense of things across the country with regional comparators of how women are doing in a number of ways. The more data you have, the more you can actually break it apart.

For example, if you're looking at housing security, you can actually break that apart and say that women from 24 to 35 who live in the Northwest Territories have experienced extreme housing insecurity. Another example would be seeing a real underemployment of women who are 16 to 24, particularly in the Alberta region. You can also look at what kinds of sectors people are employed in.

All of that data gives us a better snapshot on how women are doing across all of our various mandates and portfolios. Of course, those things intersect with vulnerability. As people are more economically secure in a better housing situation, for example, they may still experience domestic violence, but they most likely will not experience it in a prolonged way. They will have more assets to be able to move on in their lives.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you.

I think with that we run the risk of assuming causality rather than association, so I think we just have to be careful of that going forward.