Status of Women Committee on March 10th, 2016

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

All right. Seeing as how it's 3:30 p.m., I'll call the meeting to order.

It is again a great pleasure to have back with us Minister Hajdu, along with Ms. Ballantyne, Ms. Savoie, and Ms. Lapointe, members of the department of the Status of Women.

We are excited that you're here to discuss with us today our supplementary and main estimates. I believe the minister has some opening remarks.

I would turn it over to you.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Minister of Status of Women]

Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and thank you for allowing me to come on such short notice.

I'm thrilled to be able to be here. I've brought with me my incredible team from Status of Women to answer the really difficult questions, as they are training me up.

Without further ado, I'll get started.

Thank you for the invitation to appear before this committee on the Status of Women Canada's main estimates, our report on plans and priorities for the fiscal year 2016-17, and the supplementary estimates (C) for the fiscal year 2015-16. It's a pleasure to be here again.

Joining me today are Meena Ballantyne, head of the Status of Women of Canada; Linda Savoie, the senior director general for the women's program; and Anik Lapointe, the chief financial officer and the director of corporate services.

First I'll talk about the main estimates for 2016-17. The main estimates provide Status of Women Canada with $31.7 million to carry out its work, which is outlined in more detail in the 2016-17 report on plans and priorities. This $31.7 million represents 0.01%—I want to highlight that—of the approximate $288 billion in overall total government spending. In government terms, it's essentially like five bucks.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

Sorry, but I'm going to go a little off script here. I actually compare the Status of Women agency to running a homeless shelter. It's in the same category, it really is, in terms of funding. We do an incredible amount with very little money, and I want to acknowledge the incredible work they do on such a small budget.

Before I expand on the priorities set out in the RPP, I would like to highlight the fact that the government is reviewing its reporting framework to ensure that it meaningfully allows Parliament and Canadians to monitor our progress in meeting our commitments.

The five priorities in the RPP support the government's agenda for advancing equality between women and men and also my mandate commitments, which are preventing and addressing violence against women and girls, preventing and addressing violence against indigenous women and girls, strengthening the gender-based analysis plus implementation, increasing the representation of women in leadership roles, and promoting women's economic security and prosperity. These are all goals that I'm sure you're very familiar with.

I'd now like to highlight some of our work in each of these areas.

Let's talk about addressing violence against women and girls.

As you know, I've been mandated to lead the development of a comprehensive federal strategy on gender-based violence, aligned with existing provincial and territorial strategies. I'm currently engaging with my colleagues across federal portfolios and with key stakeholders across the country, including provincial and territorial ministers responsible for the status of women, as well as experts and advocates. I will be meeting with my international counterparts next week at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women—some of you are attending—to get a better sense of their violence prevention strategies and what works and what doesn't work across the globe. This engagement process we're undergoing will be used to identify key gaps and opportunities for action to develop a federal strategy on violence against women and girls.

We're also working on ending violence against indigenous women and girls. As you are aware, the agency is playing a key role in supporting the national inquiry into murdered and missing indigenous women and girls and is working closely with the Minister of Indigenous Affairs and the Minister of Justice and their departments.

I was part of the pre-inquiry design process, and the level of engagement across Canada was incredibly encouraging. We heard from nearly 2,000 individuals in the 18 pre-inquiry design meetings that were held from coast to coast to coast, but we also heard from well over 4,000 other individuals, both on social media and through the inquiry website, where they provided their input via an online survey. We were really encouraged by the tremendous passion both of the people coming in person and of those submitting their thoughts online.

What we've heard very clearly is that we need to act now and not wait until the inquiry is completed. There are a number of things that we can do now and things that we have been doing that we can sustain. Over the coming year, the agency will provide funding and professional assistance to organizations for projects designed to support indigenous women and girls in engaging with their communities to address the root causes of violence. We will continue to act by investing in promising practices that can help prevent violence against indigenous women and girls.

We are also looking at advancing women in leadership roles. We're going to invest resources strategically to support projects that help increase women's representation in leadership positions. I am very passionate about this particular aspect of my mandate, because I believe that when we have women who are determining the faces and structures of our governance, our organizations, and our businesses, it in fact leads to more equality.

A few weeks ago, I announced a new call for proposals, inviting organizations to propose projects that will empower women in two different ways. The first will identify projects that engage indigenous women and strengthen the role they play in their communities, and the second involves projects to empower women for political or community action. We've heard a lot incidentally from civic partners, municipalities, that really want to work on engaging more women at the municipal level of politics, so this is an example.

We will continue to work closely with our federal partners toward diversity in Governor in Council appointments, and continue efforts to advance gender balance on Canadian boards.

The government has just announced a new, rigorous approach for selecting high-quality candidates to fill 1,500 Governor in Council appointments on commissions, boards, crown corporations, agencies, and tribunals across the country, and this new merit-based selection process will result in candidates who truly reflect Canada's diversity. Again, that will strengthen the organizations and the divisions that determine what Canada's policies look like.

The third priority supports women's economic security and prosperity. The agency will continue to explore economic opportunities for women by engaging key stakeholders to address women's under-representation in key sectors, such as the skilled trades, which is very important. As you know, we have extremely low rates of women participating in sometimes quite lucrative careers. I see one women right there who could speak quite eloquently about that.

The Government of Canada is also committed to addressing the issue of the wage gap, which as you know is worsening. While women have made significant progress on a number of fronts, including educational attainment and labour force participation, there is definitely room for improvement. We will work with the provinces, territories, and others to use all the levers to address the wage gap in Canada.

We are also working at implementing gender-based analysis, and you know that we saw the Auditor General's report in February, which indicated that although we had made some progress, we had a long way to go in applying GBA. We're continuing to collaborate with our federal partners to improve implementation of GBA, and we're exploring ways that we can better monitor and report on its implementation, and recognize that departments are accountable for using this.

Status of Women Canada will also continue supporting our federal organizations across various sectors to ensure that gender considerations are being integrated into decisions on federal initiatives through training, tools, and support.

Status of Women Canada will also continue to work internationally. Next week, I'll be leading Canada's delegation to the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York, where Canada will be promoting the need to support women and girls globally, and advance women's rights as human rights.

Within Canada, we'll continue to engage very actively with the federal-provincial-territorial forum of ministers responsible for the status of women, and I really look forward to our meeting this June, where we will be discussing violence against women, including violence against indigenous women and girls, the gender wage gap, and gender-based analysis.

As you can see, we're planning to target our $31.7 million to clearly advance gender equality in Canada, and I know that I can count on your support toward our mutual goal.

Madam Chair, as you can see from the initiatives I have described today, we are very much looking forward to the year ahead and the progress we can make for women and girls in Canada.

Thank you, merci, and I'll add meegwetch.

I will now be happy to answer your questions, and by the way, meegwetch for those of you who are not from Ontario is thank you in Ojibwa.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I have Ojibwa in my riding.

Thank you very much, Minister Hajdu.

Now we'll begin our questioning on the main and supplementary estimates with our usual seven minutes, starting with my Liberal colleagues.

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

Thank you, meegwetch, and thank you for all you're doing. It's pretty amazing.

I have to tell you, on Tuesday, I think all of us were so impressed with everything that happened. It was one of those days where I went home and was just on cloud nine.

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

I was comparing it to the wedding I never had.

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

One of the things we're going to be looking at, our first study, is violence in the lives of women and girls, and part of that is the cyber-bullying. How much in the way of resources is going into that from your ministry right now?

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

I'll start, and Linda can expand.

We allocate resources to leave them flexible for opportunities, such as the cyber-bullying project, so we have invested I think a couple of million dollars.

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

Two million to three million....

[Meena Ballantyne]

That's $2 million to $3 million over the last year or two.

[Linda Savoie]

That's in multi-year projects over two years.

[Meena Ballantyne]

We know that this is an emerging issue. This is something that we worked on with some of the groups to generate some momentum behind it. This is one of the emerging issues that we can get on the radar and get people to talk about, which is one of the things we do with our project funding and grants and contributions.

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

I can see your having a role to play in the education part of it.

Jumping over to gender-based analysis, one of the things that, actually, Marilyn and I were talking about was the fact that, as members of Parliament, we make decisions based on economic impact and environmental impact. We really need to also be looking at that from a gender perspective. We wonder if you think it would be helpful if our committee brought forward a motion that encourages MPs and their staff to do the gender-based analysis on your website.

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

I think that's a great idea. I wonder how many people around here, so far, have done GBA on the website.

Well, there you go.

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

My challenge to the committee was going to be—

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

That would be a great thing to commit to doing before your next meeting. It isn't a very long exercise. It shouldn't take you more than 20 minutes to half an hour, I would say, at the outset. Maybe a little bit longer...?

[Meena Ballantyne]

Yes. It may take just a little bit longer, a couple of hours.

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

I think it would be a great thing for you to do, probably before you put the motion forward, so that you can get a sense of the time. Anything we can do to encourage our colleagues to reflect on the lens they're making their decision from...right?

We all carry with us these inherent biases and we all work on them. This isn't to say that anyone is doing this from a nefarious place. We are raised in a certain way. We're acculturated in a certain way. We have, sometimes, invisible biases that we're unaware of.

The GBA tool is really useful for taking a look at ourselves and our own biases, and how that influences how we're making decisions. I think it's a useful thing for all parliamentarians, not only in the area of gender equality but also in the area of diversity and inclusion. I think working on getting our colleagues to take the time to do that would be excellent.

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

I was going to bring a motion today, but I thought, I can't very well encourage everyone else to do it if I haven't done it myself.

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

Thank you for that.

The other thing is that I have reached out as well to my cabinet colleagues to encourage gender analysis as they move forward in their commitments and their mandate. It is part of my mandate to work with them, especially on memorandums to cabinet to make sure those memorandums to cabinet have a full gender-based analysis conducted. I will continue to work with my colleagues, including their central agencies, to ensure that GBA is applied. This is a work in progress, but I think one way to start that conversation is definitely to encourage people to take the GBA. There are a variety of mechanisms.

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

Especially as policy-makers, right?

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

Absolutely.

I think you raise a really important point. That's why I think this committee is so important. The policies that we implement are often shaped by our world view, so it's really important for us to reflect on how any policy we create will affect other areas, other groups of people that we may not have any real inherent knowledge of. That's, I think, our responsibility as parliamentarians.

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

I'm sharing my time with Mr. Fraser.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I thought I was farther down the list, but that's okay.