Status of Women Committee on Nov. 30th, 2017

[Gina Wilson]

Yes. One vivid experience, I would say, that was a take-away for me was my visit to Prince Edward Island, where I came to understand, by meeting with a number of different representatives of non-governmental organizations, that they work very well horizontally together. This is being on the island, per se, and many groups do work together, but there were definitely a lot of synergies with these organizations working together and leveraging off one another. That was a very good take-away.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have 40 seconds.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

I'll pass.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

We're going to Sheila Malcolmson for her seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the Status of Women representatives and particularly Deputy Minister Wilson. I'm really glad to see your appointment.

Following on my colleague's questions about hearing from the grassroots, from the very beginning in the studies we've done, we've invited a lot of people who are on the front line of providing a service to women in need, whether that's domestic violence, advocating for economic justice, or for an end to the tragedy of murdered and missing indigenous women.

I can't think of a single grassroots group that has not said “what we need is operational funding”. They apply for programs, they innovate, they pilot, and they collaborate. Women's organizations have been collaborating for decades, of course, and they say they're exhausted by it. They say that it's speculative and they put a lot of staff time into trying to fit the new criteria of program funding, but that what they really need is to keep the lights on or to renovate so that they have a safer workplace for their employees in dangerous situations. It's about operational funding.

They say again and again that provincial and federal governments have abrogated to them this front-line service, so why don't they just admit that these groups are the ones who are going to do this work and that they need operational funding? That was reflected in the NDP's recommendation in terms of the violence against young women and girls. It was a recommendation that the federal government provide consistent operational funding for front-line community organizations working to protect victims and end violence against women and girls.

Can you put on the record why not?

[Gina Wilson]

Certainly you've heard that message loud and clear in your travels. The committee has heard it. I would say that Minister Monsef has heard it in spades. I certainly have heard it from organizations. I know that my colleagues here have as well.

I would say that at the current time we provide $19 million annually, and we look at about 300 projects representing some of the challenges faced by women and girls in the areas of violence, economic security, prosperity, leadership, and advancing equality.

I would also add that at this point we're looking at our terms and conditions for our current program to see how it can more effectively respond to some of those concerns and issues. Those terms and conditions are a tool that will need to be approved by Treasury Board, but certainly that is one activity we are undertaking.

Nancy, I don't know if you have anything more to add. Okay.

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

The consensus recommendations of the committee, recommendations 42 and 44, asked that the Government of Canada “prioritize funds for local sexual violence prevention services and sexual violence support services”, and said that the government should “ensure its funding programs are working to identify and effectively serve the needs of front-line services”.

In the minister's response, those recommendations didn't feel like they were directly responded to; it was hard to follow. I'm hoping that you can respond in more detail about what has happened with those two recommendations: prioritizing funds for local sexual prevention services and all support services, and ensuring that they're effectively serving the needs of front-line organizations. If it isn't possible to respond in detail now, could we have a written follow-up?

[Gina Wilson]

I'd be more than glad to respond more in detail and in writing to you. At this time, we have a certain set of money that we're allocated by Parliament to run the program that we do. We're doing that as effectively as we can, and we're trying to stretch every dollar to get the maximum impact with the programming that we do have.

I know from my own personal experience, certainly, having run a crisis shelter at the community level, how difficult it is and how challenging it can be to keep the lights on and to keep funding going, and I do acknowledge many of those organizations that do that.

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

Thank you for hearing that. It's not that I'm advocating the program...you know, limited funding.... However, given that it's the model we have right now, I have heard from organized labour that they've been declared ineligible for any of the program funding.

I've heard Status of Women staff members say that it was organized labour that kept the women's movement alive during the decade of the Conservative government that preceded this one. We recognize that they have a huge amount of expertise, a huge engagement of membership, and a direct way to poll their membership. For example, I think of organized labour representing women in precarious work and in hotel services. They have an amazing membership that could be drawn on.

Is it true that they're not eligible to apply for some of the program and research funding? If not, why not?

[Gina Wilson]

Thank you for that. That's been very helpful for me to better understand some of those issues, which I certainly have heard about.

I talked about our terms and conditions and some of the adjustments that we're looking at there. I'll ask Nancy Gardiner, who is responsible for our women's program, to reply.

[Nancy Gardiner, Senior Director General, Women’s Program and Regional Operations, Office of the Co-ordinator, Status of Women]

Thank you, Deputy.

As Deputy Minister Wilson said, the terms and conditions for the program are currently being reviewed. As part of the terms and conditions, you review who is eligible to apply, the activities, and the things that are eligible in terms of expenditures. This is one area that we will be reviewing in terms of their eligibility for the opportunity to apply for program funding.

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

I would recommend the UFCW, which has a membership of 60% women, especially in front-line food and hotel services, where women are particularly economically vulnerable, particularly reliant on part-time work, and more likely to be racialized. They've noted to me that in the United States the survey that was done by organized labour there on the degree of sexual violence in the workplace for that type of worker was heartbreaking.

The UFCW and, I believe, the Canadian Labour Congress are eager to do an equivalent Canadian study. I urge you, if you do get such a proposal, I think we as a country would greatly benefit from the expertise and data gathering that they could do on behalf of all of us.

[Gina Wilson]

Absolutely noted, thank you very much.

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

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

We're now going to Eva Nassif for the next seven minutes.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I also want to thank the minister and the officials from Status of Women Canada for joining us to answer all our questions.

My first question is for you, Ms. Akman. When you last appeared before this committee, we discussed the progress and the implementation of gender-based analysis plus, GBA+. Have there been any recent updates or specific advances you could tell us about?

[Justine Akman]

As my colleagues know, it's one of my favourite topics, because when we've appeared here in the last two and a half years, we've talked about this as being like trying to turn a big ship around. I was thinking about it this morning, and I think we're heading kind of southwest at the moment. I think that ship is turning. It has a lot to do with leadership, which does come from the Prime Minister himself, but as well, many members in the current cabinet are speaking very vocally about gender-based analysis.

A huge leap forward has been gender budgeting. Nobody can make people act and react like the Department of Finance can. As long and as hard as we've been trying at Status of Women Canada, just that exercise alone has really changed how Ottawa is functioning. We are working together to think about what results the government as a whole is going to achieve on gender equality, which links back to our gender-based analysis role. If we don't have everybody marching in the same direction, these are hard issues to move on. They're hard societal issues to change and very entrenched issues. So we need everybody marching in the same direction, and part of that GBA work is to work with other levels of government and civil society organizations so that we all have a common vision for gender equality.

In our day-to-day work back at the office, our phones are still ringing off the hook. I continually receive panicky emails at nights and on weekends, but this is a good thing. People are taking GBA seriously, and they want to get it right across all of government. Many of them are doing a much better job than they used to be up front. What we're seeing—and this is a bit “processy”, but it's very profound—is that GBAs used to be done as a side product, as an afterthought to the core policy or program initiative. We've been working with departments across the government to make sure that it actually has an impact on the recommendations and options that are being put forward both for policy development and, very importantly, for implementation. It's still a process. We're not all the way yet. I would like to say that we're trying to work ourselves out of a job. Maybe we need to rebrand GBA a little bit. This needs to be an instinctual process for policy-makers and program implementation across all governments. Without really solid gender-based analysis, you're actually not developing programs and policies that are responsive to gender equality and to the incredible diversity that characterizes Canada. That's our big-picture goal.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you.

I have another question Ms. Wilson may be able to answer.

Could you comment on Bill C-65, which is not related to your department but rather to Employment and Social Development Canada? It does also impact women and has many major repercussions. It dramatically affects their personal and professional lives.

Could you comment on the pervasiveness of sexual harassment in workplaces? If you know, could you tell us how this bill will change the landscape?

[Gina Wilson]

Thank you for your question.

On November 7 the government introduced Bill C-65. We received a lot of very positive feedback on this bill because, from our perspective, all women in Canada have the right to a workplace free of harassment and sexual violence. Definitely as part of our own gender-based violence strategy, we are looking at issues like workplace harassment. That will be part of our more global approach to the gender-based violence strategy, including things like data collection and working with federal institutions like Treasury Board, the RCMP, and the Canadian Armed Forces, which are very large workplaces as well, and ensuring that those workplaces are free from harassment and discrimination.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you very much.

I will share my time with my colleague Ms. Damoff.

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

Thank you for remaining with us for the last part.

Ms. Akman, you talked a lot about the amount of work we are doing on gender-based analysis. When the minister was here, there were a lot of questions about what is being done with gender-based analysis. Was any of this being done prior to October 2015 when the government was elected?

[Justine Akman]

There was. Gender-based analysis has been a mandatory function for many, many years in the federal government in the development of policy and programs.

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

I know. We studied it.

[Justine Akman]

There was an action plan in place before. Status of Women did advise departments to develop action plans.