Status of Women Committee on May 7th, 2026

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

There's one. It's located in Kingston. We haven't been able to discover, through Order Paper questions or a variety of different means, whether they even have availability in Canada. In fact, you can order it online, but it's not available on any grocery store shelf. It seems to be a problem that we are solely reliant on imports for a product that is critical to families relying on it to feed their children.

I'll switch gears a bit and go back to intimate partner violence.

What specific items has the government done to address the epidemic that exists of women being killed by their intimate partners?

[Frances McRae]

Thank you for the question.

Intimate partner violence is certainly a critical problem in this country. The member would be right that this is of significant concern to the government, as the minister would have stated.

In terms of what is being done about it, I can speak broadly to the Government of Canada's overall work on gender-based violence. We have a federal strategy on gender-based violence, which actually brings in Public Safety, the RCMP and the Public Health Agency of Canada, among others. We have some very good information on our website that is very specific about what the various organizations do in that area.

As far as Women and Gender Equality is concerned, as the minister indicated, the premise of our programming is that those who are living with the situation on a daily basis are the best ones to develop the solutions. We do project work with a number of organizations who play in this space.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

All right. Does it concern you that women are being killed at a much higher rate than men?

[Frances McRae]

Absolutely. The numbers are very clear on intimate partner violence. The minister referred to the Minister of Justice bills. This is the most critical piece the government is advancing at this time.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

The cost of living crisis that we're currently facing is making it harder for women to leave abusive situations. We know that one of the big struggles women cite as to why they stay in abusive relationships and in abusive homes is that they can't afford to leave. When the cost of living gets as high as it is, where people are trying to figure out which bill they're going to pay this month and which bill they're going to skip paying this month, that makes leaving that much more difficult, especially when they have nowhere to go. We see so many shelters that are so full beyond capacity that people can't even get in.

What specific pieces are being done by the government to address the fact that the shelters right across the country are full, and women are being forced to stay in abusive relationships because of the cost of living crisis the government has caused?

[Frances McRae]

Madam Chair—

[The Chair, Conservative, Dominique Vien]

I am very sorry. That's all the time we have for this discussion with Mrs. Goodridge.

Mr. Ntumba, we will continue with you. We will check your connection, and if it's fine, so much the better. If not, I will give the floor to one of your colleagues.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba, Liberal, Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC]

Good afternoon.

Can you hear me?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dominique Vien]

Yes, we can hear you. Ask your questions, and then we'll see if everything is working well.

[Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba, Liberal, Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Massie, women in rural areas often have less access to business contacts, training and markets. How can your department adapt its programs to help Black women—

[The Chair, Conservative, Dominique Vien]

I'm sorry, Mr. Ntumba, but we will have to put you on standby for now.

I'll now turn the floor over to Ms. Nguyen, who will continue.

[Chi Nguyen, Liberal, Spadina—Harbourfront, ON]

Pass the baton over here.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Chi Nguyen, Liberal, Spadina—Harbourfront, ON]

Thank you very much to the officials for joining us today.

As a former recipient of funding supports from WAGE, I'll ask a nerd question about how the department takes a view on program design and how you set up metrics to measure and evaluate the impact of WAGE programming.

[Frances McRae]

Thank you very much for the question.

We have significant engagement with our project partners, which is one of the key ways we design in a way that will meet the needs on the ground. That feedback is coming in all the time. We have a significant portfolio of projects. The women's program alone has been around a very long time, since 1973, and just since 2018 we've had over 800 projects. We have a significant volume of projects from which we get feedback. When we design the work ahead, we certainly work with our stakeholders to make sure we're going to address the needs.

In terms of building in impacts and results, as you may have noticed in our departmental plan, we'll be spending quite a lot more time on thinking about how we speak about those impacts. It's not just for the sake of the public funds that are being spent. It's also because it's important that Canadians understand that the work that is happening at critical levels is with civil society organizations on the ground, who really are the drivers of progress.

[Chi Nguyen, Liberal, Spadina—Harbourfront, ON]

Thank you.

I know that, a number of years ago, the federal government started to introduce gender-based analysis as a tool and a framework for all government departments. I was wondering whether you could speak to the role that you play, in terms of capacity building and supporting other government departments, in making sure that we are doing that work very rigorously.

[Frances McRae]

Thank you very much for the question.

You're quite right: GBA+ has been around for more than 30 years, and it is a significant discipline. Canada is a world leader in this space.

I would note that, in the spring economic statement, there are even snapshots of various pieces of analyses of various investments. We know that the Standing Committee on Public Accounts issued a February 2026 report. We are preparing a response to that shortly.

I would say that what we're seeing in government, in terms of our ability to apply GBA+, is promising. We just got the results in from our seventh capacity survey, in 2025. We've streamlined the questions to make it easier, and in fact we have a response rate that is 10% up from last year. It's now 83% instead of 73%. We are seeing more evidence that GBA+ is being addressed at the problem or definition stage in addition to the stage of options and decisions. We are very encouraged by the fact that we're seeing it much earlier in the process.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that this is GBA awareness week. We spend a lot of time during this week working with our colleagues to raise awareness. This week is an important week for that purpose.

[Chi Nguyen, Liberal, Spadina—Harbourfront, ON]

May I ask whether there are any gold stars that you would give to any departments that are doing this, or would you like to shout them all out?

[Frances McRae]

We try to make sure that the work we do with departments is comparing them to their own state, so essentially helping them come up the maturity curve. Not all organizations have the same level of maturity; some have been doing it in different ways for a very long time.

We are seeing some evidence that.... I would actually shout out my central agency colleagues. The Department of Finance has developed significant rigour in this area, and so has Treasury Board Secretariat, and that was enabled by the Gender Budgeting Act, which was passed in 2018.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dominique Vien]

Thank you.

Mrs. Roberts, you have the floor.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

I want to go to a question that Mr. Massie referred to earlier, about the inflationary crisis.

In my area of King—Vaughan, the wait times for affordable housing, due to this inflationary situation that we're currently faced with, are eight to 10 years. My question to you is this: Do you see any advances in speeding up that process so that, for our senior women and women who are looking for homes and apartments, it will be available sooner than that period of time?

[Frances McRae]

If I could just make an attempt at answering that question, I hope you will understand that neither Innovation, Science and Economic Development nor Women and Gender Equality has significant insight into the specifics of wait times for affordable housing. I'm afraid those questions would be best directed to our colleagues at Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

I'll move on, then.

On May 1, 2023, we had a witness by the name of Ms. Timea Nagy. She shared her concern with us.

My question for her was, “Why are judges not applying the maximum sentences to these perpetrators?” That was referring to the human trafficking perpetrators. She is a survivor of human trafficking.

This was the response:

The judges who have decided not to go for the harsh sentences have said that these would be too harsh. Then I don't understand why we have laws. Why do we have laws if the judges are not implementing our laws?

In 2024, I was fortunate to do a tour, from coast to coast, with the status of women committee, to listen to survivors, to listen to individuals. We met with them in shelters, and we found out that this government has not provided them the tools that they need to survive. Do you feel that the legal penalties that are facing our human traffickers—these perpetrators who, sometimes, don't even get a day in jail—should be increased?

[Frances McRae]

As the minister was noting earlier when she was here, Bill C-16 is being led by Justice Canada, and the notion of addressing how the justice system deals with perpetrators of gender-based violence, intimate partner violence and human trafficking and these kinds of things is actually contemplated in the bill.

I do know and can say that federal-provincial-territorial relationships are quite strong in this area. I actually made a presentation to the federal-provincial-territorial ministers of justice not long ago, just on the gender-based violence national action plan, because there is a correlation between these things, and the pieces have to function together.

Maybe just as a last point, there is a pillar on the gender-based violence national action plan that is about a supportive justice system. We are seeing additional action in that area, partly due to the Justice Canada bill.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

I will tell you that I have met with many parents and many survivors. The sad news and the reality, Ms. McRae, is that they're going after our children, and they're grooming them at a very young age. That is disheartening to me.

I will you that after speaking to Carol Wildgoose, I spoke to Jasmine De Fina. I've spoken to Casandra Diamond. These are women who have helped and have tried to help provide shelter for these survivors, and through no fault of their own, the funds are not there. The women are being left on the street to be revictimized again and again.

I ask again, how is it that after 11 years of this Liberal government, we don't understand? I'll give you the stats: Nova Scotia is the number one province for human trafficking. The second-worst province is Ontario, and then we have P.E.I., New Brunswick and Saskatchewan. The worst city in the country is Thunder Bay.

We are not supporting our survivors of human trafficking. What do you say to that?