Mr. Speaker, I move that the third report of the Standing Committee on Status of Women, presented to the House on Friday, May 19, 2006, be concurred in.
It is my pleasure this afternoon to ask my hon. colleagues in the House to concur in the third report of the Standing Committee on Status of Women. This report is essentially comprised of the motion adopted on May 19, 2006 by a majority of the committee members. It reads:
In accordance with Standing Order 109, the Committee requests that the Government table a comprehensive response to the following recommendations:
Recommendation 1: The Committee reiterates the recommendation made in its 10 February 2005 report, calling on the federal government to increase funding to the Women’s Program at Status of Women Canada by at least 25% for investments in women’s groups and equality seeking organizations.
Recommendation 2: That Status of Women Canada immediately take advantage of the ongoing review of the Women’s Program to revise the funding to organizations by introducing a mix of core funding and project funding.
Recommendation 3: That the Government of Canada, through its central agencies, ensure that all new and renewed funding programs incorporate the commitments undertaken by the Government of Canada in the Code of Good Practice on Funding--
Recommendation 4: That Status of Women Canada take advantage of the current evaluation of the Women’s Program to implement new funding processes which could position Status of Women Canada as a leader in the application of the Code of Good Practice on Funding.
Recommendation 5: That Status of Women Canada immediately engage equality-seeking organizations in meaningful consultation to determine future directions for the Women’s Program.
Recommendation 6: That Status of Women Canada develop fair and consistent practices which recognize the indirect costs to be covered by Women’s Program funding--
Recommendation 7: That Status of Women Canada work with other federal government departments to raise awareness about the importance of funding gender projects relevant to the funding mandates of those departments.
Recommendation 8: That Status of Women Canada explore eligibility criteria for Women’s Program funding through meaningful consultation with equality-seeking organizations.
Recommendation 9: That Status of Women Canada act now to enter into funding agreements for a minimum period of three years.
Finally, recommendation 10: That the Standing Committee on the Status of Women be granted intervenor status in the ongoing review of the Women’s Program to ensure that the comments contained in this report are appropriately reflected in the review process.
The government's response to the committee's recommendations was inadequate to say the least. The response did not address a single recommendation of the committee and in point of fact, completely dismissed all 10 recommendations.
The government's September 18 response indicated that the current funding and mandate were sufficient. The Conservative government then cut the funding and changed the mandate. We are now taking steps backward instead of forward. By shutting offices, changing the mandate and cutting 50% of the operating budget, the minister is not promoting women's rights, but abandoning them.
It is an embarrassment that in 25 years we have not come close to meeting our CEDAW obligations. This past December marked the 25th year since Canada ratified the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, CEDAW. Canada has not met its obligations, and in particular, recommendations regarding violence against women, poverty, aboriginal women and social housing have been sorely neglected.
The women in Canada deserve better. The women in Canada deserve equality because we still face gender based violence and poverty. Canadian women have trouble finding safe, affordable housing and are concentrated in low wage and part time jobs.
Mr. Speaker, the statistic of 71¢ should sound familiar to you. The reason? Because women in Canada, after all these years, still make only 71¢ for every dollar men make. Women are only 20.8% of elected officials, and one in five Canadian women live in poverty.
It is not just this Conservative government, though it must face its record. In the last 13 years, the Liberals too have failed to comply with CEDAW and invest in Status of Women so that equality rights could be achieved in Canada, and the Conservative record is indeed dismal. Now the government has removed equality from the mandate and eliminated any research and advocacy funding. This is an assault on the women's movement in Canada and will set equality rights back more than a generation. One needs to wonder if that is indeed the intent.
While claiming that the government wants to make things more accessible, the minister closed 12 of 16 Status of Women offices. This leaves only four offices to address the needs of the entire country.
The changes to the mandate will allow funding only on a project by project basis. Core funding will not be addressed and core funding is essential. With core funding women's organizations can plan and sustain their infrastructure and do the important work they are doing in the context of these essential projects.
Funding only projects leaves many organizations scrambling between projects to make ends meet. It limits the ability to hire permanent staff and creates a high level of instability. Valuable time and energy is wasted on applications and not helping women who need it.
The current setup forces women's organizations to become experts on policy and navigating through red tape. This is not the best use of their time. One woman, Doreen Parsons from the Women's Economic Equality Society in Nova Scotia told the committee:
Yes, I think it's a values issue. As governments move to a business model, where we hear of competition and innovation and developing partnerships and diversification and, obviously, an economic bottom line, this requires incredible skill and time and effort to work within this framework.
Yet that's the part that isn't funded, that time to work within the framework to build the partners and diversify. The issues are quite significant for those of us who survive on project-based funding.
From a staffing or human resource perspective, as you mentioned, you train staff. You hire women who are very skilled and train them, and not only that, they love their jobs and do wonderful work. Then they're terrified that before the 12-month period is over, they're going to be laid off, and there's no bridging money so they can be hired again if you happen to get funding.
You're writing proposals on weekends and in the evening because you too are working on project-based funding, and it's very cyclical. The demands it places on the existing staff are significant, and trying to manage and administer an organization without those supports is significant. For an organization to be able to plan is close to impossible over the long term because you go into cycles of having to develop significant proposals.
I think it's important to note that the skill that is now required to actually develop a proposal is extreme, so to retain the qualified people needed to do that kind of work is also very significant.
You have cycles within non-profits now. You have one year when you're writing so many proposals and building the proposals, and then the next year, when they're funded, your staffing levels go up, and then they go down again. It's quite a difficult situation, then, to be able to deliver any kind of sustainable program.
Women's equality still remains elusive for all too many women. Women's inequality remains deeply entrenched and systemic.
As numerous studies and reports have demonstrated, sexual discrimination is still a part of women's realities at work, in the family, in political life, and in our social and cultural institutions. Women from historically disadvantaged groups suffer even deeper and more serious forms of inequality.
A recent Statistics Canada report entitled “Equality for Women: Beyond the Illusion”, released in July 2006, reiterates this reality. It says on page 17:
--lead many people to think that we have truly achieved equality for women in Canada. Much as we would like it to be so, it is simply not the case.
Cutting Status of Women, changing the mandate, eliminating core funding and closing offices will hinder, not enable, women's equality. We need more funding, not less.
With funding, equality seeking organizations were able in the past to introduce maternity benefits into the Unemployment Insurance Act in the 1970s; amend federal and provincial family law legislation to ensure more economic justice for wives, to protect their access to the matrimonial home, to improve the law of custody and access, and introduce child support guidelines; amend Criminal Code provisions to abolish the immunity of husbands for raping their wives; adopt prosecutorial policies to criminalize wife assault; amend the Indian Act to eliminate the discriminatory exclusion of Indian status for aboriginal women who married non-Indian men; and amend federal and provincial human rights statutes to prohibit sexual harassment and discrimination based on pregnancy and sexual orientation, for example, the protection of therapeutic and confidential files of sexual assault survivors in the context of criminal proceedings.
The committee recommends the inclusion in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act with a requirement that the minister conduct an analysis of the impact of the act on women and that he or she report to Parliament annually on this gender based analysis.
In addition to providing advice to government and government agencies, groups such as NAWL, LEAF and FAFIA have funded non-SWC women's groups with their research, legal and economic expertise. This legal expertise was much needed in the recent fight to remove religious arbitration in family law matters from the Ontario arbitration act.
As I have stated before, the struggle for full equality is not over yet. In January 2003 the UN expert committee reviewing Canada's fulfillment of its equality commitments to women noted that significant improvements needed to be made.
Recommendation 6 from the committee on the elimination of discrimination against women recommended that, first, Canada establish and/or strengthen effective national machinery, institutions and procedures at a high level of government and with adequate resources, commitment and authority to advise on the impact on women of all government policies, to monitor the situation of women comprehensively, and to help formulate new policies and effectively carry out strategies and measures to eliminate discrimination.
Second, the committee recommended that the government take appropriate steps to ensure the dissemination of the convention, the reports of the state parties under article 18 and the reports of the committee in the language of the states concerned.
Third, the committee recommended that Canada seek the assistance of the secretary general and department of public information in providing translations of the convention and the reports of the committee.
Fourth, it recommended that the government include in its initial and periodic reports the action taken in respect of this recommendation.
Among other things, the UN also recommended that Canada must find ways for ensuring that sufficient legal aid is available to women under all jurisdictions when seeking redress in issues of civil and family law and in those relating to poverty issues.
The UN recommended that Canada accelerate its efforts to eliminate all forms of discrimination against aboriginal women both in society at large and in their communities, particularly with respect to the remaining discriminatory legal provisions and the equal enjoyment of their human rights to education, employment and physical and psychological well-being. It also recommended that aboriginal women receive sufficient funding in order to be able to participate in the necessary governance processes that address issues which impede their legal and substantive equality.
It recommended that Canada eliminate remaining provisions and practices which still discriminate against immigrant women and address provisions and practices which may still contribute to devaluing women's educational skills and previous economic contributions to their families' well-being.
It recommended that Canada monitor closely the situation of women's non-standard jobs and to introduce employment related measures which will bring more women into standard employment arrangements with adequate social benefits. It also urged Canada to accelerate its implementation efforts as regards equal pay for work of equal value at the federal level.
It recommended a search for innovative ways to strengthen the currently existing consultative federal-provincial-territorial process for human rights as well as other mechanisms of partnership in order to ensure that coherent and consistent measures in line with the convention are achieved.
It recommended that the government expand affordable child care facilities under all governments and that it report, with nationwide figures, on demand, availability and affordability of child care in its next report.
The committee recommended that Canada reconsider those changes in the fiscal arrangements between the federal government and the provincial and territorial governments, so that national standards of a sufficient level are re-established and women will no longer be negatively affected in a disproportionate way in different parts of the country.
It recommended that Canada ensure that women's non-governmental organizations representing different groups of women under all governments, and other relevant non-governmental organizations, be involved in a national discussion in Canada and the dissemination of the next report.
With proper funding we can do this and so much more. We must end the Conservative government's attack on the women of this country.
In 1991 a subcomittee of the standing committee on health, welfare, social affairs and seniors wrote a report entitled, “The War against Women”. In that report the committee demanded that violence against women be put on the public agenda because this country was reeling over the senseless murder of 14 women engineering students at École Polytechnique in Montreal. Canadians demanded to know how and why Canadian women were still vulnerable to such attacks.
The final recommendation of that report was that the federal government take a leadership role and work with women's groups across the country to address violence and inequality.
It is time for leadership, not backpedalling. We must move forward for the sake of those 14 women, for the sake of our mothers, our daughters, ourselves. It is that simple. It is that important.
