Status of Women committee  Definitely a gender-based analysis was conducted. In any measures that go forward to the minister now in the Department of Finance, a gender-based analysis is conducted. I'll make a general point on the overall reductions that this government has put forward on the tax side. Some 75% of the reductions in tax have gone to those in the bottom two tax brackets.

Status of Women committee  In terms of the specifics involved, the first thing we do.... I'll take an example of something that's going to be directed on the personal income tax side. It's easier to do that. We look at what the measure is trying to accomplish and at what the underlining data would be. For example, on the working income tax benefit, we looked at who would benefit, what income groups would benefit, whether there are any other impacts we wouldn't have taken into consideration in what we're trying to achieve, and whether other side effects happen as a result of it.

Status of Women committee  We can get that information for you. I have it here, but I just want to make sure I tell you the right information. It's going to be hard to be comprehensive. We can tell you, for example, the groups that the minister met with. We could even tell you the groups that the finance committee met with, because we monitor those hearings to make sure we know the recommendations coming out of it--the submissions, etc.

Status of Women committee  It tries to do that in the simplest, fairest, and most efficient way possible, and it takes into account ability to pay. The tax system is a progressive tax system. The more income you earn, the more tax you pay, and there are deductions and credits that take into account personal circumstances within the tax system.

Status of Women committee  With respect to the government's choosing tax to provide social policies, the role of the department and public servants is to do the best possible analysis we can do and put the pros and cons of using different tools before ministers to make those decisions. So based on the principles of the tax system and the pros and cons of different measures within the tax system, we put that before ministers and they choose how they want to proceed.

Status of Women committee  We definitely look at different tools for providing an objective. Sometimes ministers will come to us and say credit, and after we go back and analyze it and look at the pros and cons of the credit, we say that actually doing a spending program might be better, and here's why. We put that on the table, and then ministers decide which way they want to proceed.

Status of Women committee  Generally speaking, the biggest hurdle is data availability. When we're doing measures, we try to reach all different sources. I'm a tax policy person, so we actually have better access to data in that we have the tax returns, and that's divided up by gender. We know filers are male or female.

Status of Women committee  I believe it's $7,000 per child.

Status of Women committee  As I was saying, the department has made significant progress in its ability to conduct gender-based analysis and to inform ministers in the aspects of gender-based analysis. The current approach is that as measures come forward, this information is provided to ministers to allow them to make the choices that they make.

Status of Women committee  To help answer that question, I think it's important to understand the fundamentals of the tax system. First of all, the tax system's primary purpose is to raise revenues to fund the programs that ministers and the government feel are priorities.

Status of Women committee  Analyzing the tax system in its entirety from the perspective of gender-based analysis is a huge, significant undertaking. Currently the resources within the Department of Finance don't exist to undertake that kind of analysis. If this were to become priority for ministers, then funding would have to be allocated to that resource to be able to undertake that kind of analysis, but currently the resources aren't available within the department to be able to do that.

Status of Women committee  I said “better off”. I don't think I said “far better off”. I hope not. They're better off because they're getting more money.

Status of Women committee  I'll try to address each one, but I might have missed some of the questions. On the $100 a month that's provided, you asked how that benefits low-income individuals, I think, or low-income single women?

Status of Women committee  From a global perspective, I know the government took other action on providing funding to the provinces to provide child care. I believe it was $250 million, but that's not my area of expertise, so I can't speak to that. I know that the government wanted to provide funding to individuals for child care to take into consideration the expenses of raising children.

Status of Women committee  On the credit side for business, it's too early to tell. The credit was, I believe, effective in 2007, so it's too early to tell how many spaces it's going to create. On the cost to the parents, I'm here as the gender-based analysis champion. I happen to also work in the tax policy group, so I can answer to certain things.