Status of Women committee  Thanks, Madam Chair. I just want to say, listening to the deputy minister and to the questions this committee has posed, what an honour it is to be part of this process. I really think this committee has urged Finance to do things in the last few years that it would not have ot

Status of Women committee  That's an awesome question. I would go back to my original point, which is that you need to know what it is you want to achieve. You need to have a process in place. Then you pick the people you think are going to help you get there. I think you're working on all three of those t

Status of Women committee  I think you've actually put your finger on what makes it difficult to mainstream this, which has been the language used for why you do GBA. But I want you to think about gender budget analysis not as a special interest group but as a way that you examine the distribution of inc

Status of Women committee  Surely you don't want the GBA training we have seen evidence of here, so I wouldn't get your knickers in a knot about the fact that the deputy minister hasn't had GBA training. I think what this committee is in the process of doing is talking about what good and effective gende

Status of Women committee  I'd just like to say if I can be of any service--and I imagine my colleagues feel the same way--it would be an honour to work in any capacity with a committee that has been as dedicated as this committee has been. I want to go to Madam Neville's question of the deputy minister

Status of Women committee  He said he didn't get any training, and I don't know that he would be trained on this. But I'm just saying there are so many inconsistencies and inadequacies in this that you wouldn't want to spend a lot of time training people on how to do this.

Status of Women committee  Madam Chair, thank you very much.

Status of Women committee  Good morning, ladies. I am very pleased to be here, to see you again and to be at this meeting. I am going to speak in English. I have no notes to circulate, but I can send you some afterwards, depending on the questions that interest you. I want to make five points today, very

Status of Women committee  Yes.

Status of Women committee  She is saying 83rd in some.... I think it's about 33, isn't it? Thirty-third place in—

Status of Women committee  We're here to discuss employment insurance today, but it is very challenging to ignore the tone that has been set in this response, and I say this with due respect. There has been a response from government to the economic stimulus that is required by the nation at this time, and

Status of Women committee  I'd just like to say that while maternity issues are important, and while there is a whole host of different ways for the labour market to respond, we are facing an economic meltdown. So the farmers' wives you're talking about who are going to look for jobs may be bumped out of t

Status of Women committee  You need to reduce the hours that trigger the entrance, make it uniform across the country, and let people in, even if it's only for two years as you've expanded the five weeks at the back end. Even if it's just for two years, do it now. Do it as fast as you can. Forget about the

Status of Women committee  I think we should remember that until 2008 the unemployment insurance account had nominally, notionally, a $54 billion surplus in it. When it was turned into a crown corporation, $2 billion of that amount was put in a reserve account, and we know that the official actuarials--I c

Status of Women committee  May I also add, Madam Zarac, that it was very welcome to see the expansion of access to EI training in this budget. The fact is, it is desperately needed, so it needed to be expanded. But the truth is, given that we've just seen a 16% increase in the number of EI beneficiaries wh