Status of Women committee  I've been talking about public sector de-investment. I did mention in December when I appeared before this committee, as well as briefly in this submission, that it is exceedingly difficult to talk about the incidence of benefits from spending. It can be done. There are two ana

Status of Women committee  Can I just point to the front page of the thing that I submitted to you last year, Bruce--March 28, 2008, correctly? The list is very short: affordable housing, post-secondary education, child care, health-related services, public transit, social services, training and employment

Status of Women committee  Can I answer that? Of course it wasn't all bad. There were things like the doubling of parental leave, which is extremely important, under unemployment insurance. However, 22% of women in Toronto access unemployment insurance. The eligibility is a huge problem.

Status of Women committee  So within that context of a constrained scenario where you can't even access the program you pay into, yes, there was an important improvement. But the bigger hydraulic is much more devastating to women. The biggest thing you didn't mention that has occurred in the last ten yea

Status of Women committee  I don't know if Nancy's going to weigh in, but in the 1960s, the human development agenda was about bringing women into it. Globally there was the notion of human development for rich countries and poor countries, for women and for men. I think the women's movement is, in part, a

Status of Women committee  I'd like to take a crack at answering the question, because I'm an economist first and I guess a feminist second. I agree with you that most people in Canada have no clue what a gender budget analysis is, and I don't think we should be spending a lot of time educating them on wh

Status of Women committee  I don't have table 2.

Status of Women committee  I'm sorry, I didn't think my approach was saying that tax cuts are bad. I think what I was saying is that if you are going to spend $200 billion on any given initiative, indicate who benefits from it. Anything you do in government has an opportunity cost. If you spend, it means

Status of Women committee  I did submit, and you do have at your disposal, “Budget 2008: What's In It for Women?” As an example, if you do have it in your packet, I just want to show you the tables on pages 14 and 15. The only reason I want to point this out is that you will see in these two tables how eas

Status of Women committee  Excuse me for only speaking in English; I feel more comfortable. I appreciate very much the opportunity to address the committee again, and the great work you're doing in trying to get some of these issues practical and actionable as you move toward the development of a gender a

Status of Women committee  I'll go through this, and if you have any questions.... Kathleen's analysis is much more technical. Mine is much higher level on what you're looking for in a gender budget analysis. The first thing that is really apparent, looking at the finance department's analysis, is that

Status of Women committee  I'm sorry, that's my typo. It should be 2008. I was still functioning in last year.

Status of Women committee  My apologies. The very first thing that all parliamentarians should ask themselves as they're preparing budgets is, what can a budget do to advance women's equality, and do the proposals we're putting in front of the government meet these objectives? It's a simple question: wha

Status of Women committee  Housing. It would affect 68% of women. They are desperate to get out of some situations. We have no housing policy. We are the only industrialized nation without a housing policy. We are not talking about affordable housing for just mortgage holders. We're not talking about just

Status of Women committee  I think you are absolutely right. Most of what has occurred in the last almost decade has occurred through the tax system, but there has been very little initiative on the spending side. In that sense, I am apolitical because we have done now, for almost 15 years, an exercise in