Status of Women committee  The department has tried to pursue gender-based analysis, and last year we were before this committee talking about what approach we'd taken, both at Human Resources and Skills Development and at Social Development, and we're now one. We did have a session last June for all the new analysts in the department to discuss bringing in people from Status of Women and training employees on gender-based analysis.

Status of Women committee  Well, it's hard for me to think about how the parliamentary committee could help us on this, but there's the fact that when they're starting out, women don't always have all the information to make their decisions about having children--some people defer those decisions until it becomes difficult, in terms of fertility--and decisions about how their family arrangements will affect their later income.

Status of Women committee  I think there's a growing recognition that the simple fact of being above or below the low-income cutoff isn't really the determining factor. Part of what the department's been trying to do is to develop a market basket measure to look at some of the other components. I think that's partly what you're getting at.

Status of Women committee  It's an excellent question. I'm not aware of a lot of advice that is available to young women in terms of future financial planning.

Status of Women committee  Those are excellent questions. In terms of caregivers, as you're aware, the previous government had committed a significant amount of money, and that work is currently on hold in terms of how we are advancing on caregivers' issues. We think caregivers' issues are still important, and the sense we get from our minister and our parliamentary secretary is that they are very important to this government as well.

Status of Women committee  No, that money is no longer available. This government has adopted an approach of being quite focused on their preliminary priorities, and those priorities are advancing. Then they've signalled quite clearly that there will be other issues that continue to be important and will also be priorities for funding over the future.

Status of Women committee  I think part of my response will build on the question Madame Mourani also asked. We don't have a crystal ball to see what poverty rates are going to be like in the future. I noted in the Montreal Gazette today that a study has been released, and as the baby boomers move through the age cohorts...and I'm part of that crowd myself.

Status of Women committee  Yes, some of us are part of that. We did get higher education levels and we do have higher income levels than our mothers. So the expectation is that we will have a different kind of retirement, and it is affecting retirement decisions in families. Recent studies by Statistics Canada show that in the past women's income was largely for supplementing families--helping decide if you'd have an extra vacation or buy an extra kind of property.

Status of Women committee  In terms of folding the supplement into the universal child care benefit, for most of the mothers, because the supplement goes until age seven and the universal child care benefit is for children under the age of six, in terms of this, there is a transition year. So families this year, who have that child, are being protected.

Status of Women committee  The benefit is taxable in the hands of the spouse with the lower income. The benefit is generally going to go--

Status of Women committee  We've certainly done analysis in terms of how many people the benefit is going to and what the distribution is in terms of family types, in terms of different income ranges and different family status, in terms of one earner or two earners, all of that. It doesn't appear that there's a particular differential impact on women in terms of introducing this benefit.

Status of Women committee  The acoustics in this room are not terrific. If I heard your questions correctly, they're about the elimination of the supplement, the taxation levels of the child care benefit and differential impacts between women and men on that, and was there a third component?

Status of Women committee  We will be within the 10 minutes allotted. We've divided up our time. As you're already aware from the briefings you've received from Status of Women Canada and Statistics Canada, significant strides have been made in recent years in improving the low-income situation of women in Canada.