STANDING COMMITTEE ON CANADIAN HERITAGE

COMITÉ PERMANENT DU PATRIMOINE CANADIEN

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, December 2, 1999

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[Translation]

The Chair (Mr. Clifford Lincoln (Lac-Saint-Louis, Lib.)): This meeting of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage will now come to order. I see the minister has arrived. Before we begin, I'd like to make the agreement reached between the different parties official.

[English]

I would like to thank the parliamentary secretary for contacting the various members and making that possible.

[Translation]

If I understand correctly,

[English]

right now the new agreement is that the official opposition and the Bloc Québécois will lead with the first two questions for five minutes each. Then we will revert to the Liberals for five minutes.

Mr. Inky Mark (Dauphin—Swan River, Ref.): When did you change it from ten minutes each?

The Chair: It was never ten minutes each.

Mr. Inky Mark: Pierre, he said it was never ten minutes originally; it was always five minutes.

Mr. Pierre de Savoye (Portneuf, BQ): I never realized that.

The Chair: Yes, it was ten minutes.

To clarify so that we know what procedure will be used for questioning today, the agreement made by the parties was that for the first two questions—and I stand corrected, it's ten minutes for each party—we'll start with the official opposition and then the Bloc Québécois. We'll shift on to the Liberals for one round of questions, and then go back to the NDP and the Conservatives, and back to the Liberals for second party round. Then the floor will be open to individual questions in the order in which they are requested, for five minutes each.

Could I have a motion to confirm that?

[Translation]

So moved by Mr. Bélanger, seconded by Mr. de Savoye.

[English]

(Motion agreed to)

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bélanger, for your work on this. Thanks everyone.

Thanks a lot to all the colleagues for agreeing on something that might make our work better.

At this stage, I would like to mention that at the end of the meeting, if you can give me five minutes, we can discuss the agenda between now and the end of the session. We've had some requests. I want to make sure we're all on the same wavelength. It will take barely five minutes to sort out, so if you can stay after the minister has finished her appearance, we'll clear that up.

[English]

You've been before us before, and we're very happy that you could come back to update us on the activities of your ministry. We won't take more time. We'll give you the floor. Welcome.

[Translation]

I'm very happy to welcome the minister and Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and the Status of Women, Ms. Hedy Fry.

[English]

The Honourable Hedy Fry (Secretary of State, Multiculturalism and Status of Women), Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure for me to be here today.

You all have a deck in front of you, and I want to start with a quotation that sets the stage for my presentation.

[Translation]

in the Speech from the Throne of October 1999.

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[English]

Today my presentation will examine the human side of Canadian diversity. I know this committee has spoken about the cultural side of Canadian diversity, but I want to dwell on the human side, the ways in which over the years we have learned to live together in Canada, to negotiate our ability to live together, to accommodate our differences, and to find creativity and advantage in that diversity.

Secondly, I would like to speak about the need to ensure the full participation of women and men in the economic, social, and political life of the country.

I think we know that UNESCO has defined cultural diversity as not only being the music, the art, the literature, and the dance of the people, but also the value systems of the people, the way they have developed the traditions they believe in and the way they have developed their actual citizenship. It is in that particular environment that I want to discuss the human side of Canadian diversity.

I don't need to tell you, and if you follow with me on page 4 of the deck, you know the many dimensions to Canadian diversity. There is race, ethnicity, culture, gender, language, age, religion and faith, aboriginal origin, sexual orientation, and physical and mental ability and disability. These are the things that make us all very different.

What we share together is that we are Canadians and that together we share a sense of common values, a belief in the rule of law, and the ability to try to form peaceful coexistence. We are, in fact, a very unique country in that we've managed to do that through a model of integration as opposed to the model of assimilation with which other countries in the world have tried to deal with diversity.

Because we have gone through the integrative route, our diversity provides us with an opportunity to allow for Canadians to belong very clearly to Canada as its nationality and its citizenship: we are all Canadians. But the sense of belonging is very important for people. If I may be trite for a moment, we know if we go to a place and people welcome us but they ask us to be exactly like them so that we have to shed all the other things that make us different and bring with us our complete heritage, in fact we never feel comfortable because we know we can never be like everyone else.

To be accepted in Canada as who we are, to be built into the complete environment and the citizenship and the nationality of Canada, and to play an important role not only in terms of accepting our rights as citizens but accepting our responsibilities as citizens.... What we would like to talk about today is the fact that we not only have to look at our rights, the things we must have because we are citizens or the things we are entitled to, but to recognize that we need all of us here, regardless of our differences, to contribute to the economic, social, cultural, and political good of this country. So we would like to talk a little bit about civic participation.

We know—and this is the gist of what we're going to talk about—that differences, the things that make us different, present barriers in many instances. Those barriers are indeed what we must try to assist persons to overcome, giving people the skills and tools to overcome the barriers, looking at institutional change so that institutions can change to meet the evolving needs of Canada's people.

As you well know, diversity has always been a fundamental characteristic of Canadian society. In fact we have lived with diversity for so long that our uniqueness has come about because by learning to live within an integrated model of diversity we have learned how to accommodate differences. We have learned how to find compromise. We have learned how to adapt to each other's realities. That has made us a very negotiating nation. We've learned to negotiate our way through the phases of life and the history of Canada.

So we have indeed found some very peaceful resolution to conflict as a result of that. Today we are who we are because of these skills that we have developed over the years, but we have also found that we have set up a series of laws that ensure that our diversity is recognized and that equality is fostered. We know through experience of those laws that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Canadian Employment Equity Act, the Citizenship Act, the Canadian Multiculturalism Act, and the Official Languages Act are almost like a mission statement. Laws are a mission statement in that they tell us the society we would like to have.

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However, we've learned in Canada that legislation does not guarantee equality, that in fact good legislation must be supplemented by good public policy and institutional change.

On page 6 you will see a snapshot of our diversity today. I won't go into it except to pinpoint a couple of very key facts. The census of Canada in 1996 tells us that 43% of Canadians report one ethnic origin other than British, French, or aboriginal. We know that racial minority numbers have doubled in the last 10 years and will reach 15% by the year 2005. We know that 51% of Canadians are women.

If we look at the 43% of Canadians who are neither French, English, nor aboriginal and the 51% of Canadians who are women, the aim of our government and of institutions would be to ensure that we develop a society in which everyone gets to play a role so that we develop the human resources of our country, and we can become competitive. No corporation I know of is competitive by ensuring that only 49% of its resources are developed.

I would like to point to that, because it will frame what I'm about to say. Because of that snapshot of our diversity, we know in fact that

[Translation]

We Canadians have proven to be a very determined people. We have established a distinct Canadian Way, a distinct Canadian model. Accommodation of cultures. Recognition of diversity. A partnership between citizens and state. A balance that promotes individual freedom and economic prosperity while, at the same time, sharing risks and benefits. An understanding that the government can be an instrument of collective action—a means of serving the broader public interest. The world has sat up and noticed.

So stated the Prime Minister of Canada,

the pace of demographic change is accelerating. We can anticipate increased tensions around differences, particularly in large urban areas. Gender barriers to women's full participation in the paid workforce will undermine Canada's success

[English]

in the 21st century. If we're going to have a Canada, we must look at full participation.

To build this Canada in the 21st century we must have good data. We must have information to recognize and track the changing diversity of Canada.

I think there is a vote.

A voice: It's a half-hour bell.

Ms. Hedy Fry: How would you like to deal with that, Mr. Chair?

The Chair: I think we'll carry on until maybe ten minutes before the vote is called so that we will have time to get there. It's 11:25. We could carry on until 11:45 or something like that.

Ms. Hedy Fry: Okay. Thank you.

I would also like you to look at page 8, where there is a snapshot of diversity in the Canada of the future. If we look at the information we have, we know that two-thirds of the racial minority population in Canada is under the age of 34. One out of five Canadians aged 18 to 34 are racial minorities. Aboriginal birth rates are three times that of the Canadian population as a whole. One out of three Canadians aged 5 to 15 are of aboriginal or racial minority origin. We also know that 14% of Canadian children live with a lone mother or a single parent, and they account for 45% of the poor children in this country. That snapshot tells us that in the future we're going to have a very young population that is going to be even more diverse than it is today.

So as we develop what we know the resources for Canada's future are going to be, which are our human resources, it's important that we look at the barriers that are standing in the way of the young Canadians of tomorrow who are going to be so diverse. We want to look at the barriers they face in participating in the economic life of Canada—i.e., jobs, training, and employment. How do they help us become a competitive nation? What are the advantages we face when we look at trade, knowing that the Conference Board of Canada has said very clearly that one of the major barriers to trade is a lack of understanding of the language, culture, and marketplace of the people with whom we trade?

In Canada, through integration and multiculturalism, we have Canadians who have lived here for generations who still have their language, culture, and marketplace. We know that gives us an understanding of the marketplace and a distinct advantage as we trade. As you know, one of the things we depend on for the majority of our gross domestic product is our ability to trade. So utilizing the diversity so that we build for tomorrow and are competitive in the global marketplace is extremely important.

The Chair: My information is that this was a quorum call, so we won't have to worry about it.

Ms. Hedy Fry: Thank you.

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I wanted to also point out that if we are going to look at the fact that in the future the young people are going to be so diverse, it is very important to note that we have to assist young people today. What we do with our youth is very important. We have to assist them in developing the skills and tools to overcome the barriers they face.

We know that language is a barrier and that race is a barrier because of stereotyping. We know that visible minorities in Canada face very specific barriers in accessing training and entering the workforce. We know the status of our aboriginal youth, and if they're going to be our workforce of tomorrow, it is important that we know the barriers they face in developing their ability and their capacity to be very competitive in Canada's world of tomorrow.

We also know that racial minority youth who are born in Canada are less likely to accept discrimination and barriers to opportunity than their parents were, many of whom are immigrants and who anticipated some degree of hardship in Canada. We have a whole group of young people coming up who want to be included in Canada's society and who will not accept being marginalized any more.

We also know that because young people are being exposed to diversity, helping them to build an ability to work together and to understand each other's differences and to build a harmonious society is key to Canada's unity and ability to form a very stable, cohesive, and harmonious society.

I just want to move on and talk a little bit about the attitudes and assumptions of Canadians today.

We know that in the last 50 years most social assumptions about race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and disability have changed significantly. The number of Canadians who believe there are too many visible minorities immigrating to Canada has declined since 1990, so people are more accepting of visible minorities. In a recent Environics poll 86% of respondents agreed that more should be done to promote the equality of women, and 84% favoured efforts to strengthen and change women's status. Only 15% of Canadians now believe interracial marriage is a bad idea. I would like to compare that with the statistics for south of the boarder, where about 45% of Americans believe interracial marriage is a bad idea. As a society Canada has progressed extremely differently from our neighbours to the south.

Polls in 1998 and 1999 show that Canadians' view on same-sex issues is softening, in that 63% believe that same-sex couples should be entitled to the same benefits and obligations as common-law couples.

The question is, what is the role of government? Government's role is to make sure we have the research to track the changing demographics of our society. As we know the diversity of our society, we would be able to prepare good policies that will assist in overcoming the barriers that exist. That is key to having an inclusive society in which everyone is able to contribute to the social and economic good of the country.

One of the things we need to do is to become horizontal and to develop a method in which government can look at every department, agency, institution, and piece of policy and legislation and use a lens that will say that given that Canada's diversity is such and given that we have such barriers, when we build policy, a “one size fits all” policy will not work, because it will not ensure that everyone is able to get to the starting post.

We have to support as well the adaptation of public institutions in order to make them welcoming to diversity and to have them make room for both women and the diversity of Canada's workforce. We have to increase public understanding and informed dialogue as essential components of building good social policy and having good community input.

So that is the role of government as we see it. Now I would like to elaborate on that role just a bit.

In my two areas of responsibility, multiculturalism and status of women, we have been charged with the key response of the government to diversity. Therefore, we renewed our multiculturalism program in 1997 in order to engage and assist citizens and civil society in obtaining the skills and tools they need to participate fully and to ensure equality of access to the institutions of Canada.

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I just want to give you an example. In Canada we have medicare, and we know that medicare means there is access to care and services regardless of ability to pay. However, we know that certain barriers, such as cultural and linguistic barriers, and customs and traditions can prevent a great many people from having that type of access to institutions that have been built on a western model of medical care and that therefore don't take into consideration, say, Asian ways of looking at medical care. Thus, many people do not go to hospitals or won't access physicians when they become ill. They feel afraid of and are challenged by the institutions with which they are not familiar.

So we can assist institutions, and we do, under both my hats, Multiculturalism Canada and Status of Women, to be able to understand the need for them to change, to be welcoming, to understand how people can better use their institutions.

One of the things I like to say is that even though we have a lot of in vitro research and policy-making, which means that on paper we write good policy and on paper we suggest that there are many things we can do, and they are all well-meaning, in vivo, or in the reality of people's lives, if that policy and the institutions are not responding to people's real needs, then we need to be able to look at how we change things to meet the reality of the needs of people.

So the multiculturalism program was renewed to meet that reality, and Status of Women Canada has identified three key objectives under that reality to look at how we improve women's economic status and autonomy, how we eliminate systemic violence against women and children in the workplace, at home, and in society at large, and how we advance women's human rights and social justice.

I just wanted you to know what our priorities are based on those changes we have made.

First and foremost, the priorities of both Multiculturalism and Status of Women Canada are horizontal—namely, to work with every department so that eventually, one day, hopefully every department would have accepted that a diversity lens, an agenda lens, is key to the making of good policy and the key to institutional change. One day, somewhere down the road, there will be no more need for Status of Women and Multiculturalism to continue to do this work of using a diversity lens and using a gender lens.

Domestically, our priority at Status of Women Canada is violence against women, but we are also looking at trafficking in women and abuse of live-in caregivers, which are very specific issues, and the development of indicators to measure our progress in terms of how violence is being eliminated in our society.

The second component is improving the economic status of women. One of the most important things we are challenged with, and this government and this country are challenged with, is how do we get women into the knowledge-based society? We know that is where the sustainable jobs and the competitiveness of Canada will lie.

There are many challenges. While women are getting into law school and medical school and into universities in much larger numbers, we still find that only about 16% of women are engaged in science, in math, and in engineering. Again, they make up 51% of the population. If they're going to be competitive, we have to ensure that we help them do so.

The other issue we have as a priority is paid and unpaid work. We know that one of the problems is that society, especially women, faces problems with balancing the paid work we do and the caregiving in society.

Our seniors are living longer, the institutions are being overburdened with this, and most families are now having to look after seniors and the elderly. They're having to look after children at home and they're having to look after the disabled and the chronically ill. These present a real problem in terms of balancing the need for families to go out and have economic gain in the paid workforce.

If we look to the amount of unpaid work in Canada today, the non-traditional work, the work we do in caregiving that we never get any reimbursement or any value for, we know that is anywhere between about 45% to 53% of our gross domestic product if we actually measure it in those terms. We have the measurements, and Canada is leading the world today in setting up those measurements.

We also need to use the gender lens to recognize the issue of dependant care and of maternity and parental benefits—and as you heard in the Speech from the Throne, that has become a very important pillar of our throne speech—and to look at how we change our workplace so that it becomes more family-friendly, not only for women but also for men. More and more men are going to be looking after their children, and the workplace needs to be sensitive to the pressures we have.

The priority of Multiculturalism Canada will be to develop a diversity lens, similar to the gender lens we now have, known as gender-based analysis. The diversity lens was begun in fact by Justice Canada, and we are completing the task of developing the diversity lens.

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But I wanted to point out again—and if I stress this, it's because it's so important—that we cannot develop a good and workable lens to look at how we ensure that all Canadians participate unless we have the research and the data that tell us the demographics of our society and how it is changing. We want to look at our diversity lens so that we can expand it for use of governments in the same way that gender-based is being done. We want to extend the reach of our anti-racism campaign.

Many of you have in front of you a little package that shows you our anti-racism campaign. Because of the demographics we talked about earlier on, where we showed that the majority of young people in Canada today are going to be so very diverse, our campaign is aimed specifically at youth. We're using two very important tools that youth understand and know and have in common regardless of their diversity, and they are technology and music. We're using both of those to spearhead a campaign that we have had now for the last five years.

Action 2000, which you have with you, is going to be an international campaign. There are some components to the campaign, one of the most important of which is getting international leaders onside to speak to their youth about racism. At the moment we have the President of France, who has put out a message on the website. We have Mr. Clinton, who has put out a message. We have Tony Blair, the Prince of Wales, and the Prime Minister of New Zealand. UNESCO is looking at putting out one. So we are reaching out to all the youth around the world, and in fact in all of the messages Canada is being given credit for having begun to spearhead this initiative to have a world in which we learn to live together harmoniously.

And of course the extent of that to our international efforts of Canada toward human peace and security is immeasurable. We have a very important role to play in terms of human peace and security by creating a harmonious world where people of all races are able to live together in the way we have done in Canada, in a peaceful way, negotiating our way through our problems, and when all else fails, turning to the rule of law as a solution to our being able to decide on how we live together, so that we can hopefully do away with war as a means of solving our problems and our differences.

There are clear connections between our priorities and the Speech from the Throne, and I just want to point out that page 19 lists some of those connections. One is building a dynamic economy, and I think I've spoken about that at some length. I'd be glad to answer very important questions, because we need to look at every aspect of our economy. The Speech from the Throne talks about building a dynamic economy.

Human resource development is key. How do we develop all human resources? How do we ensure that all people, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, are able to have the tools and skills they need to work in the new economy?

Immigrants come to Canada bringing with them an education that was paid for somewhere else, but they will benefit Canada in terms of productivity nationally and competitiveness globally in our trade market. How do we ensure that those immigrants who are on average more highly educated than Canadian-born workers do not face the barriers they currently face to working in Canada? We know that credentialing is an important thing.

For instance, we have women who come from Eastern Bloc countries who are engineers, who are mining experts, who have all the math and sciences that we don't have in Canada, but who cannot work because of language barriers, because their credentials are not accepted in Canada, or because they are told that they don't have Canadian experience. And of course the Catch-22 is that if they don't get a job, they won't get Canadian experience, and Canada isn't benefiting from all that richness of education that we didn't pay for.

We need to look at how we take advantage of the cultural and linguistic competencies we have in all of the people who come and use it to develop new markets abroad.

We know that women are beginning to predominate in Canada's small and medium-sized businesses. In fact, we know that for the last two years women have begun to start businesses at four times the rate of men. We know that women in the last two years have created more jobs than the top 100 companies in Canada, yet they still face access to capital as a major barrier. How do we deal with those issues? How do we ensure not only that women are able to engage in small businesses and get the capital they need to do so, but also that women can expand into the trade markets of the world?

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We now know that we have moved into this area. In fact, Canada has pushed so that women can become very involved in APEC. This year I went to my second women ministerial APEC meeting. We are looking at how we engage women within the economy as 52% of the population of the APEC economy. We are also engaging women in small and medium-sized business and in the knowledge-based economy and developing their human resources so they can contribute to the stability of world markets and to the economy of developing countries as well as Canada and the United States and all the other countries.

We also know that indigenous peoples of the APEC economies have with them a large amount of indigenous knowledge that is not used. Because it isn't written down, it isn't considered to be science. How do we take advantage of that, and how do we assist them to participate in our economy?

We talked a little bit about some of the barriers to full achievement, and I would be glad to answer your questions on that.

Secondly, in building a dynamic economy, we have to look at how we prepare our children.

[Translation]

We need to invest in preparing our children for tomorrow's world of work. Early childhood development and readiness for learning programs give children a head start towards achieving the educational goals which will bring success in a highly competitive job market.

Many immigrant children, like their parents, face linguistic and cultural barriers which prevent their effective participation in school and other institutions.

[English]

As we talk about preparing our children, helping them to learn, readiness for learning, early childhood development, we should remember and be very aware that immigrant women and their children have linguistic and cultural barriers to participating in schools and in institutions. They don't understand how these work. We need to be very careful that when we develop any sort of policy for early childhood development, we take into consideration some of the diversity barriers that these children are going to face so that they are ready for school when the time comes and are ready to play their full part in learning and preparing Canada's economy and Canada's social life.

I just wanted to pinpoint that in every way, that lens tells us that we need to look carefully at how we do early childhood development. We know that a lot of the children in Canada live with poor moms and single moms whose access to early childhood development institutions and ability to help their children develop early is much compromised. How do we ensure that they have a role to play and that their children are not left behind tomorrow?

We've talked about building a dynamic economy in the knowledge-based economy. We've talked about the traditional knowledge and the credentialing and the experience that we get from other countries of the world.

I wanted to say in summary that Canada's diverse workplace is well educated and has the skills for success, but many of them face different barriers. Others face barriers to even becoming trained and educated to be able to participate.

The other part of contributing to the Speech from the Throne that we feel is important for us in multiculturalism and the status of women is advancing human security and building safer communities. In Canada we know that has to do with an increase in the amount of racism and hate and bias crime activity in this country. We know that treaty organizations across the country have been creating tensions, especially in places like British Columbia, where a fair amount of racism is beginning to rear its head.

How do we prevent that from happening at an early stage? Foster an understanding of aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities, help to stop the stereotyping, and build a way of working together to find, in the truly Canadian way, a way of moving forward with some of these issues.

How do we deal with hate and bias activity? We know that on the Internet we are seeing more and more hate messaging coming out. How do we deal with it? It's a very difficult problem.

Multiculturalism is coordinating a national hate strategy in cooperation with Justice Canada, the Solicitor General, Industry Canada, which deals with the Internet, and some NGOs to talk about where we can move in a way to stop some of the hate crimes that you have seen beginning to occur in this country. We know that anti-Semitism is on the rise, and you only need to read the paper to see what has been happening in some of our schools and in fact in our country.

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How do we deal with that? March 21 is one of our answers to this dealing with youth. The Canadian Race Relations Foundation, which we named and set up in about 1997, has begun to develop an education program for the public at large to look at issues of racism.

Addressing violence against women is key to human security and building safer communities. We know that 50% of Canadian women have experienced at least one incidence of violence since age 16. The Criminal Code definition of violence is being used here. In 1997 women were the victims of 85% of all reported spousal violence incidents. We know that violence against women limits the quality of life of women and often hands itself on into a vicious cycle to their children, compromises the safety of our communities, and affects violence in families in the future.

We have worked together with Health Canada, both at multiculturalism and status of women levels, to look at the diversity of women in Canada and how violence against women is interpreted in different ethnic communities. How do we bring a message that is sensitive to the cultural differences of the people of Canada so that the objective is served? We need again to get into research to develop indicators to measure the impacts of violence and to reduce the incidence of violence.

How do we build strong, healthy communities? We build strong, healthy communities where volunteerism and participation of civil society and citizens is key. The Speech from the Throne had that as one of its main themes. The office of Multiculturalism and the Status of Women spends all of its time dealing with civil society, with volunteers, with NGOs, and with citizens who work in the unpaid sector, trying to bring communities together, trying to create support systems. This is one of our most important priorities and we are going to work very clearly to bring that about.

We are going to help the volunteer sector to develop its capacity to build partnerships with the communities it serves. Increasing awareness and educating the public are key things that the volunteer sector does. We will support the efforts of women and ethnic and racial and minority organizations to effectively serve and represent their communities and to engage with the public and Canadian society. Finally, we will activate and promote institutional change, which they can do because they bring the reality of the likes of these people.

In the world, as you well know, peace and human security is the final thread of the Speech from the Throne. Canada is signatory to a number of international conventions on human rights: the rights of women, the rights of indigenous peoples, the convention against racial discrimination. We have many international obligations related to diversity, not only among women but the diversity of Canada as a whole.

More and more Canada is being asked by developing nations and newly emerging democracies to serve as a source of advice and assistance on gender equality, on conflict resolution, on human rights, and on helping to build democratic institutions and the development of peaceful coexistence in diverse societies. They are looking to Canada for solutions because they feel we have found a way to live together.

We have examples of ways to build peace in societies with very long-standing ethnic, religious, and racial conflicts. Europe is now asking Canada to come and assist them to look at how we have developed a society that respects differences, in fact welcomes differences, but finds commonality and is able to negotiate common ground, to find peaceful coexistence, and to live within the rule of law.

I think Kosovo has prompted many European nations to come together in June at the Vienna conference to talk about this issue. I was asked to go and present at the Vienna conference on how multiculturalism has served to create the kind of Canada we have today, which they see as a global model for living together in peaceful coexistence.

The multiculturalism program is supporting our domestic preparations for the United Nations world conference against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and other related forms of intolerance, which will be held in 2001.

You know that among women there was a 1995 Beijing conference. Canada participated in the Beijing conference and promised that we would be able to do a great many things. There is a meeting of the United Nations called the Beijing Plus Five, which will be occurring next March in New York. We will have to give a record of what we have done to meet the commitments we have made.

There is also a Francophonie international women's meeting that is going to be held in which they are looking at how we develop strategies of inclusion and of building women's equality into systems.

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Then there is a Commonwealth women ministers meeting that will be occurring in February 2000, in which the same thing will be happening for the Commonwealth nations, on how we get women to participate fully in the economic, social, and political life of nations.

With that extensive experience in managing diversity, Canada is well placed to take a leadership role internationally and in advancing the agenda not only for human security, but for peace in the world in the 21st century.

I thank you very much, and I will be glad to answer your questions.

The Chair: Thank you for your very broad description of the activities and criteria of your mandate, which is extremely important for our government.

I would like to open the questioning with Mr. Mark.

Mr. Inky Mark: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Let me begin by welcoming you to the committee.

There's no doubt that Canadians are a model to the world in terms of teaching others how to get along. I immigrated to this country back in the mid-1950s as a young child who didn't know a word of English. We certainly have come long way from that point in time.

[Technical difficulty—Editor]...issues that need to be developed, but we still have a long way to go, certainly with the challenge of the ever-changing make-up of our society. I agree that racism and violence cannot be tolerated, not only in this society, but in any other society.

What I understand you're here to say is that we do need to promote the whole principle of equality throughout this country. Your department has been an advocate for women of this country, and there's no doubt that over the last several decades there has been a lot of progress made.

The challenge I have to you is this. Men experience the same problems that women do. They're the other half of the equation. Perhaps with the millennium approaching, it's time to look at that part of your portfolio, from the point of view of persons rather than females. So I would encourage you to think about expanding that portion of the portfolio to include men and women, because, as you know, men need as much help as women do.

That's my question. Would you consider that?

Ms. Hedy Fry: Thank you very much, Mr. Mark.

Before I begin, I want to introduce Florence Ievers, who is the head of the Department of Status of Women Canada, and Nancy-Jean Waugh, who is a policy director general. I'd also like to introduce Norman Moyer, who is the Assistant Deputy Minister within Canadian Heritage, responsible for multiculturalism, and Karen Ginsberg, who is the director general for multiculturalism programs. They will be here to bail me out if I can't answer questions.

I want to respond to your question or statement about the whole concept of equality, first and foremost. I think, indeed, in our words we say we have an equal society, and in our words we talk about diversity of Canada and how this is its strength. We need to look at how we make that so in action as well as in word. We know that is in fact what we were talking about here under multiculturalism and Status of Women Canada, to use a lens and get the good data and research that will help us to understand diversity, the barriers that people face, and to recognize that equality is not about sameness. Equality is about recognizing the challenges and difficulties that come with differences and how we build structures that will help to level the playing field and move those barriers and give communities the skills and tools they need to be able to participate fully also. I know you agree with me on that.

So when you say that women face the same problems as men—and I want to be very clear when I answer this—you must be very clear that Status of Women Canada, when we do our research, look at men and women. We cannot not look at men and women, because women make up 51% of the population and men 49%. But in fact women and men face very different barriers to equality. That is one of the reasons Status of Women Canada exists at this point in time.

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I am not being facetious when I say that most of the policies we have developed over the years and in many countries of the world have been developed on a model in which men were the decision-makers for millennia, in which men were the ones who sat in government, in which men were the ones who were the CEOs of companies, so that the decisions that were made took into the consideration the realities of men.

What we're talking about is that women have a very distinct difference. We are different anatomically, physiologically, and psychologically, and that is a very important difference, because with the anatomical and physiological difference, women have a really important issue and a challenge—that is, we bear children. The very act of bearing children means we need to look at how we develop systems that deal with maternity leave, that deal with the fact that as women go in and out of the workforce, if they are in the paid workforce, they lose chunks of time in which their earning power is gone. At the end of their lives, that in fact decreases their overall lifetime earnings, and their ability to have any retirement income is compromised. Also, their ability to move up the ladder, to be promoted, is in fact compromised, as we well know, by the fact that they move in and out of the workforce in their child-bearing years, because structures in the workforce are not built to accommodate women and their child-bearing potential and the children they have.

So we need to look at how those present a barrier, and in fact this is not just anecdotal. The federal-provincial-territorial ministers for women's equality across this country—and I hasten to say that they cross all the different political spectra and they belong to different political parties—have come together and developed indicators that looked at the differences that women face because of their physiological and anatomical differences, and how that has created certain problems with regard to not only the child-bearing, but the fact that, at this point in time, women still have the bulk of the responsibility for the caregiving in our society, and all the data points to that. We need to look at structures that assist that.

There used to be a time, about 20 years ago, when 20% of women were in the workforce. Now 80% of women are in the paid workforce. So how do we balance the fact that while they're in the paid workforce, doing the work that men are doing in the paid workforce, they have to go home and do all the caregiving and all those things, which creates an extraordinary stress? We need to talk about issues like parental leave and unpaid work, because unpaid work values the parent who stays at home, does not go out into the paid workforce, and still needs to look after their children.

That is why we need a Status of Women Canada for this time and at this time.

The Chair: Mr. Mark, we'll allow you a very brief question, and we'll ask the minister to be concise.

Mr. Inky Mark: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I do not disagree with you. I agree with everything you've said. But with changing times and changing society, the nature of the family is changing. Men are experiencing the same problems that women used to experience, and still do. Men are getting paternal leave, there's domestic violence to men in the workplace and in the home, there are separation problems they have to deal with. So I'm asking on behalf of the men who lobby me that you perhaps consider the male problems that exist in society and perhaps expand your portfolio to be inclusive of the men. I'm not saying you should discontinue the women's....

Ms. Hedy Fry: The reason we have Status of Women Canada, as I said earlier on, is that we are looking at the specific problems that women face. We are also looking at parental leave, which, as you say, will help men, and in custody and access we're looking at the child as a centre, knowing that men suffer from divorce. So we have not excluded the concerns of men at all.

I wanted to say that your bill, in terms of looking at increasing the number of women in Parliament, is not an isolated thing. At Beijing, as you well know, a lot of effort and recommendations were put into increasing the representation of women in legislatures and parliaments around the world. This is a major institution that needs to change, if we talk about institutional change. If an institution wants to be representative of our society, then it's going to have to look at how it understands the issues pertaining to all members of that society.

Not only in Beijing, but in the Commonwealth meeting of ministers of women's issues, recommendations were also made to do this. It was suggested that initiatives be taken at the party level as well, because we well know that getting the nomination is a major obstacle for women, in that they don't have some of the money required and they don't have the network yet—and I want to say yet. Hopefully we will have a good old girls' network one day that will give us the power we need. But until then, we need to look at how we will remove the barriers women face, which are financial and in terms of numbers, to be able to get where they want to go. The parties have a responsibility to deal with that at the party structure level.

The problem, however, is that in all of the research that has been done around the world—and this was pinpointed at Beijing and at the Commonwealth—many parties make sure that women run but that they don't necessarily run in ridings in which they will win. So getting women in winnable ridings is extremely important. This is what I think your bill is addressing: elected women. How do we find a way of using incentives for women to be elected by parties?

I must say I support the principle of your bill. As you well know, many of us have discussed this. I don't want to go into this any further, however, because this is meant to be decided by the House of Commons at large. But the principle is an important one.

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Secondly, you talked about horizontality. The major tool we have to build horizontality for women's issues into government and into institutions is something that Canada has developed and that countries of the world are now using. Canada has developed a tool known as gender-based analysis. It's a tool kit you use to measure in every department and institution.

Whether we have a subcommittee to deal with women's issues is something I don't know if I can pronounce on, but I do know women coming together to help to push the agenda forward, regardless of party structure, is a very important move to help create women's equality.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Limoges.

Mr. Rick Limoges (Windsor—St. Clair, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Minister, for joining us here. Your insights are very welcome.

I would like for you to, if you would, expand on the issue of paid versus unpaid work. It seems to me this is an issue that permeates many of the things we do or could possibly do in Parliament and as a government. In particular I'd like you to touch on how unpaid work is treated in our pensions, for example, and how that tends to extrapolate into people's elder years as they move on, and the poverty faced by quite frequently women in their elder years.

I also note, talking about equality, that I've frequently heard here in the House of Commons, as an example, the official opposition screaming out how they're in favour of equality, which seems to loosely translate into treating everybody the way we treat white males. I'm wondering if you could expand on the issue of equality and the need for some recognition that equality isn't necessarily treating everybody the way we have traditionally treated a certain group in society.

Ms. Hedy Fry: Thank you very much for that question.

With regard to the issue of paid and unpaid work, what we recognize as unpaid work is all of the work done by persons for which they receive no monetary reimbursement or value at all. So far the one place in which we have valued or looked at ways of allowing for people to gain some sort of monetary value or some recognition of unpaid work has been in fact, as you'll remember, in Mr. Martin's 1998 budget. He created a tax credit for persons who look after those with disabilities and chronic ill health in the home. That was the first recognition we had of the unpaid work people do.

That ties in, if I may jump ahead, to your question on equality. When you reimburse the person who did the paid work for the person who had been doing the unpaid work, you still haven't recognized the person who did the unpaid work. You're just taking it off the taxes of the person who did the paid work. So we want to ensure that unpaid work is valued to the person who did the work. We have to find a way of making sure the person—mostly women, as he said in his speech on the budget—gets that value, and not the other person in the situation.

We know that, for instance, there are many very low-income and poor seniors in our society. This is how it works. At the end of our lives, government supports seniors who do not have enough income to live off with government plans called old age security and the GIS. Many of these people are women. The majority of them are women, one, because women live longer, but two, because a whole lot of the women who are receiving old age security today are women who did all the unpaid work of rearing the children for Canada's society—us, this generation—and of looking after the sick and the disabled and propping up the institution of medicare, but who at the end of their days don't have a sou, not a penny, not a cent, to show for that, so they now live in poverty and government has to dole out to them.

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If we looked at a way of valuing that work, either through Canada Pension Plan, through some sort of credit—I'm not saying there's one way, but many ways, for intance CPP-splitting, in which we can look at it—then these women at the end of their days would have an income that recognizes their work. And it's not a handout, but it's something that says here you are, you worked, you should have this reasonable amount on which to live. It is actually cheaper to do it that way for government than it is to do it at the end with an old age security benefit. So that's an example of how we recognize it.

In Canada Pension Plan, for instance, what we do now.... And these are some of the things we need to look at and we see how we make this better and how we look at all of the areas in which we can assist women, or people who do unpaid work, in terms of their economic status. The CPP is the only insurance in which we recognize dropping in and out of the workforce. It's called the child-rearing dropout, so that women in Canada now in the paid workforce can drop out for up to a total of seven years over the course of having children and not lose their pensionable earnings, so that at the end of their lives they don't lose out on that dropping in and out to have children.

That's fine. That's just to have children. But what about giving people choices to look after children at home if they choose to? So that's where parental leave came in. Survivor benefits have to split CPP at the end of the day for the person who did the unpaid work in the home. So there are some things we've done, but they aren't enough because it's only for people in the paid workforce on an employer-employee basis to whom these benefits accrue. We don't give these benefits to the number of women who are now self-employed, who are working on contractual work—and more and more women are going into these areas. They don't have any access to buy into a pension plan, to have the ability to buy into maternity leave or any kind of parental leave. They don't have any ability to do that right now, so they are going to be the big losers in our society if we follow the trend of entrepreneurship for women.

So you are absolutely right to pinpoint those things. But I think the most important thing, if we look at the gender lens, is it shouldn't only be—with regard to Madame St-Hilaire's question—that we have a subcommittee looking at women's issues only. Every standing committee, every department, everybody who is looking at policy and recommendations has to look at how what they do is going to affect men and women and how what they do is going to affect the reality of people who are different because of ethnicity, disability, race, etc. So these lenses are not only for my department. Every department should look at it. We want to stop marginalizing these issues and ensure that they reach across the institutions and that everybody uses the gender lens. So I would hope that in this standing committee, as you look at issues throughout the year, you use your gender and your diversity lens to ensure that you have recommendations that affect the reality of people's lives.

Finally, all I can say is that equality is not about sameness; equality is about recognizing differences. This is what has given Canada the ability to be seen as the number one country in which to live six years running. It's relative. We're not saying we're the best country. We're number one compared to everybody else. And that is because we have recognized and accepted difference and tried to build structures and set policy that will recognize differences and factor them in.

I can only give you one example, quickly, before I end, of why equality is not about sameness. If someone is disabled and they're in a wheelchair, you can ask them to come into this room because you're going to give them a cheque for $50,000 each—anyone who comes into this room before 9 a.m. gets a cheque for $50,000. But a person who is disabled and in a wheelchair can never come and get that cheque if they cannot get into this room because there's no wheelchair access. There it is. Whoever built this building had to take into consideration that equal access was not about setting up a door and just letting people walk through, that you had to recognize that some people had difficulty gaining access. That is the best way I have to describe what we mean by differences. And you're absolutely right, equality cannot be treated in the same fashion. We can't gain equality for people by the same policies.

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The Chair: Mr. Muise.

Mr. Mark Muise (West Nova, PC): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank you, Madame Fry, for a very comprehensive and broad-reaching presentation. I listened very intently, and there are so many questions I could ask, but as you were going through and you mentioned seniors just now, I can say I get a lot of calls from seniors, either seniors who are healthy or seniors who are disabled, and it bothers me greatly.

I'll share an example with you. I had this lady who is not quite retirement age yet phoning me; she's on CPP disability and making $7,000 a year. She had to send in $92 to Revenue Canada for taxes, for income tax. She said “Mark, I'm not complaining about my lot in life, in the fact that I'm only making $7,000 a year, but of that I have to send $92, $92 that I really can't afford. Over and above that, I'm told that I could deduct my medication if it's over 3% of my income, but I can't afford to buy the medication.”

I'm going to touch on another example, and perhaps what I'm asking is whether perhaps our tax system is causing part of this inequality that exists. As another example, there's a program through HRDC called the disabilities opportunities fund. It gives money to organizations that have very little bureaucracy; there's a manager and a part-time secretary. It exists in a couple of areas in my riding, and I've heard nothing but good things about it, praise, because there's very little bureaucracy. The people who are disabled come in, sit with the manager, and if the committee that oversees this feel that it's a worthwhile project, they immediately award the money, I'm told.

They're trying to promote this and continue, but apparently government hasn't committed after March 31 to fund it. They've been lobbying my office to try to encourage government to continue this fund, and I support it wholeheartedly.

We had a meeting a couple of months ago where they brought in a few of the people who benefited from this. And this is not huge amounts of money that are put out, but it could be $500. One lady had difficulty seeing but didn't have the ability to buy glasses. They helped out. This lady is now working and she's productive and she said “I'm feeling good about myself”. And it all came about because of this low bureaucracy system that is really providing a service.

So I'm making firstly a pitch for that, because it benefits disabled women and men as well. The other part is I wonder if our tax system is not leading to some of the inequality that does exist.

Ms. Hedy Fry: I think your question is a very good one, and I don't want to respond to it with a trite answer, but I think we have to continue to go back to the very basics we have been trying to talk about here today, which is if we want to really make a difference to people's lives, where they live in Canada, the reality of their lives, then it isn't only the Status of Women Canada that must do this research and advocate for these changes, but every department.

So if Revenue Canada adopted gender-based analysis to look at how the tax system differentiated between men and women, knowing in fact the distinct realities of their lives in terms of paid and unpaid work and how their retirement income is affected, etc., then we would be able to build in structures that recognize the different realities. So what we do as government is look at the outcome.

This is something I know we're beginning to build in. These are structures that are being built into government right now with our government. We're building in research data and outcome analysis. We're beginning to look at how what we do impacts on people's lives in a real way.

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I suppose you might say people should have done this a long time ago, but I think the tools, the instruments, and the measurements weren't there before. We're beginning to get those and people are beginning to look at how they make a difference.

This is why I go back to saying every standing committee should be sitting there and going, how do our diversity and our gender lens impact on how the departments that deal with things we do look at that issue?

So while we have some good examples of how Revenue Canada has been able to assist people in the realities of their lives, there is still a great deal of work to be done in terms of institutional change, which is what was said in the Speech from the Throne.

How do we look not only at institutional change? How do we help the volunteer sector? That is the group you talked about that is helping people. How do we give them the capacity they need to do the things they have to do? How do we assist them with all of the tools they need to work with communities? They're the last layer between the community and government and they understand the reality of people's lives a lot better than governments do.

Mr. Mark Muise: If I may, Mr. Chairman, to go one step further, I think that oftentimes poverty can help to lead towards domestic violence. People feel frustrated because of lack of work or because of losing a job and conflicts arise. I think that also leads to part of the problem there.

Again, I relate some of that not just to the tax system but to the economy in general, in trying to...as you know, some sectors of our society are doing very well in our economy. Other sectors are not doing quite as well. It's those we really have to work hard to help.

Another thing.... I'm sorry that Madam St-Hilaire has left, because I was interested in the discussion you had with her. I remember back in 1993 when the Prime Minister appointed some candidates—and please don't read anything into my question other than the question. I believe in equality for women and I believe in equality for everyone. I believe that a country or a society is like a family. We're all different and that's what makes us what we are. Living in families, we see that.

But just by appointing women, as an example, as candidates, is that promoting the cause of women in the right direction? Or is it saying, well, you can't do it on your own so we're going to give you a hand here...? I'm wondering what women truly feel like when that happens.

Ms. Hedy Fry: That is an extremely important question, because it harks back to the question about equality not being about sameness.

I'd like to take your analogy of a family. I have three sons. You have a family and you have children in the family, and you know that all of your children are not necessarily the same. They're different. They come from the same family, but somehow they manage to be very different.

If you have a child, for instance, who is doing very well in school—bright, star athlete, everything—you pat him and that's fine. Then you have the other kid, who has trouble with math. You go and get a tutor and bring the tutor home and you give this kid all of the necessary bits and pieces that this one child needs to get tutorials in math so he can do better in math. You're not going to do it for the other one who's already doing well in math. So you're treating one child very differently in your family. You've giving that child in the family an extra leg up, but it's only because that child needs that extra leg up.

What I'm suggesting to you is that the reality is that if all we do is mouth the rhetoric of equality and don't do anything to make a difference as to how it impacts really or if we wait for evolution.... We've had two millennia of evolution in which women have not been in positions of decision-making in government. In 1929 women were not even considered persons. How do we help, not wait another two millennia for the natural evolution and course of events to take place so that women get there? We need that 51% and their differences, their understanding, and their different way of looking at things to make the whole that we need.

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That was not an undemocratic thing. About 95% of the party suggested that the Prime Minister do this because it ensured that the woman did not face the specific barriers of having enough money and having the net worth. The party said in areas where there were winnable ridings and the Prime Minister wanted to increase the numbers...the party felt that he should do this. That was pretty democratic within the party structure.

I think that sometimes what we're doing is giving women that extra boost they need, like giving that kid the math tutorials every evening to help to boost him up so he can get a better knowledge of math in school. It's really helping out somebody who has a barrier and a bit of a disadvantage at this time. It's helping to get them to the place where they're able to take off and run on their own.

The Commonwealth and Beijing conferences discovered that there is a critical mass; once we get a certain number of women in that area, they are able to take off, do their own thing, and support themselves. That is about 33%. We have only achieved 24% in our party at the moment. I think we have a way to go. How we do that within our own party structure is one thing, but how we do it for the whole electoral structure is another.

But I think it's a necessary thing to do if you're going to recognize that the inequity needs to look at what a barrier is and how we give people a jump over the barrier so that they get there and start to build the capacity themselves.

Mr. Mark Muise: May I come back on this, Mr. Chairman?

The Chair: Yes, you may.

Mr. Mark Muise: Thank you.

[Translation]

The Chair: Ms. St-Hilaire.

Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire (Longueuil, BQ): First of all, I want to thank the minister for coming here to meet with the committee this morning. I also want to mention that I will have to leave before the end of the meeting. It's nothing personal, I assure you. I have a prior commitment, but I really wanted to be here this morning.

I will try to remain calm. I admire how calmly you responded to my Reform colleague's questions. I too find it unconscionable that as the year 2000 dawns, we still need to have a minister responsible for the status of women. You've described many of the problems that women experience. As long as women like you and I experience these problems, we will continue to need a spokesperson for the status of women within the ranks of government.

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Last year, you met with our committee and I was somewhat hard on you. I very much enjoyed the presentation you made today. I think that women can be proud of the work you are doing. No doubt you work under conditions that are not always pleasant, and the same can be said for all women parliamentarians.

You're actually seeing my good side. I may not be so agreeable later.

I want to congratulate you as well on the initiative taken to commemorate the December 6 events involving female Polytechnique students. It was greatly appreciated.

You talked a great deal about minorities. I'm a little tired of people referring to women as a minority, because this couldn't be further from the truth. As you stated, women make up 52 per cent of the population. One must also understand that gender transcends generations. That's very important, to my mind. A person is either a man or a woman. A person is not black or white, young or old, but rather male or female. On that note, I have two brief questions for you.

I've introduced draft legislation calling for political parties to receive financial incentives if they succeed in getting more women candidates elected to office. I know that Mr. Boudria is very supportive of this initiative, but he needs a great deal of additional support. For my first question, I'd like to know if you support this bill calling for changes to the Elections Act? I think it would be a positive achievement for you, for Beijing +5, if Canada were to do everything in its power to ensure that more women get elected to the House of Commons. I remind you that women account for barely 20 percent of the overall membership in the House, which doesn't reflect the proportion of women in society. That's my first question.

As for my second question, as you have mentioned on a number of occasions, the status of women is a horizontal issue. It encompasses everything and nothing. Would it not be a wise move to establish a subcommittee or committee responsible for examining government policies as they pertain to women? It's all well and good for you to meet with the Heritage Committee once a year, but perhaps it's important for parliamentarians to examine government policies on women's issues, notably the Women's Program, and so forth. This could give you some leverage within your own party. I'm interested in hearing your views on the subject. This initiative was first suggested by Ms. Dockrill from the NDP and I think it's a sound idea. Would you care to comment? Thank you very much.

Ms. Hedy Fry: Thank you, Caroline.

[Translation]

The Chair: Do you have any questions, Mr. Bélanger?

Mr. Mauril Bélanger (Ottawa—Vanier, Lib.): I'm giving my time to Mr. Muise, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Mark Muise: Thank you, Mr. Bélanger.

[English]

Madam Fry, my question was certainly not a criticism of the Prime Minister. It was asked in order to get an understanding of what women truly felt that was like. I have chatted a little with Madam St-Hilaire about her bill. I guess it's helping me to decide what I would say, because I was questioning if it is truly helping or if it is saying “we can't do it on our own, so we need a boost”. I guess that was the area that I was directing my question at.

Ms. Hedy Fry: Well, I think it's also the equivalent to suggesting that when we have immigrants whose first language is neither French nor English we give them second-language training. We don't give second-language training to everybody born in Canada. We only give it to people who need it. It's like saying that if you have a barrier, I'm going to help you to overcome that barrier so you can take off and realize your potential.

That is what was done and what Madam St-Hilaire's bill is talking about: what is the extra boost we need to give to get that person to jump over that hurdle so they can get out on the level playing field with everybody else?

I think it's interesting to note that with respect to the majority of people who were appointed by the Prime Minister at that time, the electorate voted for them. The majority of them are in the House of Commons today because the electorate obviously supported the fact...they recognized that. For them it was not a big issue.

Mr. Mark Muise: Thank you.

[Translation]

The Chair: Mr. de Savoye.

Mr. Pierre de Savoye: Good morning, Hedy.

Ms. Hedy Fry: Good morning, Pierre.

Mr. Pierre De Savoye: It's been a while since I've had the pleasure of seeing you sit on a committee. More often, you were on the other side. I always appreciated the fact that you had a great deal of common sense and an ability to appreciate human problems. I see today that you haven't lost these excellent qualities.

I have a difficult question for you today. I'm not particularly well versed in the arts or in culture, but I'm not uncultivated either. When I visit a Hispanic community, for example, I realize that this is a foreign culture. Although I can greatly appreciate the various facets of this culture, I'm very much aware that it is not my culture, but rather a foreign one.

When I go to an English-speaking community in Canada, whether Toronto, Vancouver or someplace else, I also realize that this culture is not my own. You can see where I'm going with this.

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Mention is often made of Canadian culture in the singular in various bills and in the House of Commons. I'm struggling to identify with that Canadian culture.

Some argue that Quebec culture or francophone culture, whether Acadian, Franco-Ontarian or something other, is part of the overall multicultural mosaic. If that's the case, I have to wonder if people from other countries, whether Spanish, Chinese or another nationality, see me as part of this mosaic. If my culture is distinct, as is Mr. Bélanger's, then maybe there are two distinct cultures in Canada. As an expert in the field of multiculturalism, can you solve this riddle for me?

[English]

Ms. Hedy Fry: I remember very well, Pierre, that you have always asked very complex questions. Let's see how I can tackle this one.

Speaking of Canadian culture as a generic term, the only explanation I can use would be as a physician. We talk about anti-hypertensive medication. There's not just one; there are many in the armamentarium of anti-hypertensive medication.

When we talk about Canadian culture, we mean that Canadian culture is not a static culture but a culture that is rich in the fact that it is such a diverse culture and that culture is coming from all places. The culture is made up of the aboriginal culture, which were the indigenous peoples of this country; the culture of the French, who had a distinct role to play in being a colonial power that helped to build Canada from scratch; and the culture of the English, who helped to build Canada from scratch. That culture is reflected in our systems of governance and the Napoleonic Code of law you use and the common law code the English use.

We've managed to have within that overarching structure all of these things occurring at the same time. That is a wonderment for me of Canada, that we can be one and we can be different and that these things can occur together without diminishing or infringing on any other.

Without being too condescending to you, I want to say that I believe the Canada we have today is specifically as a result of what the French and English developed in the way in which they tried to live together in a very vast land but were respectful of each other. That sense of living together in respect forged the Canada we have today. We have learned how to take that ability to live together while respecting differences and allowing for differences to occur into modern Canada, where we continue to allow for differences to occur, because we had very good founding principles with which to start this concept. It is a unique and remarkable thing. It is a paradox. But it is what makes Canada such an interesting, intriguing, and unique country.

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre de Savoye: As you say, it's true that French- speaking Canadians live in various regions throughout Canada, but do they always enjoy the same opportunities everywhere? You say that we have created a mosaic where every individual has the opportunity to grow, but is this really true? Do you have any figures to back up this statement?

Earlier in the week, I met with representatives of francophone and Acadian communities, and they observed that there were no statistics to show the problems... Mr. Moyer, the male representative here, certainly could tell you more about this situation. These communities do not have the information they need to deal with learning problems among young people, with family violence issues and with other problems.

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Of course, aggregate statistics are compiled for the overall population of a province, but do we have any way really of pinpointing a problem that reflects the reality of the francophone community? Apparently, such statistics do not exist and Statistics Canada, one of your partners, as you note on page 30, feels it would be too costly an undertaking to compile these figures. However, that's the price we have to pay to achieve your stated objective. Would you care to comment?

[English]

Ms. Hedy Fry: Since Mr. Moyer has responsibility for the file of the francophone outside of Quebec, I will let him answer some of this.

I live in British Columbia, where there are 60,000 francophones who participate in the life of British Columbia, but they do so with the richness of the francophone culture. In the summer I was at the Francophone Games in B.C. I go to the wonderful cultural expressions, the music, the dance, and all the other things that fulfil that rich culture that happens in British Columbia. We know that British Columbian children are in fact going to school to learn French at twice the rate of many of the other provinces in Canada.

But we also know that there is a rich linguistic culture in British Columbia—and I'm giving you the example of my own experience—that in fact does express itself by having its own school system and its own school board looking at the education of its children and ensuring that richness of culture continues to be there and to be developed so that the linguistic duality and the cultural milieus are there.

We do a fair amount of research. In fact we have a large research capacity for francophone communities to look at the education of francophone women and what is their access to training, etc., outside of Canada. A lot of that research is being done. Statistics Canada is the major source of research that is broad enough to pick up the whole dynamic of this country, but we still do blocks of research that deal with specific areas and specific issues so that we can find out how those things are benefiting or disadvantaging different components outside of Canada. This is something we do at Status of Women Canada, and under Canadian Heritage there is a clear—

Mr. Pierre de Savoye: I'm sure you're not telling me that the data that were mentioned or requested as being necessary for the betterment of those communities are an illusion. I'm sure you're not telling me these people are asking for something they don't need.

Ms. Hedy Fry: I'm not saying they don't need it, but I can tell you—

Mr. Pierre de Savoye: What are we going to do to give it to them?

Ms. Hedy Fry: I will say that the truth is, Pierre, that if you meet with any community, regardless of where they come from and whether it is an ethnic community or otherwise, everyone will say they do not have sufficient resources to do all the things they want to do.

I'll let Mr. Moyer tell you about the resources that are there.

[Translation]

Mr. Norman Moyer (Assistant Deputy Minister, Citizenship and Identity Programs, Department of Canadian Heritage): Thank you for the opportunity to respond in part to this question.

Linguistic duality and respect for the integrity of two rich and distinct cultures is the cornerstone of Canadian culture. Concern for minorities and for their growth and development in Canada goes to the very heart of the Official Languages Act and is a key concern of mine.

We realize full well that indicators of the growth and expansion of these communities are not always as readily available as we would like them to be. We do have a useful data bank that we access. Working with Statistics Canada, we have set up a committee to look into matters pertaining to the growth and expansion of these communities. In the case of certain communities, assimilation and bilingualism rates are favorable, while in the case of others, they pose a problem.

Statistics Canada is quite receptive to action targeting this area. We plan to use some of the resources allocated to us by the government this year to better understand how these communities grow and expand.

The Chair: I will now go to Mr. Bélanger, and then, if there are no objections, we will wrap up.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: I've nothing further to add, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Fine then. Are there any further questions?

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I want to thank you, Madam, for coming here today.

[English]

We really appreciate your coming here today to give us a very broad overview of your ministry's mission. I think the questions have been extremely useful in giving us more insight into what you propose and what you do. Again, thank you very much for coming here today. We really appreciate it.

Ms. Hedy Fry: Thank you.

[Translation]

The Chair: Can I have three minutes?

[English]

First, on December 7 we have a briefing from the ministry officials about the case Mr. Bélanger brought before us.

[Translation]

On December 14 we will have the deputy minister, Mr. Himelfarb, and of course we stop work on December 17. That will be the last meeting, unless members want to meet on December 16. But I would think that just a day before the House rises—

The Clerk of the Committee: If you're still around.

The Chair: Yes.

[Translation]

It has to do with the matter of Chapters, specifically booksellers and publishers. The Canadian Booksellers Association has asked to appear before the committee. The clerk has suggested that we hold a slightly longer meeting on the seventh, that is a two and a half hour meeting. Sandwiches would be served to committee members and the meeting would be divided into two parts. First, we would hear from officials, and then, from booksellers, to get a good grasp of the issue. If there are no objections, we will make arrangements accordingly. We will meet then from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and sandwiches will be served.

On Thursday, December 9, we have a meeting scheduled with the Secretary of State for Amateur Sport, Mr. Denis Coderre.

[English]

The other day in the House there was a motion by Mr. Assadourian. He asked that the House agree, by unanimous consent, that Bill C-224, a private member's bill—an act to establish by the beginning of the 21st century an exhibit in the Canadian Museum of Civilization to recognize the crimes against humanity as defined by the United Nations that have been perpetrated during the 20th century—be withdrawn, the order discharged, the subject matter referred to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, and that the committee report to the House no later than June 15, 2000.

[Translation]

The House has unanimously consented to this. Initially, they wanted this to be wrapped up before April, but I explained that we had other work on our agenda and that we couldn't commit to undertaking this study any earlier.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: We're here until the 23rd. Pierre knows something about that.

The Chair: If we're here any longer, we can continue our study of the Chapters and booksellers bill.

There is one other small item of business to attend to.

[English]

They've extended it to June 15. I'm simply warning you that I think we'll do just one session on this. We have enough other work. Sometime or another, then, the clerk will propose a date for us to look at this issue.

Thanks very much for the meeting. The meeting is adjourned to the call of the chair.