:
Good morning. We'll call the meeting to order.
Good morning, everyone, and to Mr. Stanton, officially, congratulations. Thank you for joining our committee. We'll be very glad to have you with us.
We have a variety of things happening this morning. Before we go to our witnesses, I'd like to acknowledge that we have as viewers some individuals from the Parliamentary Centre, field officers from Ottawa, Ghana, and Senegal, who will be watching the proceedings this morning. You're very welcome, and we're glad to have you with us.
Before we start with our witnesses from Status of Women Canada this morning, I just wanted to go over a bit of what the work plan is for the morning. We'll start with witness presentations. We'll do our rounds of questioning. We'll do our committee business. The first item on the agenda to deal with will be Ms. Mourani's motion. We have a couple of routine motion amendments, and we have three study budgets. All of that should be before you at your desk. Then we will review our calendar of upcoming meetings.
So you should have a variety of things: copies of the presentation from the Status of Women that we're going to receive now, briefing notes from the researchers, Ms. Mourani's motion, the three study budgets, the amended routine motions, in which there was a discrepancy between English and French. I should slow down. We'll be giving you a revised committee calendar as the morning goes on.
We will hear our witnesses until 10:30, at which point we will go into committee business.
Is translation not working? You always manage to get one that doesn't work. Hopefully, we'll get our meeting under way here. Is it working? Is everyone okay with everything? Nobody's talking right now. We'll soon have our representatives from Status of Women Canada.
Let me go forward and introduce our witnesses this morning. We have Florence Ievers, the coordinator; Nanci-Jean Waugh, the director general, governance and communications directorate; Jackie Claxton, director general, women's programs and regional operations; and Hélène Dwyer-Renaud, director, gender-based analysis and accountability directorate.
Thank you very much for coming. We welcome you. We have been looking forward to having you as witnesses. As our committee is getting under way on a variety of important issues, it is important for us to hear from you and from the department. So I will turn it over to you. Thank you for coming.
:
Thank you very much, Madame Chair.
It's an honour to appear before the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. I'd like to point out that I will be making short remarks that are derived from the long version that has been distributed to the members of the committee.
It's really gratifying that Parliament has continued its commitment to the work of the status of women and gender equality. This commitment really demonstrates that Parliament recognizes the importance of advancing gender equality.
During the last Parliament, the standing committee engaged in a tremendous amount of productive activity, which resulted in five reports to Parliament. These reports were not only comprehensive; they also put the government on notice that this committee means business, and we look forward to your continued vigilance.
[Translation]
Who are we and how do we work? To answer those questions, it's important to highlight the horizontal nature of this effort, which reflects a fundamental truth—gender equality is everyone's business. If we are to ensure the full participation of women in all aspects of the life of our country—economic, social, cultural and political—then ours is a mandate that must reach across every department at the federal level, as well as the provincial/territorial and municipal levels of government, and the private sector.
This is a broad mandate for a relatively small agency like Status of Women Canada. We seek to achieve our goals by acting as knowledge broker on gender equality by being a centre of expertise; and by being a catalyst in network building.
[English]
As a knowledge broker on gender equality, Status of Women Canada facilitates focused interaction and information sharing among stakeholders. We play a key role in identifying opportunities for timely and effective input into the federal policy development process.
As a centre of expertise on gender issues and equality for women, Status of Women Canada proactively promotes best practices, shares knowledge and frameworks with stakeholders and partners, and builds gender-based analysis capacity. Through these activities, Status of Women Canada assists them in their own efforts to advance gender equality in their own programs and policies.
As a catalyst in network building, Status of Women Canada connects people, strengthens communities, and facilitates opportunities for communities and stakeholders to interact with government and be engaged in taking action toward equality for women.
How do we look toward the future?
I want to emphasize here again that Status of Women Canada cannot and does not work in isolation. As I've said before, gender equality is everybody's business. Within the Government of Canada that means working with stakeholders from within and outside government, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector to contribute to achieving women's equality.
[Translation]
Reports to the Standing Committee have been important to us. They have helped us in preparing the blueprint for the work ahead. The Standing Committee's five reports have addressed important issues. The two reports on Women's Program—entitled “Increasing Funding to Equality-seeking Organizations” and “Funding Through the Women's Program: Women's Groups Speak Out,”—relate directly to SWC's area of responsibility. Similarly, the report on GBA—entitle “Gender-Based Analysis: Building Blocks for Success”a—also links directly to our mandate.
[English]
In May, the committee chair re-tabled these reports in the House of Commons. We look forward to responding on progress.
In 2005 regional, national, and electronic consultations were held. Along with the work of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, these consultations provided valuable input from Canadians, policy-makers, and NGOs on issues affecting women's lives, including poverty, the situation of aboriginal women, accountability, and the funding mechanism for advancing gender equality.
Status of Women Canada's women's program undertook an independent evaluation. The women's program also established a dialogue on proposed options as part of its redesign. As Status of Women Canada prepares for the renewal of the terms and conditions of the program, we will work to maintain program flexibility while continuing to focus on results.
Following the government response to the standing committee's report on gender-based analysis, the Government of Canada created an expert panel on gender equality accountability mechanisms. Its conclusions and recommendations were tabled in the House of Commons in November 2005.
Various other activities have taken place to fulfill the commitments in the government's response made by the three central agencies. I'm talking about the Privy Council Office, Treasury Board Secretariat, and the Department of Finance. Each central agency has appointed a gender-based analysis champion and agreed to strengthen its challenge function to ensure that in the future departments and other agencies do, in fact, demonstrate that gender-based analysis has been applied and that gender considerations have been taken into account.
While each agency pursues its individual capacity-building activities--such as training for officials and the creation of tools such as a best practices guide, as was done by the Department of Finance--a collective pilot project on a personal income tax policy initiative has been undertaken to provide them with a practical way of applying gender-based analysis within their challenge function.
The overarching themes of our current work are accountability and the sustainability of commitments to gender equality for the Government of Canada. We believe this builds on the government's work on accountability; therefore, we will be carrying out the following activities.
We will be developing indicators and benchmarks to help set objectives, establish priorities, measure change, assess progress, and flag problems or emerging trends. We will be increasing accountability mechanisms for the application of gender-based analysis and gender equality results.
[Translation]
We will also be conducting ongoing consultation with Canadians and raising public awareness about gender equality. Moreover, we will be providing effective support for women's and other equality-seeking organizations to ensure that women's realities, contributions and concerns are better reflected in policy.
Over the next few years, in the area of policy development, SWC will focus on the issue of poverty among certain groups of women, and on the situation of Aboriginal women. As regards poverty among certain groups of women, attention in this area will allow us to demonstrate links to the CEDAW Committee Report, to what we heard during consultations and last year's Standing Committee deliberations, and to SWC's work through Women's Program and the Policy Research Directorate.
The realities of poverty and women affect Canada at the international level, drawing criticism. In Geneva in early May, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights questioned Canada about our record on poverty, homelessness, Indigenous and migrant rights, health and education, finding the government wanting in all areas.
Several committee members said they were disturbed by the apparent lack of investment in social programs and by continuing high poverty rates of the most marginalized groups, including women, Aboriginal peoples, people of colour and immigrants.
[English]
Status of Women Canada contributes to policy research on and understanding of women and poverty and the situation of aboriginal women. For example, the policy research fund currently has 12 research projects underway, several of which are linked to the theme of poverty and its impact on women, under various areas including.... I will spare you the reading of the list that is in the document in front of you.
In addition, the policy research fund is planning to release five new research projects under the theme of urban migration. These projects examine specific aspects of poverty among aboriginal women living off reserves who have migrated to urban areas and have found themselves in temporary or episodic poverty or have even faced long-term homelessness.
And I'll again spare you the list of other research reports that will be published, which is in the longer document we've circulated.
[Translation]
Aboriginal women in Canada face a multitude of barriers to their full and equal participation in the life of their communities and of this country. The barriers include high rates of discrimination based on gendered racism, violence, poverty, single motherhood, disability and low rates of employment, to name a few. All of these factors negatively impact Aboriginal women's access to opportunities to realize their right to health and other human rights.
[English]
These factors also underscore the importance of our commitment under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and how deeply we need ongoing consultations with Canadians if we are to find solutions.
They underscore the importance of the standing committee's work and of our efforts in support of the Sisters in Spirit initiative. They also underscore the benefits arising from the federal-provincial-territorial aboriginal policy research conference that was held at the end of March of this calendar year, the family violence initiative, and the federal-provincial-territorial violence indicators, which will be released in the fall.
In partnership with Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, Status of Women Canada has previously funded a document on matrimonial real property rights on reserve that informs aboriginal women of their basic rights upon marriage breakdown. We will continue to work with INAC while they consult with aboriginal people on what changes might occur to better address the current situation.
Accountability, as we mentioned and as the committee mentioned, is important to Status of Women Canada. We will work to advance accountability across government to achieve gender-equality results.
Through Status of Women Canada's role as a knowledge broker on gender equality, as a centre of expertise on gender issues, and as a catalyst in network building, we will work with others to bring our unique knowledge and expertise to the pressing need to address gender-based poverty and the situation of aboriginal women.
Madame Chair, we look forward to your continued work in advancing equality for women.
Thank you.
Maybe, Madam Chair, the ministers responsible, whether it be one, two or three of them, should come before this committee, because, quite frankly, identifying one piece, the tax, doesn't address the issue. This is a major departure from previous practice, and it's a major direction, and it has major impacts on women. We just heard about women's poverty in the report by the UN with respect to this, and this has an impact on that.
So I would like to ask our witnesses here today, through the chair, to try to get some response from the different departments that are responsible for this piece, because I think we need to deal with it.
If I have a bit of time, I'd like to go on to ask another question, again along the lines of gender-based analysis. I've got tons of questions on other things, but I'll get back to those in a minute.
With respect to immigrant and visible minority women, there are two issues. One is whether you could give me a bit of an update, in terms of the core funding for some of those organizations, because of the vulnerability that those women find themselves in. The other is whether or not, when you or any of the departments that you work with does gender-based analysis, you include culture and race as a lens in addition to other lenses. I'm just asking.
:
You're asking a good question. It's a tricky question for an official to respond to, but let me take it another way.
Over the last number of years, we looked not only at how Canada was working, but how a number of other countries are working to advance gender equality. When we appeared before the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in 2005, it was to take stock ten years after the Beijing conference to see if countries were really progressing.
Canada and a number of other like-minded countries realized that what we needed to build was more accountability. We needed to have indicators. We needed to do gender-based analysis in a more systematic way to ensure gender equality results.
It's not only a question of money. It's a question of commitment at the highest level of the government. It's a question of building more accountability, so that we can see progress: so that we not only hear of our progress and what's still lacking from international organizations, but that as a government and as a country, we know where we're going.
That's why we're investing in accountability. We're investing in a more systematic application of building accountability in the application of gender-based analysis. In so doing, the committee's work, which has finally encouraged central agencies to take their responsibilities and help us in achieving gender equality results, is key. We also need to consult with Canadians to make sure that we're getting the equation right.
Also, we need to find appropriate and fair funding for women's organizations and equality-seeking groups, in order to be able to achieve gender equality results. It's not just a question of money, it's a question of how. It's a question of commitment and accountability. It's a question of being able to say in two, three, or five years that in 2006 this is where we were on the health of women. This is where we were on this or that, and four years later, have we progressed? If not, we will ask why, then adjust our policies.
:
As I mentioned earlier, it's clear that a number of countries around the world have committed to gender equality. Canada is one of those countries. We are lucky in that equality is enshrined in our Constitution, we have the Canadian Human Rights Act, and we have other legislation that helps us in that regard. What we've realized, though, over the last number of years is that even though we have those commitments, and even though progress is being made, there is not enough accountability built into the government. I'm talking about the federal government because this is what I do, but I would say that provinces would say the same thing about the work they do.
We have benefited, on the question of accountability, from consultations we held in the late summer and fall of 2005. We consulted almost 3,000 people in six regional consultations, one national consultation, and an electronic consultation where not only women's groups and equality-seeking organizations but also men and women, interested Canadians, gave us their views. Accountability was one of the issues they mentioned.
The work of the standing committee was key in flagging to us that there is a need for more accountability. When Canada reported to the United Nations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the question of accountability and the lack thereof within the federal system was highlighted, as was the need to have not only more accountability within government as a whole with regard to gender equality but also with regard to accountability regarding gender-based analysis.
Also, after the report of the standing committee, we set up an expert panel to look at the questions of accountability and what kind of mechanisms could be or should be brought in, in order to enable the government to be more accountable. You'll see when you look at the conclusions and the recommendations of that committee, which were tabled in the House last fall, a number of suggestions. One interesting suggestion is that the Treasury Board and the government look at management accountability frameworks. We don't want to blanket the government and try to do it all at once, because that would never work, but we've started our work with central agencies, and they are going to use their challenge functions with departments and others as policies come to the fore, slowly but surely, in order to be able to build that accountability. We believe that with the help of Treasury Board in that challenge function, using gradually the management accountability frameworks of departments, sometimes with one policy, sometimes with all of their policies, we will build part of that accountability.
So that's one kind of mechanism. We are also developing, with Statistics Canada, a set of indicators and benchmarks that will help us measure progress, identify issues, identify gaps, and identify emerging issues and trends in order to be able to help confirm the focus at times, that the focus is right, or to at other times say, “You should perhaps shift to this.” For example, the previous member's question talked about older women who are leaving their jobs. This is a new phenomenon, and that's the type of thing that maybe in a year or two we should be looking at more.
Those are the kinds of things we want to do in order to build more accountability, and not just for Status of Women. Within Status of Women, given what I'm telling you about developing indicators, looking at more accountability for gender-based analysis, looking at using the management accountability frameworks, we are in the process of reorganizing and looking at ourselves to see if we are best equipped in order to be able to meet those challenges with the government.
In a nutshell, that's where we're going on accountability.
:
Thank you for your questions. I will begin with the exclusion of some groups from the Womens' Program.
Our guidelines are positive—we will provide committee members with a copy—because they list which groups are eligible as opposed to stating which ones are not. Eligible groups include women's groups and others that promote gender equality or women's equality, or even volunteer groups. We only fund volunteer groups, and not individuals. Nor do we provide funding to universities or to provinces. Because of the funding that is available to us, we have targeted mainly women's groups and other related groups.
We have no set definition of equality as it applies to women. We refer mainly to the Beijing platform for action and to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We deal with a wide range of groups, including older women, disabled women or aboriginal women. Each group has its own vision. We believe that it is important to identify the issues that relate to equality and that prevent these women from fully participating in Canadian society, be it from an economic, social, political, legal or other standpoint. That is my answer with respect to the groups that are excluded.
As to the selection process, you will find our objectives in the guidelines. We have three funding streams: the economy, social justice, and violence. There are many issues affecting women, but we have identified the above-mentioned three, which we feel are broad enough to support a large number of groups. We look at the group's objectives, the relevance of the issue and the group itself. Who are the members, is it democratic, are the issues that it espouses relevant to the community? That is where the guidelines become useful.
I will now deal with your question on the share of the Women's Program budget that is allocated to Quebec groups. As a follow-up to Ms. Ivers' comments, our budget is about $10 million. Close to 30% of the budget goes to support Canada-wide initiatives, and the rest goes to the provinces. Quebec receives $1.5 million and Ontario gets $1.8 million.
We can't give you any more details. I don't have the exact percentage, but a formula was devised to ensure that the budget would be allocated according to objective criteria.
:
Perhaps I could just answer that question. The on-line questionnaire, the electronic consultation, was a first for us. What we wanted to do was to try to reach out to a greater number of Canadians than we had been able to in the past, and also in terms of that, we could through in-person consultations. So that was a first.
It was by no means a scientific survey, and I think that's important to put down. It's not of the Statistics Canada variety in terms of where we could say that out of 2,000 people, this was a representative sample in terms of women, men, age groups, the diversity of Canadians throughout.
Through the Government of Canada website it was advertised as one of the new initiatives of the government during the period of time it was up last fall.
We had between 2,600 and 3,000 responses, which we considered actually a very good first start in terms of finding out what people were thinking. When you get into a little more of the detail as to the themes, we weren't able to, as I would say, peel the onion in terms of more detail in the differences from one region to the other.
We did certainly find a correlation of the key themes. Obviously, poverty was identified. The issues of aboriginal women were strongly identified and then underneath those, for example, under poverty...older women, women with disabilities....
One of the things we did that was a little unique was to try to reach out. One of our staff was in the north at a conference on aboriginal women's issues, and because some of the participants in the north were unfamiliar with using the technology, this person made herself available for a number of hours or days to sit down with the respondents to help them in terms of navigating the technology. That was also done in some cases in each of the regions of the country.
It's certainly something we experimented with. It was a good experiment and we would like to try to do it again.
First of all, thanks very much for your presentations this morning. They have certainly been very interesting and enlightening.
Ms. Ievers, one of the things you said during your presentation that I found to be an extremely good statement was that gender equality is everyone's business. I sometimes think we do ourselves and the Status of Women a disservice by having this committee, actually. We do great work, and this committee is very important, but I think we make it easier for other areas to say they don't need to be involved, and they don't need to carry forth with so much of the equality issues because they're being looked after here.
Perhaps if more emphasis were put on having to handle equality at every step and stage in every committee as it goes along, it might get more attention than it does--and rightly so. It needs to have more attention than it's getting. So that's my first comment, and I don't know if you want to respond to that.
Secondly, I was extremely interested in Ms. Mathyssen's questions about the consultation process. In the different areas that I've been involved in over the years, I've found that consultation is one of the most difficult areas in which to get the correct and most meaningful information. I've often found that those who respond in the consultative process are the ones we're least looking for to respond. We always get responses from a certain segment of society, but to get the responses from those we want to help the most and get the message to the most is sometimes the most challenging.
I was very interested to hear what you had to say regarding the online survey and how it went much further than we would be led to believe in reading about it. So I think that part of it's good.
I'm not sure that I caught the answer--and maybe the question wasn't actually asked--about the different type of response you got from those who were professionals working on gender equality, as opposed to those who were non-organizational or non-governmental. Maybe you could respond a bit more to that, please.