Statement made on 26 June 2008 by Senator Grant Mitchell
Hon. Grant Mitchell:
Honourable senators, in the 88 years since beinggranted the right to vote, Canadian women have made great strides in their questto achieve gender equality. However, women are still more likely to live inpoverty, earn less and suffer greater domestic violence than men.
In recent years there have been further setbacks. The Conservative governmenthas cut the Court Challenges Program and closed 12 of the 16 Status of Womenregional offices. This government now prohibits women's organizations thatconduct advocacy work from receiving federal funding.
A 2005 report from the Expert Panel on Accountability Mechanisms for GenderEquality made the point that while some government departments do gender-basedanalysis on their policies and legislation, it is not a common practice. Inother words, progress in this area is spotty at best. The panel recommended thatlegislation be put in place to ensure that government departments be mandated toperform gender-based analysis.
For the past number of months the House of Commons Standing Committee onStatus of Women has built upon the expert panel's work in its study ofgender-based analysis. It has heard from bureaucrats, outside experts andwomen's organizations. The Feminist Alliance for International Action is anumbrella group representing 75 Canadian women's groups. FAFIA testified at theStatus of Women Committee as to the need for a commissioner for genderequality.
As a result of the committee's work, Member of Parliament Maria Minna tabledtwo motions. The first motion was to create an independent commissioner forgender equality. The second motion was to develop legislation to give the officethe power to audit, review and report on the gender implications of the work ofeach government department. The motions were passed by the opposition butopposed by the government members on the committee.
In addition, the Status of Women Committee concluded that federal governmenttaxing and spending decisions often discriminate against women and unanimously —interestingly enough — recommended that the Department of Finance publishanalyses on how the measures in each federal budget would affect men andwomen.
Generations of women have worked tirelessly for greater gender equality inCanada. While the gap is narrower, it still exists in the male-to-female ratioin the senior ranks of government and the corporate sector, in how much lesswomen earn than men and in violence against women.
This government can take concrete steps to mitigate the gender gap and theycan do it now. They should do the right thing and appoint a commissioner forgender equality and they should mandate gender-based analysis for eachgovernment department.