FEWO Committee Report

Supplementary opinion of the New Democratic Party

To the Standing Committee on the Status of Women

Respectfully submitted by:

Irene Mathyssen, MP

The House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women initiated the study on the cancellation of the mandatory long form census and the elimination of questions regarding unpaid activities because many members of the committee felt that the changes made will have a significant negative impact on women’s equality in Canada. The New Democratic Party supports the recommendations of this report but felt that the historical context and consequences to women’s equality of the changes made to the census were not adequately addressed.

In written submissions and during testimony of the study on the elimination of the census, the committee heard how census taking has historically rendered women’s productive work invisible.[1] The Committee has heard in past studies, that in care giving activities alone, women contribute the equivalent of $25 billion in unpaid work to the Canadian economy.[2] The Canadian economy relies on unpaid work to support the rest of the economy and some academics even argue that unpaid work is the largest sector of the economy.[3] If policy makers do not have robust quantitative data on the status of women and on the contributions that Canadian women make to the economy, policy gaps and labour market barriers will not be properly identified and therefore policy decisions will not adequately address measures to improve women’s equality in Canada. The consequences of having unreliable data will have a negative impact on the ability of the government to respond to the needs of women. Women will become more invisible.

The Committee heard in much of the testimony that a voluntary survey would not capture the same level of response from vulnerable women. Aboriginal, immigrant, visible minority, disabled and senior women’s needs have already been largely omitted from government policy. It is imperative that quantitative data exist in regard to vulnerable women so that evidence based policy can be formulated to improve their socio-economic situation. The Committee heard that: “The census is the single most comprehensive source of data for analyzing women’s socio-economic situation and the issue of equality”.[4] It is imperative that benchmark indicators are designed with the very best data available so that the government can measure whether or not policies designed to help vulnerable women have been successful or not.

New Democrats believe that it is also important to highlight the changes to the census in the greater context of the ideological policy decisions made by the current government that have and will negatively impact women. Since 2006, the Conservative government has systematically and purposefully dismantled gender equality frameworks in Canada. For example: cancellation of the Court Challenges Program; restructuring of Status of Women Canada including the elimination of the Independent Policy Research Fund, cancelling funding for research, advocacy and lobbying to NGOs, closing regional offices, removing the term “gender equality” from the policy language of the government and replacing it with ambivalent and less assertive language all have negative impacts on women’s equality. The Canadian International Development Agency no longer funds abortions internationally and organizations that conduct gender equality projects abroad have been denied funding. Canada has slipped on the World Economic Forum's ranking in global gender equality from 14 in 2006 to an all-time low of 31 in 2008. Furthermore, in 2009, the Auditor General found that “[most government departments] are not applying GBA to identify gender impacts for use in the design of public policies, as the government undertook to do in 1995.”[5]

The Government of Canada committed to women’s human rights through its Charter of Rights and Freedoms and internationally through a variety of conventions and accords including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. It is the opinion of the New Democratic Party that the aforementioned policy decisions are in violation of Canada’s commitment to advancing women’s human rights in Canada. The census decision is particularly devastating because of the ramifications it will have on the loss of robust quantitative data available in the future for governments, non-governmental organizations, Aboriginal organizations, labour unions and academics who all rely on census information to advance women’s equality through policy, research, and advocacy.