December 15, 2006
Submission by the Public Service Alliance of Canada to the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women
Cuts to Status of Women Canada
The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) represents 160,000 members from coast to coast to coast, including the majority of the unionized workers at Status of Women Canada (SWC).
The PSAC deplores the removal of “equality” from the mandate of SWC, and the $5 million cut to its operational budget. While these cuts were described by Minister Oda and SWC senior officials as “efficiency savings”, we question what the supposed “inefficiencies” were, what process was used to identify them, and who was consulted in arriving at that conclusion. To our knowledge, women's groups and stakeholders weren't, and neither were the vast majority of SWC staff.
The losses stemming from these cuts are considerable, and will set back our collective efforts to achieve women's equality.
With the closure of 12 out of 16 SWC regional offices, only twelve SWC staff members will remain in the regions. Direct servicing to women and women's groups will be severely limited. Regional staff will no longer represent SWC at federal councils and regional initiatives. They will no longer have the responsibility to do joint work with provincial and territorial officials responsible for the status of women.
The $5 million in administrative cuts will also result in significant losses in the government's internal capacity to achieve women's equality.
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The Independent Policy Research Fund (PRF) is being eliminated. The PRF was a unique initiative that supported independent research that could be used as a basis for developing policies that have a positive impact on women's equality.
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Dialogue and joint work between the federal government and the provincial and territorial counterparts responsible for the status of women will be severely limited.
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Cuts to SWC will limit the government's capacity to intervene on women's economic, social and political equality at the United Nations and other international forum.
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SWC will no longer have the capacity to identify emerging issues, and to design and develop policies that promote women's equality. Their policy work will be limited to supporting departments and central agencies in applying “gender based analysis” when designing and implementing programs.
Significant losses will result from the changes to the terms and conditions of the Women's Program. The PSAC wholeheartedly supports the positions advanced by the Canadian Labour Congress, the Feminist Alliance for International Action, and others who have called on the federal government to take responsibility for ensuring that women have the means to fully participate in the public policy development process. To do this, research and advocacy work must be funded through the Women's Program. Furthermore, the PSAC supports the recommendations of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women to increase the Women's Program funding by 25%.
Achieving women's equality requires coordinated and concrete action on many fronts. It requires women's groups who document women's equality and advocate for change. It requires women's groups on the ground to provide front-line services to women in need. And it requires a strong internal women's machinery to push for women's equality from within government. It's not one or the other. It's all of them together that will make women's equality a reality.
For more information, visit the section on this issue on the PSAC website.
Date Modified : 2010/07/28
