Mr. Chairperson (Marcel Laurendeau): Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This section of the Committee of Supply will be considering the Estimates of Status of Women. Does the honourable minister have an opening statement?

Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister responsible for the Status of Women): I am pleased to present today the working Estimates of the Manitoba Status of Women ministry, for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1998.

The Ministry of Status of Women envisions a society committed to true equality for both women and men in our country. To that end, we are focusing our efforts on four major areas. These are: promoting and supporting women's economic self-sufficiency; providing education and training for women; eliminating violence against women; and addressing the challenges of today's youth.

The Manitoba Women's Directorate promotes equality for women directly by working to influence government decision making through research support, policy development and evaluation of government programs, and indirectly by interacting with the community, the business sector and various departments of government to raise awareness of the reality of women's lives.

The Manitoba Women's Directorate also works with its counterparts across the country to address issues of common concern such as more effective maintenance enforcement legislation; the socialization of girls; strategies to protect women from violence; and researching ways to monitor women's economic self-sufficiency. Our government believes the most effective guarantee of economic security for Manitobans is having the means to obtain employment. The departments of Industry, Trade and Tourism and Rural Development recognize the potential of the entrepreneurial sector and the vital contribution that women can make. They offer programs designed specifically for women to assist them in starting their own businesses.

(Mr. Edward Helwer, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)

Industry, Trade and Tourism has extended the Business Start program, targeted towards women and rural entrepreneurs, for a further two years. It is a loan guarantee program allowing entrepreneurs to borrow up to $10,000 to match their equity contributions. This program has provided a total of 207 loans to women to date. Similarly, Rural Development offers the Rural Entrepreneurial Assistance Program, which provides loan guarantees to participating lenders for rural businesses. The amounts range from $10,000 to $100,000. To date, 33 loans, totalling more than $1 million, have been granted to women by credit unions and CIBC, 80 percent of which is guaranteed by the province.

Industry, Trade and Tourism and Rural Development also offer services and training in business start-up, business plan development and market analysis and mentorship.

The best form of security is a job, and this government is committed to breaking the cycle of dependence on social assistance. Through welfare reform and Making Welfare Work, we have refocused training and social assistance to help recipients move to employment.

Manitoba Education and Training and Family Services offer social assistance clients training in job readiness, specific skills, and also provides job placement support. Making Welfare Work initiatives include community services and rural jobs projects, Manitoba Conservation Corps, opportunities for employees, Youth NOW and Taking Charge!. These initiatives will help more people achieve self-reliance.

Since the introduction of welfare reform, there has been a reduction of 676 in the caseload of single parents. Since the introduction of Making Welfare Work, 22.7 percent or 3,900 social assistance recipients are reporting income. We have built on the success of these programs by allocating $1.5 million over '96-97 for a total of $8.9 million to Making Welfare Work.

The Women's Directorate also has developed and administers the successful Training for Tomorrow Scholarship Award Program. A total of 141 $1,000 scholarships have now been awarded to women entering two-year diploma courses in math-, science- and technology-related programs at the province's three community colleges. These programs will equip women to obtain employment in today's high-tech labour market.

Another priority for our government is increasing access to computers in distance education throughout the province. Our government has provided $10.7 million through the infrastructure program for distance education, and we will continue to expand these capabilities.

We also will provide $1 million for a new program, Technology Learning Resources for Schools, that will put more computers in classrooms across Manitoba.

Our government has also introduced the Manitoba learning tax credit in our 1996 budget. In 1997, the Manitoba learning tax credit will provide $17.3 million in direct support to students and their families. This represents an increase of $5.3 million and is the first refundable tax credit in Canada.

We are also providing $1 million for the establishment of scholarships and bursaries. We will add $1 to every $2 raised by universities and colleges.

Our government is working with the Government of Canada to launch Partners for Careers, a $1.4-million initiative to place aboriginal high school, college, and university graduates in positions in the private and public sectors.

This government's commitment to the women of our province is very evident in our efforts to address violence against women. Manitoba has the most comprehensive approach in the country, for example, a zero tolerance policy; a dedicated family violence court, the first of its kind in Canada; education programs for domestic violence offenders; protected name status in the Land Titles Office to protect victims of violence by making information unavailable to stalkers; a central registry for domestic violence offenders which is accessible to police services; and a women's advocacy program.

Manitoba has the best system of shelters and support services in Canada. Funding has increased 150 percent over the last 10 years with 29 agencies offering crisis shelter support and follow-up.

To help identify ways of making workplaces safer, crimes more difficult to commit, and increased personal safety, the Manitoba Women's Directorate, in partnership with CIBC, Workers Compensation, the RCMP, and the province's police services, has launched Keeping Safe at Work. This province-wide initiative focuses on the safety of those who work alone or travel to work alone and provides tips on how to maximize personal safety.

Mr. Chair, I have some of the brochures which are distributed across the province, and I am happy to table these now for the member's information.

CIBC and the directorate offer information sessions at workplaces and at CIBC's employment development centre. As well, Train the Trainer workshops and public information sessions have been conducted in Flin Flon, Thompson, The Pas, Portage la Prairie, Brandon, Dauphin and Swan River.

Hopes for a prosperous future for young Manitobans are based on equipping them with the skills they need to be productive and healthy citizens. Therefore, the Women's Directorate is focusing on the healthy development of young women. Our efforts are targeted towards encouraging girls and teens to stay active in sports or recreational activities, stop smoking, refrain from early sexual activity, recognize the importance of staying in school.

Our aim is to encourage young women to replace unhealthy behaviours with healthy ones. Toward that end, Manitoba Status of Women has launched Take the Challenge, a comprehensive initiative in its early stages designed to address the challenges facing today's teenage girls. The directorate has established partnerships with other government departments, service deliverers and community organizations to maximize the effectiveness of a major campaign to encourage personal responsibility and attitudinal change.

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The first part of Take the Challenge focused on the benefits of physical activity for girls. The directorate has partnered with several agencies to bring this initiative to Manitobans. The directorate, together with Manitoba Sport and Manitoba Health, supported Manitoba Physical Education Teachers Association training conference for women leaders in sports, developed a poster called Do It For You which has been distributed to all junior and senior high schools across the province.

Mr. Chair, I brought a poster for the member. I was not sure whether she had one and thought she might like to have that, so I will table that for her now.

Together with the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women in Sports in physical activity, or as it is called, CAAWS, distributed the Do It For You poster across the country. I thought that was just terrific. The directorate also introduced On the Move, an initiative designed to encourage nonactive teenage girls to participate in a fun-filled, supportive recreational activity, and is working to have On the Move incorporated into the Urban Sports Camp model so that inner city community groups are better able to consider the unique needs of teenage girls when developing their programs.

The directorate has received support from Sport Manitoba and the Recreation and Wellness branch to host a workshop and Train the Trainer session titled Perspectives in Women's Leadership designed to encourage women's participation in leadership roles in sport and recreation. In addition to research and analysis, the directorate also provides an outreach function.

This April, the Women's Directorate is piloting a new method to enhance outreach liaison and referral service delivery to much of northern and rural Manitoba. Five women employees from the departments of Housing or Labour living in the communities of Thompson, The Pas, Flin Flon, Dauphin, and Brandon will participate in the work of the directorate on a part-time or casual basis. These women will create a link between their communities and the Women's Directorate. They will provide consultation on issues of concern to women and they represent the directorate at significant community events.

This new approach offers a number of advantages. It allows the directorate to draw on local expertise and the knowledge of women involved in their communities. This approach facilitates enhanced collaboration between Winnipeg and outlying communities, more effective service delivery and more efficient use of limited fiscal resources.

Mr. Chair, the Manitoba Women's Advisory Council is an arm's-length body appointed by government to advance the equal participation of women in society and to promote changes in social, legal and economic structures. In appointing members to council, the Manitoba government selects persons who are representative of various geographic, ethnocultural, socioeconomic and professional sectors of Manitoba.

In October of last year five new members were appointed to council, along with a new chair, Mrs. Sandra Hasenack. In addition, 10 reappointments were made to council. The goal of council is enhance the status of Manitoba women. It accomplishes this by serving as a provincial resource and exchanging and disseminating information, research and women-centred programs; constructing policy recommendations that can be implemented to improve the status of women; building a co-ordinated and enhanced network of individuals and organizations working to promote women's equality; acting as a facilitator in building effective and collaborative partnerships among women, community organizations, service providers, researchers and government departments.

This council has determined its present priorities to be women's health, child care, teen pregnancy and violence against women. Council has formed in-house working committees to address these specific issues, and at the same time it continues its overall focus on community liaison and outreach to rural women in the province.

Council has had a very productive year. It has liaised with over 160 community organizations; participated in or attended more than 60 workshops, meetings and conferences; provided support services, such as free faxing, photocopying and mailing to 70 nonprofit women's organizations and individuals from the community; maintained a mailing list of over 2,100 names, including individuals, women's organizations, government offices and general organizations; offered free of charge a well-used, one-stop community resource library; provided expertise, cosponsorship, committee representation and consultation for many community events and conferences.

Council undertook a major role in the planning of the Premier's conference, Shaking the Tree, and the upcoming training conference on family violence. It is also represented on other committees such as the Women's Health Reform working group and the Centre of Excellence for Women's Health Research Planning Committee. Council has participated in conferences such as the Farm Women's Conference in Brandon, as well as public hearings on child care, child welfare and the civil justice system.

Council showed its support of low-income women by sponsoring a number of them to women's events this year. It has also updated and republished its handbook, Parenting on Your Own, with printing assistance from Taking Charge!. One-half of these handbooks were made available to single parents, and over 2,000 copies were sent to service providers.

As part of its community liaison, council holds bimonthly open house events on topics of interest to the women's community. As part of its liaison with the national community, council recently organized, hosted and chaired a meeting in Ottawa with all other provincial advisory councils. This was to facilitate a sharing of best practices, as well as discussion of issues of common concern.

Women's health is an ongoing priority of council. Some examples of council's involvement in this area include its work with Women's Health Reform working group. Its focus is to address issues that arise as a result of reorganization and health reform as it affects women.

Council has also played a major role in advocating and planning for a prairie region centre of excellence for women's health research. Some other health issues that council is following include midwifery, fetal alcohol syndrome, prenatal and postnatal health, new reproductive technologies and menopause. Council is concerned with the high rate of teen pregnancy in Manitoba. To address this issue, council is investigating some innovative programs and consulting with the community on possible solutions.

Council continues to work towards the attainment of a violence-free society through its provision of referral services and information to hundreds of women. Council offers assistance to individual women who are victims of family violence.

Another council priority relates to the provision of child care. To broaden its knowledge, council heard presentations from Marcel Laurendeau, the MLA, on his review of the child care system; Reg Toews, formerly of the Child and Youth Secretariat; and the Manitoba Child Care Association. As well, two council members who are educators have been invited by the Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson) to be part of the review process through membership on the child care committee.

Council continues to address issues that affect the following: Women's education and training; immigrant, visible minority, disabled, aboriginal and Francophone women; social policy review; women and justice; the 4th World Conference on Women held at Beijing.

Council made a submission to the CPP Secretariat regarding the need to include a gender analysis in any proposed changes to the CPP. As the Minister responsible for the Status of Women, I brought this to the attention of my provincial counterparts at our annual meeting as well as to the attention of our provincial government. As a result, our Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) has proposed mandatory splitting of CPP as a way of addressing pension inequities between spouses upon dissolution of a marriage. I understand this is being reviewed in the next round.

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Consultation with rural women was determined to be another high priority for council. Four community outreach meetings were held: Gimli, Thompson, Morden and Winkler, and Souris. In this upcoming fiscal year, council will hold outreach meetings in Swan River in May; Flin Flon in October; and the Eastman area in February. This will complete a province-wide consultation by council on issues of concern to rural women in Manitoba.

Council priorities in the upcoming year will continue to be, No. 1, Parenting on Your Own. This handbook, published by the Manitoba Women's Advisory Council for one-parent families, is an ongoing project. Two, informational meetings: Council will continue to organize sessions on various areas of interest to facilitate input from women on issues relating to women and to develop partnerships with community organizations. Three, planning consultative committees: The advisory council will continue to act as a consultant and a resource to various community committees such as women's conference planning committees. Four, storefront assistance to the community: Council will continue to make photocopying and mailing assistance available to women's organizations.

In addition, women's organizations will have access to council's boardroom, library resources and computer. Council will also continue to provide the weekly facts list of upcoming events to women's organizations and interested community members. Other services council will continue to provide to the community include referral services and information resources. Five, the reference library: Council continues to make its library resources more user friendly and accessible to the general public. Council will actively promote this service to the public.

In conclusion, council looks forward to another productive year. In keeping with its mandate, council will continue to work diligently to enhance the status of women in Manitoba through its advisory role to government on matters of concern to women and its active participation in the women's community.

I am very proud of the successes of both the Manitoba Women's Advisory Council and the Manitoba Women's Directorate. During the coming year, I am confident that both organizations will continue their work to ensure equal opportunities and equal participation for Manitoba women in all aspects of our society. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Helwer): We thank the minister for those comments. Does the official opposition critic, the honourable member for Osborne, have any other opening comments?

Ms. Diane McGifford (Osborne): Yes, Mr. Chair, I do wish to respond to the minister's statement.

The minister, I believe, began her speech, her remarks by talking about equality, and the word "equality" was sprinkled throughout her speech, as indeed it should be, because that is the mission of the Status of Women ministry. The minister spoke about the work of the directorate or the priorities of the directorate, this year being economic self-sufficiency, training and education, ending violence against women, and I believe the fourth one was the development of young women. Certainly all of these priorities are very laudable and I have no quarrel with them. They seem to me to be exactly the work that should be being done.

The minister spoke about the work that the directorate is doing with regard to maintenance across the country. The minister and I both know that maintenance is a very testy issue for women, a very thorny issue and an issue that has not always been well resolved, and in fact once it becomes an interprovincial concern, has very infrequently been well resolved. So I am very pleased to hear that the directorate is doing this kind of work.

The minister also cited, I believe, the socialization of young girls as something that the directorate was working with, and I gathered from that, helping girls deal with social pressures and develop other personas besides the ones that society urged them or the ones that society pressures them to adopt. So certainly that seems to be extremely laudable.

The minister spoke about the work that I, T and T and Rural Development is doing with women in regard to businesses. She mentioned the loan guarantee program. She mentioned economic development, especially with regard to women's businesses, training in business setups and other aspects of women's business. I know I have missed something here trying to just jot down notes as the minister was speaking.

One of the things I did in a former life was research for movies, and one of the movies I was the researcher for was a movie entitled A Web, Not a Ladder. It was about women in business, so I certainly appreciate the need for women to have access, especially to money. It is still harder for women to get bank loans than it is for their male counterparts, and women appreciate and need, of course, to develop their business skills before they go into business.

I think I am right in recalling that women are starting businesses with much greater frequency than they have in the past. Most of them are small businesses, and I believe their success rate is quite tremendous and something that we women can all be very proud of, so I certainly encourage women to enter business as long as they know what they are doing and as long as the market is solid and as long as it is something that women can make a living by.

One of the things I know I ran into in the research I was doing was that women in businesses were very frequently working tremendous weeks--80 hours a week--and not really being able to pay themselves a wage, just taking expenses. So there are businesses and businesses.

The minister spoke about Manitoba as having the most comprehensive policy to end violence against women, and I think that there are other provinces that may quarrel and may think that their policies and their programs are more comprehensive.

I thank the minister for the copy of Keeping Safe at Work. I did make it my business to get about 50 copies from the Women's Directorate, and we have taken them to various businesses in our constituency, and I think it is a very worthwhile project. Certainly safety for women is extremely important when they are working alone or at night, and the pamphlet is excellent. So I think that is very important, too.

What else? The minister spoke about the emphasis on young women and the need to replace unhealthy behaviours with healthy ones, the need to encourage young women to take personal responsibility and help those who needed the help to make attitudinal changes. Certainly we need to begin with women when they are young in order to help them become who they really are and not become women that society would have them be. Again, this is a very worthwhile initiative and I think it is wonderful.

Many of the things the minister said in her remarks about the Women's Directorate were not repeated but had their counterpart in her remarks in the advisory council, so I think I will leave what I want to say about the advisory council to my questions. I did want to say that it seems to me, regardless of anything else, one of the most serious issues affecting the lives of women in Manitoba is poverty, and since cuts in programming has been a hallmark of this government, I think this government, in some ways, has hindered the full and equal social and economic participation of Manitoba women in life in Manitoba.

Not only are great numbers of Manitoba women living in poverty, but great numbers of Manitoba women are really being denied the services that they need, while others are finding services increasingly difficult to access. I think that some of the things that I am referring to are well known. For example, I know I have spoken about the increased charges for Pharmacare and how they affect women, especially older women. I know I have spoken about eye examinations and how many women will probably forgo an eye examination when it requires payment, rather than put this money out from the family coffers they made, decide that their children really could use it a lot better than the individual women.

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(Mr. Gerry McAlpine, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)

The government has also cut social assistance, particularly to single parent families. Most single parent families are headed by women, and single parent families with children over six now have a parent who is supposed to find employment. Not always easy. Not always easy when child care is not available, and child care continues to be a problem in the province of Manitoba. The numbers of subsidized cases, I believe they are now called, have been frozen. Many families simply cannot afford the $250 top up, which most child care centres levy on top of the subsidy, so this means worried, anxious parents, usually women, as women continue to be the primary caregivers to children and are primarily responsible for their children's well-being.

One of the other consequences of this freeze in the number of child care cases are latchkey kids, and latchkey kids have anxious, unhappy mothers. With regard to family violence, I know the minister spoke about the Family Violence Court, but I would like to point out that there is a continuing backlog in Family Violence Court. I would also like to point out that in 1996-1997 Family Dispute cut grants to all its agencies, and although the funding has not been cut this year, all of these agencies are suffering financially. They have really suffered years of financial decreases or else the levy has remained frozen while their operating costs have increased of rent, telephone, lights. Everything has gone up. The only thing that has gone down has been the grant--or some years, to be fair, the grant has remained constant. Of course, inflation has eaten up some of these monies.

The minister also, in regard to family violence, spoke about the Women's Advocacy Program, and I think the concept is an excellent one; however, I have had women tell me, constituents who ultimately phoned my office, about the difficulty of making contact with the family advocacy program.

I would like to mention, too, the $25 fee which is now levied in order to access legal aid, and I wonder how many women this prevents from pursuing maintenance issues. I would imagine at least some because some women simply do not have $25. I cannot help, Mr. Chair, but ruefully note that the Estimates of Expenditures for the Status of Women have decreased once again. This year they are down $893,400, and the staff years are down to 11.35. I think I need to confess that these reductions test my faith in the government's commitment to the Status of Women, and together with those program cuts outlined earlier, when they are factored in, my faith wavers still more, and especially as I become convinced that the women who need most empowerment are the ones who are most affected by government policy.

So I return to where I was a few minutes and say that the poor women in our province are suffering disproportionately and that this government has not been kind to them and that women with or without money are still women, and I think there are a lot of inequities and unfairnesses in the current services and programs for women. Thank you.

Mrs. Vodrey: Well, I have made my opening remarks. I will wait until perhaps the member has some questions. Obviously, we could debate this for some time, but I will try and deal with some of my responses to the questioning.

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. McAlpine): We will invite the minister's staff into the Chamber, and when appropriate, the honourable minister may introduce them.

We are on Resolution 22.1. Status of Women (a) Manitoba Women's Advisory Council (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $161,200.

Ms. McGifford: Mr. Chair, I wonder if the minister and I could agree, since the department is rather small, to ask questions more informally and not line by line.

Mrs. Vodrey: Mr. Chair, I will attempt to answer in that way then. I just need to know, would the member like to have the advisory council here as well then, or would you see us doing the directorate first and then the advisory council?

Ms. McGifford: Actually, I have a few questions from last year--from concurrence actually--and I think that we will soon be adjourning for the day. So I do not think we do need the advisory council at this point.

Mrs. Vodrey: I am prepared to go ahead, Mr. Chair. See how this works.

Ms. McGifford: Last year during concurrence I asked the minister--now, maybe having said that I do not think we need the advisory council, I am going to ask the question about the advisory council--for the amount of the research budget for the advisory council. The minister did undertake to get the information, but I have not yet received it. I am still interested in receiving it, and I wonder if I could get this information. If the minister does not have it at her fingertips, I could get it in the near future, I am sure.

Mrs. Vodrey: I understand that the advisory council staffperson does have the information that is outstanding, and so when they come into the Chamber, I will provide the member with that.

Ms. McGifford: I had also asked at that point some questions about the advisory council and whether it did its own research or whether there was contracting out. So I am assuming that would also be part of the information that the council is bringing in.

Mrs. Vodrey: Mr. Chair, yes, that is correct.

Ms. McGifford: Mr. Chair, the minister mentioned the Do It For You project in her opening remarks, and I believe the minister also mentioned the Do It For You project during concurrence last year. She spoke of stats regarding the benefits and trends for girls taking physical education, and my understanding is that these stats were used in developing the program. I wonder if it is possible for the minister to provide me with copies of these statistics. I do not have them, and I wonder if the minister would be able to get them.

Mrs. Vodrey: I understand that we do not have them here to read into the record, but we are certainly happy to provide them. They are statistics that I have used in a number of speaking opportunities, as well, to try and make the point of the importance of the effect of physical activity for young women.

Ms. McGifford: I am a little confused about the Do It For You program, but maybe I am not. I think I understand that the Do It For You program has a series of projects, and I wonder if the minister could give me a little detail and maybe it would clear it up for me.

Mrs. Vodrey: That is right. Do It For You is the overall name for a series of projects which are focusing on some of the overall goals that I spoke about on behalf of young women to assist young women in terms of choosing healthy lifestyles, responsible decisions for themselves. The first step, or the first project of Do It For You was a Train the Trainers for physical education and now the next project is one called On the Move, which deals with the involvement in recreation of young women. There will be more, as well, as the project develops.

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The Acting Chairperson (Mr. McAlpine): Order please. The hour being 5 p.m., time for private members' hour. Committee rise.

Call in the Speaker.