Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions today for the Minister responsible for the Status of Women Council. I want to follow up on my Member’s statement. I also want to follow up and ask these questions following a very excellent campaign school that was held in February and because International Women’s Day was just yesterday.
Both men and women acknowledge that there is a need for equality, and I talked today about gender equity on boards and organizations, but I’d like to ask the Minister, first of all, about the vision of he, as Minister for women, but also the GNWT, the government, what is the vision of this government in regards to the advancement of women towards equality in our society?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a government, we see equitable participation of women in all aspects of the government. As well, we would like to see improvements made in a number of areas in the communities. Right now we’re working primarily with the Status of Women Council and the Native Women’s Association of the Northwest Territories and we would like to see more representation in this Legislative Assembly. I think that as a government, 64 percent of our employees are female and 50 percent of our deputy minister cadre are women. I think that certainly we want to see more women advance into the senior management of our government, but also we feel that we need to find additional resources to help support the two main women organizations that we work with.
Thanks to the Minister for that response. I am very proud that we have a lot of senior managers who are women and I’m glad that the government recognizes that as an accomplishment.
The fact that the Minister says that we want to get better, I need to ask the next question, which is: How is the Minister, how is this government going to affect that vision, going to effect that change?
As my colleagues have been saying, I think we have 260 days until the next election. Obviously, an important thing for us to do is to make sure that women’s issues are provided for through the transition process both at the departmental level and at the highest level of this Legislative Assembly. We are also looking at gender-based analysis that’s been around for a long time. I think we want to revisit that to make sure that it is a lens that we run our programs through as we go forward, and it would be nice if we could find ways to increase the funding for the women’s organizations.
To the Minister: yes, nice indeed, but I think we need to get beyond nice and we need to say yes, this is something that we’re going to do. I’ve spoken about this before. Both the Status of Women Council and the Native Women’s Association have a very minimal budget and in order for us to effect any real change we’re going to have to provide more resources. I would like to see an annual campaign school, not one every four years, because there are women in elected positions at other orders of government as well as the territorial that need this assistance.
I know there’s no funding in the ’15-16 budget. We’ve already been over the budgets and there’s nothing in there at this point for increases for those two organizations.
Will the Minister commit to me that he will do what he can? He has mentioned transition, but will he do what he can to provide for greater resources for these two organizations in the ’16-17 budget? Thank you.
I’m very pleased to point out that we were able to provide for a $25,000 increase to a combined Status of Women Council and Native Women’s Association of the Northwest Territories. It may seem like a small amount, but when we’re holding the line on new initiatives on forced growth, I think that was an accomplishment, and we’ve been able to work with the Status of Women Council on an ad hoc basis and certainly, as part of that transition, that would be something we would identify for the next government that should be a priority, is to work the funding for women’s organizations that we work with. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. Yes, $25,000 is not a heck of a lot of money. However, it probably barely covers the increases to salaries and so on for those organizations, but it’s a bit, so I appreciate that.
The organizations that are doing this work, particularly the Status of Women Council is a group of three people, there are only three employees and in order for us to make advances, particularly in our small communities, there needs to be a much greater infusion of cash. So for us to expand activities throughout the territory as opposed to keeping it in Yellowknife and or regional centres, there needs to be a bigger infusion.
So, to the Minister: I know things are tight, but if the government is truly behind women’s equality, will you find the money to do that? Thank you.
Thank you. We will make sure that we set the foundation through transitional arrangements for the 18th Assembly. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake. Mr. Moses.
