FEDERAL BUDGET FALLS SHORT ON HELPING WOMEN,

Tinkering with existing programs is not enough, Stephanie Paterson and Francesca Scala say.

On March 22, the Liberal government unveiled what it called the first ever genderbased federal budget in Canada. This meant that instead of taking a back seat to other issues, women’s concerns would guide how budget dollars are allocated and spent. It turns out, however, that the Liberals’ “female friendly” budget may be business — and politics — as usual.

To be sure, the budget does contain some good news for Canadian women. The government committed $100 million to combat violence against women. Moreover, it is allocating $7 billion over 10 years to make childcare more affordable across the country. Provinces would be free to spend the money on creating new childcare spaces, reducing childcare fees for parents or wage subsidies for providers. In Quebec, the funding would be used to continue to subsidize the lowest capped childcare fees in Canada.

Changes to parental leave and caregiver benefits also appear to directly benefit women. A closer look, however, reveals the impacts of those changes may be more modest than it might seem. For example, the budget enhances the flexibility of parental leave from 12 months to 18 months; this does not change the maximum benefit rate but just spreads it out over a longer period. Nor do the eligibility requirements change. The program will continue to mostly benefit middleincome earners, leaving lower income earners and parttime workers, the majority of whom are women, behind. Moreover, with no “use it or lose it” paternal leave, the program fails to provide incentives for fathers to withdraw from the labour market to care for their children.

Similarly, there are new initiatives for caregivers. The proposed EI-based caregiving benefit expands on the one already available. However, this benefit is only useful to those with income from paid work, which excludes a number of women. The Canada Caregiver Credit, which simplifies and expands eligibility for caregiver tax credits by consolidating existing benefits, remains a non-refundable credit and is therefore only available to those who pay taxes. Women’s access to the benefit would have been improved if the benefit had been converted to a refundable credit, so those with no taxable income could benefit from the subsidy.

Other items in the budget, while seemingly gender neutral, have gendered impacts that are felt unevenly across different groups of women. To spur innovation and economic growth, the Liberal government is investing $950 million in six key economic sectors, including advanced manufacturing, bio-sciences, digital and clean technology. These sectors, however, continue to be male-dominated industries. While women make up 47.5 per cent of the labour force, they represent only 28 per cent of the manufacturing workforce and just 24 per cent of the tech sector workforce. The budget is light on targeted measures to address these gaps. As a result, in the short term, since women are most likely to be employed in sales

and service occupations and in the business and finance sectors, they are less likely to benefit from this investment.

The budget also contains cuts to programs that may seem minor or inconsequential, but that in fact have a disproportionate impact on women and other disadvantaged groups. For example, the Liberals plan to phase out the public transit credit. Although the benefit is small, its removal will have the greatest impact on those who need it most and are most likely to use public transit: those with lower incomes, including women.

The Liberal government should be applauded for recognizing that public policies have different impacts on men and women. Indeed, the 2017 federal budget is the first to be scrutinized using the gender analysis tool that has been in place in the federal government since the mid-1990s. However, until we stop tinkering with existing programs and start thinking about substantive change, we’ll see nothing but business as usual.

Stephanie Paterson and Francesca Scala are associate professors of public policy in the Department of Political Science at Concordia University.