Province won't say if it considered how its budget cuts will affect women

The New Brunswick Women's Council is still looking for a straight answer from the province on whether it did a gender-based analysis before it delivered a budget that could hurt women more than men.

The council said cutting child welfare, disability support services and income security likely disproportionately impact women.

Beth Lyons, executive director of the council, said she'd like to see the province publicly share what steps it took, if any, to consider the impacts on women, and how government plans to mitigate the harm.

"We still think that that information should be made public," Lyons said. "We're talking about asking whether or not folks in positions of decision took into account gender."

In the budget brought in last month, the Department of Social Development got a small funding increase of 0.5 per cent, but multiple key programs will lose money.

Given that they're not doing anything for poverty or for minorities or for Acadian women, the chances are they're not doing much for women. Unless you're talking about entrepreneurial women — they care about those.- Rosella Melanson, activist

The child welfare and disability support services was cut by $2.8 million, income security by $10 million and housing services by $8.8 million.

Lyons said women are more likely to use those services, they're more likely to be the paid service providers in those fields, and they're also more likely to be the people who start volunteering or providing unpaid labour "to pick up the slack when services are not available."

"A lot of people who who are [minorities], who are LGBTQ, who are disabled or who are women have often not seen themselves reflected in decision making bodies or processes," Lyons said.

"So it's fair for them to say show us your work on that. Show us how you took us into consideration."

In an emailed statement, Finance Minister Ernie Steeves did not answer the question of whether the government undertook the gender-based analysis the women's council had been calling for.

But he said the government is "committed to being a strong voice" on issues important to women.

Funding for the Women's Equality Branch — a government body — was increased by $270,000. The budget also had $16 million to increase wages for home support workers, $1 million to increase trained early childhood educator wages and $2.4 million to implement a new Nursing Human Resources Strategy.

Asked about the gender-based analysis, spokesperson Vicky Deschênes wrote that departments made budget decisions by "considering what is in the best interest of ALL New Brunswickers."

Lyons said it's unclear if this response means the departments made decisions for a New Brunswick "every person," or if it considered all the minorities in the community. She said the "every person" idea, looking at New Brunswickers as one homogenous group, could be folly.

"When we start trying to have like one idea of what a New Brunswick citizen is, we lose track of the fact that the experience of a, you know, racialized francophone immigrant is very different than the experience of someone who has been in New Brunswick for generations and is white and lives rurally."

Lyons said the council doesn't plan to conduct its own gender-based analysis of the budget.

Women's rights activist Rosella Melanson said she doesn't believe the province has made any effort to measure the impact of the budget has on inequalities of any kinds.

"Given that they're not doing anything for poverty or for minorities or for Acadian women, the chances are they're not doing much for women," she said. "Unless you're talking about entrepreneurial women — they care about those."

Melanson said the budget is going to harm women who aren't privileged.

"It's not going to help people who are concerned about the level of poverty, the help for immigrants … or unequal pay for women," she said. "If you don't do it consciously, it's not going to happen."

Melanson said doing gender-based analysis would allow government to make decisions consciously of obtaining equality for women.

Council budget

The women's council's own budget was slashed by half, from around $800,000 to $400,000. Steeves said the province is reversing a Liberal increase from last year's election period.

Jody Dellaire, co-chair of the women's council, said the budget will force it to scale back staff from seven to four people and operate at a minimum capacity.

Premier Blaine Higgs's 2011 budget, when he was finance minister, eliminated the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women. In 2013, the Conservatives set up the Voices of New Brunswick Women Consensus-Building Forum, which was criticized for being a shell of the former agency.

In 2016, the Liberals created the more independent New Brunswick Women's Council.