Excerpts from the report:
This report is the first gender budget analysis of its kind in Canada. It tracks a decade of federal fiscal policy, looking at what the Government of Canada said it was going to do (budgets) and what it did do (public accounts).
Analyzing the patterns of federal decision-making during the deficit era (1995 to 1997) and during the surplus era (1998 to 2004), it has become clear that, in good times and bad, federal priorities actually ran counter to the promises made 10 years ago to improve economic security for women.
Though the economy grew by 62% between 1994 and 2004 &em; meaning almost $480 billion more a year in market value was being produced by Canadians &em; a growing number of women over the same decade were finding their pay rates virtually stagnant while the costs of basics like housing, tuition, child care, transit and utilities continue to soar. Paying more for less has become the norm for many households over the last decade. Women working in low-wage and part-time jobs continue to be hardest hit.