Evidence of meeting #12 for Status of Women in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was benefit.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
That would be excellent.
Does anybody else want to comment? Go ahead, Mr. Cohen.
12:05 p.m.
Executive Director, Community Unemployed Help Centre
It's an interesting idea to take the compassionate care out of the EI legislation. I just wouldn't want to see it put in a more vulnerable position. It's sort of nice when it's entrenched in a program that is a pillar of our social fabric in Canada.
Having said that, I'm sure that if there are to be recommendations, a question will come up, and this committee and members of Parliament will want to know what it's going to cost, so that becomes a problem. I have some concerns about the scope of the EI program at present because of the emphasis on lowering premiums over the last 20 years. We know that the government stopped contributing to EI in 1989, so I think the concern then becomes that if the intent is to increase compassionate care benefits within the scope of the EI Act, the fact that it's tied to collection of premiums might put some limitations on the will of governments to expand that program without having to increase premiums.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Thank you.
Does anybody else want to comment on this? Ms. Page.
12:05 p.m.
Health Policy Analyst, Canadian Cancer Society
Under the employment insurance system, compassionate care benefits form part of an initial step in the strategy for caregivers. Another program needs to be developed, whether or not it is associated with employment insurance. Compassionate care benefits have existed for five years. We think they were a very good idea. They have shortcomings, but we can start with them and go from there.
I hope that answers your question.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Ms. Harper, I was quite taken with your presentation. I read your entire brief before I came to committee. You certainly painted a picture for rural women. You talk about making sure that “sufficient supports are in place to make retraining programs accessible to women”. You have a number of recommendations here.
In regard to supports, we can't provide you with another car, but what kinds of supports do you mean--making training accessible in your communities, travel allowances, child care, family care? I don't know. What would make a difference in the lives of women as you know it?
12:05 p.m.
Executive Director, Antigonish Women's Resource Centre
I just want to say that there's not one rural woman. I am glad there are women who are doing well in rural communities, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the lives of those who are not. And I think it's all of what you've said. It would be making things as flexible as possible so that the woman herself can look at her community, at what she may have access to, and then access it. So certainly it would be support for child care.
Transportation is a really large issue that needs to be dealt with. So certainly it would be doing more things online, providing different kinds of supports. I think in the community it's just being innovative around retraining. If there are women in a community who may be interested in the same program, let's see some study groups, with some tutoring attached to some online work through universities and community colleges. Let's encourage women to take up the kinds of occupations that are not low-paying. Often with the programs that women are funded to go into, they are going into occupations that are still low-paying, so we need to look at that as well.
It really requires going to the various areas and the different communities and really asking women what would help them get to where they need to go and then making a program that's flexible enough to help them do that.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Would it help to tie the training to the individual rather than the offering of a program?
12:10 p.m.
Executive Director, Antigonish Women's Resource Centre
I think it would. Certainly, it's all of the other things that have been said too, whether it's making eligibility easier or recognizing that we need a program that is larger than the EI program that supports women in getting into training in the first place, when they have not been able to accumulate the hours, whether or not they've been working 10 years and paying into the system.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
12:10 p.m.
Bloc
Johanne Deschamps Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you for your testimony, everyone. With your expertise and knowledge, you have contributed a great deal to our study, which, I would remind you, concerns the employment insurance system. The system has been changed over the years. The program has been adjusted. It used to be called the unemployment insurance system, but now it is known as the employment insurance system. It is good to remember as well that only workers and employers pay into the system. I think it is important not to lose sight of that as we proceed with our study.
If one person gave a good description of the situation and sort of summed up all the testimony we have heard to date, it is Ms. Harper.
I think you illustrated the problem very well and put it very much in perspective. Witnesses have talked about compassionate care benefits, sickness benefits and the fact that the system needs to be changed to meet needs in the regions. I will tell you why. You talk about your region, the east coast. Two weeks ago, I toured the regions of Quebec. We have the same problems you mentioned today.
We know that the system generally discriminates against women. Yet women use compassionate care benefits and sickness benefits more than men. All the witnesses who have testified have said that the system is very discriminatory against women.
I have a question about that. Mr. Cohen, you represent a not-for-profit organization. I do not know how your organization is funded, but in order to defend workers, I would imagine that you need to consult a range of legal and other experts. You said during your testimony that you had turned to the court challenges program. That program has now been abolished.
How do you stand up for the rights of the people who consult you?
12:10 p.m.
Executive Director, Community Unemployed Help Centre
Certainly with great difficulty. In the case of Kelly Lesiuk, for example, we received up to $50,000 in case funding. Although that didn't entirely cover all the legal costs, it was the maximum available under that program. So it certainly helped to influence the decision by Legal Aid as to whether or not they would proceed, because otherwise it would be a tremendous burden on them. Legal Aid has not declined any of our requests for test cases to date, but the money is borne entirely out of their budget and will create some difficulties for them.
I would anticipate that there could be a decline in the number of cases that come forward under the court challenges program, which very much depends on that.
Our core organization is funded through other means and not directly through the court challenges program, but the court challenges program did things like support our consultation and provide case funding in the case of Kelly Lesiuk.
12:10 p.m.
Bloc
Johanne Deschamps Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
With regard to the situation in the regions, Ms. Harper, there is also the fact that young people and men are having to leave the regions. We know that women are still primarily responsible for looking after the family and the household while the men and young people are gone. In the regions, we also have a serious shortage of skilled labour, because these young people are moving to the major centres. So even though we are putting in place infrastructure programs to build housing in our regions—I am talking about my own—houses are empty and up for sale, so there is no construction. That is not stimulating the economy.
I might add that people have come here to tell us to change the employment insurance system so that most people can have access to it. In the current economic crisis, that would be one way to get the economy going.
Do you agree with me on that?
12:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Antigonish Women's Resource Centre
Yes, I agree with you. I think the problem, though, comes back to that question of whether we value our rural communities. If we do, we have to really look at what's happening there, including out-migration and the exodus of young people and, along with that, the resultant restructuring of family.
What's happening now in rural communities, particularly as it impacts women, is really significant, because women are trying to do not only paid work but all of the primary family care as well as all of the volunteer work in the community, and as well, they are trying to provide services that have left the community because of centralization and population-based policies. A lot of our thinking is urbanized. So the kinds of policies and solutions that we're coming up with are urban-centric, and they do not fit our rural communities well.
One of the things we have been thinking about and looking at is the possibility of something like a guaranteed annual income that would allow people to stay in communities and begin to rebuild communities because they could continue to afford to live there. Particularly when we are looking at some of the larger issues around trying to establish local food systems, etc., there are some possibilities now--
12:15 p.m.
Bloc
Johanne Deschamps Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Have you finished? I would like to take the 30 seconds I have left to do some promotion.
We still have a bill before Parliament that was introduced by my colleague, Yves Lessard, the human resources critic. This is the second time we have tried to get this bill passed. Its purpose is to improve the employment insurance system. The vast majority of your recommendations are reflected in this bill. So make the MPs in your provinces aware of women's needs, because I would say that the vast majority of people the act discriminates against are women.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Tilly O'Neill-Gordon Conservative Miramichi, NB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, witnesses, for being with us today. I certainly appreciate your taking the time to be with us.
My first question is for Verna Heinrichs.
I want to first congratulate you on your positive attitude towards helping women and towards how we will make use of the money that our government has been putting into helping women. Sometimes women need to see a more positive attitude in how we work with this money and make things happen for women, rather than just being made to feel that we are always being put down. I know our government wants to help women in the workforce. We have put in lots of money under our economic plan.
So I would like you to explain how you feel that your positive attitude towards women helps them to become more involved and to really want to do their best. That is what I see as a teacher. I feel that if you're going to help the ladies, it is going to be by doing it with a positive attitude all the way, and so I would like you to explain that to us.
12:15 p.m.
As an Individual
Thank you so much. I really feel that positivity, especially when it comes to attitude and work ethic, is so catching.
I have worked with many different areas of women's concerns, rural women's concerns. As I said earlier, immigration and settlement services is a huge area where there is a lot of opportunity for women to really be down about themselves. They are thrown into a completely new environment, and their skills and professional degrees from elsewhere are not necessarily recognized. In fact, often they are not. I have seen a lot of opportunities for women to help other women, to give them a hand up to really progress well and further their education and make their skills more marketable.
I was the regional manager of a community college enveloping a catchment area of six school divisions. I have worked with many of these women first-hand. I have worked with them to help them either qualify for other jobs that they have chosen in careers or requalifying in this country. These are incredibly huge areas that I feel this government is doing a very good job with.
Also, in regard to employment and finance and education and health care, so many of these, even though they seem separate or segregated, are really very much intertwined, and one often helps with the other. The education and retraining that is needed through education, and when women receive employment insurance benefits, these are all things that benefit their children and their families. Their spouses also benefit, but the children especially, and I feel this is really critical.
As well, I had mentioned increasing funding to the status of women program to the highest level ever, a 42% increase. This is remarkable and so much needed for rural women--and the shifting focus of going to the grassroots level organization. Every strong house that stands straight and true is built on a strong foundation, and this exactly helps women in rural areas and women throughout Canada. The funding has been increased to in excess of $1.3 million. I would just like to see these programs come along. Alberta and British Columbia are good templates to start...and learn what is working for them and working well for them and move some of these other programs further east.
I see a lot of things, a lot of help from the government truly wanting to help women. And the accessibility, I believe, is very much there for women, because the statistics will demonstrate that the highest percentage of EI recipients are indeed women. The statistics speak for themselves when it comes to maternity leave and benefits, the parental leave benefits as well.
These are areas of great access, as well as on-the-job benefits for when women are retraining for other jobs and other careers. I have experienced it and worked with these women first-hand, be it in a college setting or working with immigration and settlement services and other areas of education, as well as working with them in regard to finance and just setting up a household and building a new life here, as well as helping other women in rural areas do the same. It's not just for immigrant women, it's for Canadian women, period.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Tilly O'Neill-Gordon Conservative Miramichi, NB
But immigrant women do have a little more of a challenge--
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Tilly O'Neill-Gordon Conservative Miramichi, NB
--and I feel that a positive attitude and working with you gives them an uplift. So I congratulate you for that.
