Evidence of meeting #43 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 women.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:25 p.m.
Bloc
Luc Desnoyers Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
I have perhaps a final question. It will only take a minute.
Many people have talked about a pension summit that would address—I think this is important—inequalities between men and women. What do you think of that? It would be a major summit at which the main stakeholders in our society would be seated around the table to look at where we stand in this area and to make a societal choice.
5:25 p.m.
Professor, Faculty of Social Work, Director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging, University of Toronto
I saw that earlier in the transcripts and thought, what a great idea. All people are getting is basically what's on the front page of The Globe and Mail, which is not the whole picture. There are no women in the picture.
I think a summit that brought everybody to the table, including the corporations and the partners, and involved them in the process would be a way first to get it on the agenda. It needs to be on the agenda. Then, the networking of people, working together rather than doing just this or just that, would be really important—the public, the media—and that would start the ball rolling. It has died. We have the great pension debate.
Bob and I are old buddies from way back. He can tell you the history in a nanosecond. It is time for the summit.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you, Ms. McDonald.
Now I will go to Ms. Mathyssen.
We are coming to the end of this, and I would like to just ask one small question before we leave.
Ms. Mathyssen, it's your turn.
5:25 p.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
I'll be very brief. I think Mr. Desnoyers asked the most important question, and you answered it. But I'm going to allow you to indulge your sociologist side.
I'd like you to talk about the social cost of our lack of care. Our entire society will have to pay a price, I would say, if we tolerate poverty among seniors.
5:25 p.m.
Professor, Faculty of Social Work, Director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging, University of Toronto
One thing that comes to mind, which nobody has mentioned around here, is the cost of elder abuse and what we are doing to older people. There is a huge initiative on the part of this government, which is excellent. When the seniors benefit was proposed, for example, my first thought was that here was a perfect situation for elder abuse in which women do not have the power, and the ultimate power is to be beaten up. We don't know the extent of elder abuse in this country, but we're about to know very shortly because of HRSDC. We're actually doing the research for them. It is a serious issue, particularly in institutions, that people need to think about a lot.
That is part of the poverty issue. They will say that elder abuse cuts across, abuse cuts across, etc. But the problem is that when you're poor, life is a lot tougher. That is one of the big issues about poverty.
Then there's nutrition. You want people to eat well and you want them to be healthy and you want active aging. You are not going to have active aging if you're eating Kraft Dinner every day. The health factor involving poverty is huge, in terms of what you eat.
Do you think medical care in this country is free? Well, it isn't really free. Some people can barely pay for some of their drugs.
It goes on and on. Poverty is the worst enemy of this society, and as Canadians, we should do better.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
To me what has been interesting, and this follows up a little on the question of social justice, is our talking about OAS and GIS. I remember someone who was getting unemployment insurance—maternity leave—who said, “It's very nice, but I really don't need it. But it's there for me, so I'll take it.” If we're trying to create some level, you have 10% who are the richest, and you have 10%, or whatever the ratios are...
That's another way. Do we restructure this? That OAS will mean nothing to some of those people at the top end of the scale, but—
5:30 p.m.
Professor, Faculty of Social Work, Director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging, University of Toronto
It will be clawed right back.
5:30 p.m.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
—it means a whole lot to...
Anyway, it's just a comment that no one has brought up in testimony. I'm sure you would be supportive of it, from hearing your passion.
5:30 p.m.
Professor, Faculty of Social Work, Director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging, University of Toronto
Yes, I would be.
5:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
I want to ask a quick question.
You came up with an interesting statistic: that women who do caregiving, or what I like to call unpaid work, are worth $25 billion to Canadian GDP. I have a real concern for those women. I saw them when I was a physician. These are the women who, if they and their husbands divorce... Let's imagine they were married, because we know that a lot of these women tend to be much older now. If their husbands divorced them, if they got some CPP at that time, they no longer have it, because it was only a small amount, and especially if that person remarried, then they don't get any more survivor benefits.
And yet, if they have done... This is something that Canada brought to the United Nations way back in 1998, when I was the minister for women's equality. The United Nations have now picked up Canada's idea and are working on it in many countries. They've estimated trillions of dollars worth of unpaid work. These are the poorest women at the end of the day. How do we...?
You said an important thing about value. I would have liked us to talk about that; we haven't talked a lot about it. These women have fallen smack between the cracks. What is it we do to value the work? We value that unpaid work when we pay an early learning child care worker, when we pay a home care worker, when we pay a geriatric nurse. We do all of those things, and yet these women have nothing for that work. There is no value for that work, because the woman did it at home because she had to, because nobody else was there to do it. She's left poor at the end of her days, and is the sickest—because poverty is the greatest determinant of health—and costs the system a lot of money in health care and all of those other things.
How does society help her to be a lot more independent by valuing that work? I would love to have heard somebody come up with something on that, because that's a big issue that I feel we don't consider.
Do you have anything to say on that?
5:30 p.m.
Professor, Faculty of Social Work, Director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging, University of Toronto
I agree with you: pay women what they're worth.
5:30 p.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Madam Chair, I wonder if our dear clerk would be able to get hold of that research that Professor McDonald referenced.
5:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Yes. I think the analyst wrote it down.
Will somebody make a motion to adjourn?
5:30 p.m.
An hon. member
I so move.