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 p.m.
Conservative
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Is it getting better, though? We're hearing it's getting better.
5 p.m.
Professor, Faculty of Social Work, Director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging, University of Toronto
I don't think this generation is. I think we need to focus a whole lot of education right now on legal and pension issues, because they go together. The boomer women are obviously better educated and the rest of it, but who's going to drop three kids and go read a website about what their CPP looks like? Nobody. We need to find another way to get to people, a much more effective way. These are educable people, but we need to find a really good way to do it. That would be my view.
5 p.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you.
Thank you very much for bringing your expertise to this.
I want to give Professor McDonald a chance to respond to some of what Ms. Hoeppner talked about, because in asking the question, it seems to me we're talking about poverty. We're talking about primarily women who are in a situation where they haven't a choice. They are low income. They have been caregivers. They're certainly not going to have a $5,000 tax free savings account.
I'd like your comment on that in terms of this notion of choices. It seems to me that is a rather affluent group of people as compared to the group we're talking about.
5 p.m.
Professor, Faculty of Social Work, Director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging, University of Toronto
Yes. There is what we call involuntary retirement, or forced retirement, and 25% of Canadians are basically forced into retirement, for a variety of reasons.
Poor health is the largest reason. Caregiving is the third reason. With caregiving, like health, there's not much you can do about it. Somebody has to pick up the pieces. The research has clearly shown in Great Britain and the United States, using longitudinal data, that eight years after the caregiving was over, 27% of older women were in poverty, way below the poverty line.
These women had no choice. Stop and think for five minutes: you've lost a spouse, your skills are rusty, you're older, you have to go back into the labour force, and you are going to be discriminated against because you're an older woman. I'm sure you'll agree with me. And there's no question, you're not going to make the wages that your male colleague is. So it's not always choice. Many times there is no choice—trust me. We have too many poor women.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Do you have any idea what the Canadian statistic is? You said it was 27% for Americans, and in Britain—
5:05 p.m.
Professor, Faculty of Social Work, Director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging, University of Toronto
We're doing a study right now and we're using the general social survey, which looked at Canadians 45 years of age and over. We're looking at what happens after the caregiving is over. We've run some initial analyses, and we're finding that for women who retire to caregive, compared to women who retired for other reasons, the caregiving women's incomes are, on average, about $4,000 less than the women who didn't have to caregive. So it has an impact, a huge impact.
The dropout period isn't long enough to get rid of that period. They had children, and then they did this, and maybe they took care of their husband, who knows?
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Yes.
I'd like to pursue this forced retirement issue. We know that the CPP has this flexible retirement provision. If you retire at age 60—
5:05 p.m.
Professor, Faculty of Social Work, Director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging, University of Toronto
You take a reduction.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
—you take a 5% reduction. Or if you retire later, on the other end, you get a reward of an additional 5%. The government is currently looking at increasing the penalty at the early retirement age to 6% and the incentive at the other end to 7%, but it seems to me that when we're talking about a forced retirement, this is perhaps not a very effective way to reduce poverty, particularly among women.
5:05 p.m.
Professor, Faculty of Social Work, Director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging, University of Toronto
That's a really good point.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
So is there a way of making sure that we don't fall into this trap?
5:05 p.m.
Professor, Faculty of Social Work, Director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging, University of Toronto
I think we really need to look at whole issue in more depth. We don't have enough good research on involuntary retirement, in most countries, because we don't even want to think about it. But 25% of Canadians, according to our GSS, were forced to retire for reasons of poor health, unemployment, early retirement packages that mask the fact that we're throwing you out, and caregiving. So if we can identify them, there should be a clause somewhere where we can pick up people who face that situation, because they didn't have a choice.
If you lose your job, you lose your job. You go on unemployment insurance, and then what? Older people, and older women, aren't as unemployed; the rate isn't as high. But they last longer in unemployment. So what do you do?
We need to look at ways to deal with that group of people. You can make clauses. You have the ability to do it, actually.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you very much.
Witnesses have come to the committee and they've talked about a pension plan, or making contributions on behalf of women who are in a situation where they don't work in the outside workforce and they can't accumulate that all-important CPP. Apparently, France, Germany, Sweden, and Austria have such a plan in place where they're making a contribution equal to 60% of the maximal insurable earnings. I'm wondering, is this something that you would support as a proposal? Is this something we should look at here, and if so, who should make the contribution? The spouse? Government? Who should make that contribution?
5:05 p.m.
Professor, Faculty of Social Work, Director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging, University of Toronto
The contribution rate is getting pretty high, so...poor government. I think government owes it to Canadian women for what they do for this nation, like raising children, contributing $25 billion a year just through caregiving. I think it's the least they could do.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
It's an important statistic, that $25 billion. In terms of our GDP, it's a remarkable contribution.
5:05 p.m.
Professor, Faculty of Social Work, Director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging, University of Toronto
It's more than older volunteers, which is $14 billion.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
In January, just so you know, the Government of Canada is going to give profitable corporations an additional $1.5 billion in tax cuts. So when you say “poor government”, perhaps we're not as poor as all of that.
5:10 p.m.
Professor, Faculty of Social Work, Director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging, University of Toronto
Absolutely. I totally agree with you.
If you want that document, it's by Hollander, Lou & Chapel, and they have estimated the low end is $24 billion and the high end is $25 billion for what we do.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Lise Zarac Liberal LaSalle—Émard, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. McDonald, I agree with you: the system must not punish people. Some don't have the choice. The important thing is to be fair to all Canadians. For people who provide care, I was wondering whether, in your studies, you had looked at the costs that a long-term stay in an institution represent for an elderly person.
