Status of Women Committee on Nov. 4th, 2014

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Could young entrepreneurs or young women from Canada go on that site as well to get assistance?

[Janice McDonald]

Absolutely.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Ashton, you have seven minutes.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much, Ms. McDonald, Ms. Archer and Ms. Roy for joining us today.

Ms. Roy, thank you very much for a very comprehensive presentation and speaking to the systemic barriers that young women in particular face. I want to acknowledge the way you spoke very eloquently about the situation of women who find themselves in the margins of our society, indigenous women, women living with disabilities, trans women, queer women, and racialized women. I think it's incredibly important for our committee to take those perspectives into account, especially since the timing of our study is quite limited.

I also appreciate that you ended your presentation with a focus on violence against women. This study, of course, looks at leadership and prosperity among women and we know that a core and fundamental barrier is the violence that women face. I know you had an experience directed at you as a woman leader, about which I'm hoping you could share a bit, and tie it into an attempt to answer the question of how we can counteract what we know to be rape culture that exists on our campuses and across our society.

[Anne-Marie Roy]

Thank you for the question.

My experience last winter was traumatic. It was very problematic. I think this kind of violence, rape culture showing up on campus, is a reflection of our broader society. I don't think young educated students are showing up on university and college campuses and learning about rape culture. They already know about it. First and foremost it is really important to recognize that rape culture is an issue beyond campus borders.

There are some strategies our institutions and the government could be supporting to tackle this problem. I think that having a proactive educational approach to challenging rape culture would be beneficial.

One of the things I'm proposing and working on at the University of Ottawa is encouraging the administration to ensure that at least one class of gender studies is mandatory for all students. I think it's important for all genders to be educated on the various barriers and the various challenges that present themselves based on your gender identity.

In that educational process there should also be a component around sensitivity and educating men on the systemic violence that's present in our society and also challenging our conception of masculinity.

The challenge is that our post-secondary institutions have been chronically underfunded and continue to be chronically underfunded. It's very difficult when we're facing program cuts and courses being cut on our campuses to demand that our university make this gender studies class mandatory. This has its challenges as well.

That would be one step in the right direction on university and college campuses.

I also think elementary and high schools should have an educational program about gender-based violence and how to challenge it, from recognizing and being able to identify rape culture and gender-based violence, and not being bystanders but intervening and trying to challenge problematic behaviours when we see them.

There's a lot the government could be doing to address this situation.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you.

As the status of women critic for the NDP, I've put forward a motion in the House calling for a national action plan to end violence against women. I'm wondering if you think that kind of comprehensive action would be important as well.

[Anne-Marie Roy]

I think that would certainly be important. Along with an action plan to specifically address violence against women, I also think if the government were to adopt a national vision for post-secondary education that could also be something they integrate into a national vision.

I definitely think that proposal would be a step in the right direction. As a society we need to educate ourselves on gender-based violence.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you.

Given your perspective, and your personal experience of having been a target of gender-based violence, and given you're one of the youngest women we're going to hear from in this important study, I'm wondering if you could also speak to the way cyber-misogyny is a barrier to women pursuing leadership at any level and at any age, and obviously a particular barrier for young women, and what actions we could see from a government to tackle cyber-misogyny.

[Anne-Marie Roy]

With the rise of social media, that's certainly a reality for a lot of young women. It can certainly be intimidating to see that kind of violence and problematic comments around you personally on your social media. Nobody likes logging onto Facebook and having problematic language about them in their newsfeed. That is certainly a reality a lot of women are facing.

One of the concerns I had was with the situation I faced last winter. The five men who took part in the Facebook conversation about me were in positions of leadership themselves, so my concern was twofold. I was concerned for the safety of women on my campus because these men were responsible for organizing events, some of which involved alcohol. The other concern I had was that women on my campus would feel intimidated to run for positions of leadership because the reality of the misogyny that young women face is in no way comparable to any of the violence that men face on campus.

The misogyny women face is a form of intimidation that men don't experience. It is unfortunately going to be discouraging women from running for positions of leadership.

I chose to keep fighting. I don't want to let problematic attitudes prevent me from moving forward and achieving my goals, but the reality for some women is scary, particularly women who might have experienced traumatic experiences prior to seeing this kind of behaviour. Misogyny is certainly a deterrent for women obtaining positions of leadership.

Having a proactive approach and educating our communities around gender-based violence and misogyny and how to challenge it is going to be the key to moving forward.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you, Ms. Ashton and Ms. Roy.

Ms. O'Neill Gordon, you have seven minutes.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

I want to welcome all of you and thank you for taking the time to be with us today.

My first comment is for Anne-Marie Roy. I want to congratulate you on the work you are doing. You mentioned gender-based analysis in your comments. I want to assure you that gender-based analysis is used in many ministries across our government and is a very important concept and concern of our government, and we make it very clear that we do keep it in mind in everything we do. I wanted to let you know that we do notice that and thank you for your comments today.

Second, I want to congratulate all of you on the work you have done in order to achieve all you have done. It takes a lot of hard work. It takes a sincere focus to accomplish all that you have accomplished.

I want to direct my questions to Janice McDonald. I was happy to hear you say that you share and work with women as a mentor. With all you have accomplished over all of these years, you certainly have a lot to offer others. I know they would learn a lot from being mentored by you, so thank you so much. It's these new people who are coming out and people who need our assistance, need your assistance, who we need to focus on and help them as we go along. It's great to have someone with us to follow and encourage us to carry on as we are doing.

I was just wondering, how long did your journey take you to get to where you are today? I know you have many more ideas of other things you hope to accomplish, but just in focusing on where your journey has taken you to get to today, I was wondering if you could give us an outline on that.

[Janice McDonald]

Sure. Thank you.

I finished grad school and opened my first business with my partner straight out of grad school. I would say it was the beauty of youth and that we didn't realize things couldn't work out. We just thought it would work. Fortunately we were lucky. We picked an industry, the music industry, which at the time was going through a significant change, but also it was a very wonderful time to be in that industry. Of course it changed a lot because of technology, but we were able to keep up with those changes as we went through. We had an online business, a record company, an apparel industry, just continuous innovation, which I think is important and typical of many Canadian entrepreneurs whom I know actually.

We opened that first store in 1991 and we will be closing it in the spring actually, given the changes in the industry. It has run its course and we've moved on to do other things, which is how business is, I think. It has been over two decades of, I would say, continuous focus on entrepreneurship but also lifelong learning as well, which I think is incredibly important given how the landscape for business continues to change at such a rapid pace.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Yes, that is one thing, but as you said, being in your youth and not really seeing what all could have happened certainly was a plus that helped you carry on. No doubt through it all you have encountered many successes, but there must have been some obstacles along the way as well. Could you share with us some of the obstacles that you did face along the way and how you overcame them?

[Janice McDonald]

We were lucky because we had friends and family who supported us in a financial way to launch our business. That was exceptionally wonderful but it is not necessarily the typical path. I think access to capital is a critical issue for business in general, but for women in particular. It's not a level playing field. It is way harder for a woman in business to access capital; that's just a plain reality. A lot more work needs to be done there. To me that's a huge challenge. It's easier now if you look at it compared to when we launched in 1991. There weren't things like crowdsource funding and Kickstarter, so you couldn't try your idea out and see if it would work. Crowdsource funding is amazing for small business. It's a great way to try your idea out.

I also think that women approach business differently. You know that saying that if Lehman brothers were Lehman sisters, the outcome might have been different. I think there's some truth to that. It's not that we're risk averse; I think we just have a different approach to business. If you look at now in terms of benefit corporations and conscious capitalism, the sort of caring movement that's moving forward, that's a really exciting time, in my view, for women, because it offers us an opportunity to bring our full selves to entrepreneurship and really shape how business is done differently going forward.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

In today's world, is there more access now for women to get money? You mentioned some different places, different institutions, that you could go to now and apply for money. Is that seen as a little easier?

[Janice McDonald]

I'd like to say that it's vastly improved, but it's still a challenge. The research will show that it's harder for women. It's harder for women start-ups. I think Ms. Roy made the comment that we have to do more and be better just to be equal. I think that's also true, even in the start-up culture. It is hard to get money. You can do it and it is there, but don't kid yourselves, it is hard. It's harder if you're a woman. It just is.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Do you feel education is essential to starting a business? Do you stress this factor to those who are looking at starting a business?

[Janice McDonald]

I think education is critical. Business is so complex now, and I think tremendous resources are available online, even if you're not in a position necessarily to go through a traditional institution. A lot of amazing information is available. Also the whole focus is different. There's an entrepreneurship community, a start-up community that you can tap into, which can really benefit young entrepreneurs in how you grow your business.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you.

Ms. Freeland, you have seven minutes.

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

It's a real pleasure for me to be here. I'd like to start by thanking our three witnesses for their terrific testimony from such different areas of women's lives. I think it's worth it for all of us to pause and reflect on how important this conversation is. Also, at least for me, it's shocking that we're still having these conversations.

My mother graduated from U of A law school in 1970. I remember being so proud of her as a pioneering Canadian professional and feminist, but really being confident as her daughter that these kinds of conversations, which are very familiar to me from my mom's kitchen, would not be ones that I would be having. I think our generation, the women around this table, have to make sure our daughters don't have these conversations 20 or 30 years from now.

Ms. McDonald spoke about how progress can happen, but that it's very slow. I think we collectively have to decide to speed it up.

I have a few questions.

Ms. McDonald, I was interested in your comments about women on boards. I would love to know your view on how strong the nudge from legislation should be. What's your view on quotas for boards, on a comply-or-explain kind of policy? Is there a country that you think gets this right?

[Janice McDonald]

As I mentioned, in 1992 when I originally wrote on this, we considered women one of the two genders. Obviously, things have changed now, and needed to in a whole bunch of ways, but we weren't a diversity. Change has been slow. I go back and forth because change has been slow, but comply-and-explain seems to fit with me. It's important that we get women on the lists for consideration. I think that's a starting point. I think we need to target the nominations committees to make sure that women are included in every search. We have to reach out to recruiters in that way as well.

I truly don't believe it is an issue of not having enough board-ready women. I think there are plenty of board-ready women, and I don't think it's a pipeline issue. We need to have those board-ready women identified. I would agree with Catalyst in that perhaps sometimes we just need to nudge to add one more board seat, because if we're waiting, we'll continue to wait for those board seats to come available.

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I agree with you, and I like your comments about B-corps. Would you like to see some Canadian legislation that encourages them? Some states in the U.S. and Latin American countries have it.

[Janice McDonald]

I think that benefit corporations are tremendous. Conscious capitalism says the triple bottom line is people, profit, and planet, although lately purpose is being added to that as well. I think where benefit corporations are interesting to me is they change the legal framework and allow companies to look at those other elements and not just profit.

It's not a Canadian example, but if you look at Ben & Jerry's, in 2000 they had to sell their company to Unilever because their requirement was obviously to maximize shareholder return, but the co-founder and some of the board of directors didn't think that aligned with their overall mission and purpose. Had they been a benefit corporation, they would have been able to look at all those aspects, which I think are very powerful for a new way of doing business.

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I'd like to ask Ms. Archer one last question.

Thanks for that great presentation. It was wonderful to see you in Edmonton in the summer. You identified, as you did in Edmonton, this very small funding gap for women, especially, say, a single mother with kids who wants to get training and boost their well-being, their family's and the community's. How would you suggest we go about closing that? Would it be an expansion of what we think of as student loans? Would it be an expansion of job training? What's the solution?

[JudyLynn Archer]

I think the solution is for the federal and provincial governments to work collaboratively. Right now what we're seeing is a tremendous gap, and that's where these women fall into the gap.

This issue is across Canada. Underemployed women fall between the funding cracks. They're not quite at a level of poverty where the welfare or the social assistance programs can pick them up, and they just don't quite fit into the government funding box very well. I think that is a problem between the federal and provincial governments. They both point the finger in each direction and say that she should be funded over here or over there. At the end of the day these individuals are falling through the cracks. They are the ones who make up a huge workforce here across Canada and are underemployed.