Human Resources Committee on May 11th, 2021

[Selma Kouidri]

Doing that could make a big difference. If I don't happen to see a sentence like that at the bottom of the employment offers I look at, I don't even apply, because I tell myself that these employers will not hire me and that if I mention my visual impairment, they'll asked me all kinds of questions. They are often afraid.

More promotion is needed for work by disabled people. Discussions about the existing models are needed with employers, including some top business and organization leaders. Non-governmental organizations, NGOs, and not for profit organizations, NPOs, enable people with disabilities to acquire skills. These organizations are run at arm's length and don't have much funding. Why not encourage them?

There are also organizations run by and for persons with disabilities. They pay taxes, and are involved in society. Why not provide effective promotion and support for the work they do? Demonstrating their competence would take away the misgivings felt by businesses. Private businesses would see that we are capable of managing organizations. Why then could we not manage private companies?

I think we could be invited from time to time.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Long.

Ms. Chabot, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you.

I'll take this opportunity to congratulate you on this award and on your work.

I might have a suggestion to make our work today more visible. We can discuss it in committee. We could at least, through a press release, inform people of what we are doing here on the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, which gives these awards. In any event, I think that we could do a little more.

The mandate latter for the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion clearly indicates that she is to work on an action plan for disability inclusion.

What would be your message, if you had one, to make this a reality, whether for women and people with disabilities, or through them?

[Selma Kouidri]

As I mentioned, the mandate is clear. The problem is that the same organizations are always approached, those that have always worked in concert with the government, I think, or those which have always been there. Change has not been all that concrete.

It might also be necessary to alter our focus and see how we might help these people in the field. For example, the non-refundable tax credit offered to persons with disabilities might well provide useful and adequate assistance, because there would be no access unless people were working. That could constitute hiring assistance and help for disabled people themselves, so that they could create their own jobs or support the labour market. I think working with businesses would be something worth exploring.

Even though I've been told that quotas are not really very good, I agree with them because they can lead to jobs for persons with disabilities. They also need time to develop. For example, the Royal Bank hires a lot of disabled people, but they remain in the same position forever and never move up the ladder. Why? They have the skills. They have been educated, have knowledge, and also want to be helpful. So we need to adapt!

The pandemic forced us all to adapt. We have all seen that working remotely is just fine. As it happens, disabled people have been asking for decades to be able to do remote work, which would have enabled them to enter the labour force. However, employers have always been very reluctant to do this. When everybody started working remotely across Canada, no one asked for assistance from persons with disabilities. And yet they have more expertise in this because they've been doing it for decades.

I believe that if I were to have a discussion with the minister, I would have a lot to tell her and many suggestions to make.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

We'll invite you.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Absolutely.

Thank you, Ms. Chabot.

Next we have Ms. Gazan, please, for two and a half minutes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much, Chair.

I just wanted to build on my last question around the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

I agree with you. Since the pandemic, we certainly have seen—and we knew all along, in fact—how the disabled community's human rights are not upheld in this country, and certainly the support for disabled persons during the pandemic was, in my opinion, much less than adequate.

What changes do you feel could be put in place that would make a difference right now to improve the quality of life for disabled persons and to ensure that all disabled persons could live with human rights and dignity?

[Selma Kouidri]

I believe that I'm already familiar with the population of people with disabilities, which most people do not know very well.

Statistics Canada does not do very precise studies. Even we don't understand who the people with disabilities are and how to define this population in order to be able to serve it and support it.

Programs are based on things like population statistics, and that's the crux of the problem. During the pandemic, we found that support for persons with disabilities was virtually nonexistent. Financial support to persons with disabilities was at the bottom of the list and yet it had already been determined that the cost of as food basket had increased enormously. But no one thought of disabled people, who don't even have their own financial resources and have to rely on social assistance. I'm talking not only about people living in Quebec, but elsewhere too. They only came to mind at the very end. A list of poverty priorities for the entire population was drawn up.

We know our population groups. We've asked the Canadian and Quebec governments to take persons with disabilities into account. The WHO and the UN made a declaration to this effect. Persons with disabilities need to be included in all measures implemented to combat the pandemic and provide people with support. They shouldn't be an afterthought. The problem is that measures are created for the general population and only adapted later to certain groups. We need to think more globally.

We've been told about inclusive societies, and our programs should reflect that. Persons with disabilities have significant financial needs.

The last budget provided for assistance to person with disabilities, but not enough. Not all disabled people have access to the tax credit for persons with disabilities, and don't even know how to go about getting it. It's important to talk about it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Kouidri.

Next we have Ms. Dancho, please, for five minutes.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

I'll add my thoughts to the rest of the committee members' that this is incredible information that you've shared. When I lived in Montreal, I had never heard of Maria Barile, so I was thrilled to read your report and to hear so much about her.

I thought you did an excellent job and I really appreciated the specific quotes you chose from her stories. You really built a narrative of what kind of woman she was, and I congratulate you on that, as well.

I was interested to learn in your report that she had attended McGill University, and I believe she was one of the first in her family to do so. I had a kind of bonding moment when I read that, because I was also the first person in my family to attend university and I also went to McGill. I believe you mentioned in your report that she didn't see many people like herself, she didn't really see any acceptance and she faced quite a bit of what she felt was discrimination at McGill.

I want you to perhaps give us more detail on what she experienced. Also, in your report it seemed that you alluded to that as being the spark that started her activism, so can you tell us a little more about that?

For anyone else who attended McGill, it's a great school and they've made a lot of progressive moves forward, so I was glad to see that they've come a long way but also disappointed that she had that experience.

Anyway, I'll let you take it away, and if you could share with us more of her experience, that would be great.

[Selma Kouidri]

She would often report on snatches of discussion. By speaking with some of her family members and reading some of her writings, I learned about her experience in social work at McGill University. She really wanted to be close to people and give them emotional support. For her, this meant social work, and it was all she wanted.

The feminist movement was very big at the time. However, when she looked into feminist studies, she could never find any statistics about disabled women or immigrant women. The statistics she did find about persons with disabilities came from the United States, not Canada. She wondered where we were on that and came to the conclusion that disabled women were invisible everywhere in society. That motivated her deeply.

She told her university professor that she wanted to engage in a thorough discussion on the realities of disabled women and to shed light on this issue, because she couldn't understand why people knew so little about it. Her professor encouraged her to do just that.

She had problems however, because all of her work was based on facts and statistics from the United States rather than Canada. She was unable to base her research on her own realities. The process was very difficult.

Statistics on persons with disabilities in Canada were monolithic. There were no differentiated analyses by gender at the time. She had to get all her information from abroad, in the United States. She was in close contact with American support organizations and those fighting for the rights of disabled people.

This university work led to her decision about what the cornerstone of her work would be. Her main concern was the fact that disabled women were invisible in the women's groups. Even in the women's groups, women from the diversity were excluded, both immigrant and disabled women.

Her work was also the first of its kind at McGill University to investigate the segment of the population made up by disabled women. She was part of that and afterwards worked on this issue. She concluded that these women had many challenges to face, including poverty, exclusion, and violence, which was one of her major concerns.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, do I have just a few seconds left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

If you have a closing comment, go ahead. You probably don't have time for a question and answer.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Okay.

Thank you again, Selma, for your incredible work, and please keep sharing incredible stories like Maria's with the world. I think you've made a great addition to the Canadian landscape.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Dancho.

The final question is for Mr. Dong.

Mr. Dong, you have five minutes. Go ahead.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

To Selma, if I may, congratulations on your great work. I went through the report. It's quite fascinating. I agree with my colleague MP Long and other colleagues that we should do more to promote your work and make it known to more people so that we get more support on battling a lot of the issues raised by your report.

I heard you talking about stats, and today is the deadline to return census forms. I see in your report that Ms. Barile spoke about the long-form census and how important it is to obtain “a realistic profile of a part of the population that is often invisible.” Speaking as a former census commissioner, I can tell you how much I appreciate the amount of work StatsCan staff and census staff put in to ensure the integrity of these data and how important these data are to help us shape policy going forward.

Can you talk a little bit about what she meant by that and expand on the importance of the census?

[Selma Kouidri]

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about that. I believe it's very important. It was a real battle. Maria Barile was very disappointed when the long-form census was shortened. We were not very aware of it, but the more time went by, the more we could see how important these statistics were. We want to be more than just a number, but numbers are important as we draw up plans and, as you pointed out, policies.

She worked hard. She wrote articles about it. She complained about the new version of the now very short census. I remember being very disappointed when I received the form, because there was not enough space to include all the information that I thought was important and that represented me. It meant that my right to inform my political representatives, my MPs, and the government that I existed had been taken away.

Using such a short and simple census makes the most vulnerable groups invisible. But it's important to make these groups more visible. We therefore feel that it's very important for the long-form census to be used. Unfortunately, that requires some work. In our organization, we work a lot with statistics. We rely heavily on what Statistics Canada produces, even here in Quebec, to demonstrate the importance of working with vulnerable and more marginalized groups. For our decision-makers, unfortunately, the numbers matter.

In short, we would like the census to be much more accessible and much longer, and to include the space we need to describe our reality. It's an ongoing battle for us.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

From your response, I can tell that you perhaps received the short form of the census before many Canadians. The lucky ones get the long form of it. Like you, I'm happy to see the return of the long form.

I also read the report, and there was a quote in it that I couldn't agree with more. That's why I took a screenshot of it. It goes, “If you look at a disabled persons and only see their disability, you’re not looking at them the right way.” That was a quote by Maria. I couldn't agree with her more because it's so true. You can expand that. Whether it's gender-based, race-based, religious-based or newcomer-based, it's all discrimination. That's the essence of discrimination. It's so counterproductive to society, given what they can bring to the table.

Can you speak a bit about that? I heard your previous answer about opening up the job opportunities, but how do we, as a society, see beyond a disability to a person's true talents and true contributions to an organization, community or business? How do we ensure that this takes place in our public policy?

[Selma Kouidri]

Awareness is very important. Today, the beneficiaries of this award are making people aware of this work and of the fact that these people make a very important contribution to society. That's part of the promotional effort. It takes stock of their social engagement and their economic inclusion.

As for me, I represent intersectionality: I'm a woman, I'm an immigrant, and I have a visual impairment. I often get around without a white cane, but when I use it, my world changes completely. People no longer look at me the same way. I am no longer Selma, the person everyone knows, perhaps even as a colleague. All people see is the white cane. It's as if they were all suddenly cut off. What I want to do is make them aware. I want to tell them that the white cane is only one aspect of me, that I am much more than this white cane, that I am a fully developed individual, that I have a lot to offer, and also that I have a lot to learn about them.

We try to raise people's awareness every day. We do this as part of our work, and in workshops. It's important to ask us in. I don't know whether it's possible to occasionally have a meeting with someone who is disabled. Perhaps you have employees who have a disability. Placing these people in the forefront also helps to identify models that might lead to deciding that it's possible for us to get beyond the disability fact. By seeing a person right in front of them, even employers can determine that it's possible. It's not necessary for these people to have done anything extraordinary, whether in sports are elsewhere. They could just be ordinary people from the general population.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you.

[Selma Kouidri]

Sorry. I've been talking a lot, haven't I?

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Your passion is obvious, and we appreciate it. We are also grateful for your work and your expertise. It's also obvious that you clearly have an impressive future ahead of you.

Your testimony will also help parliamentarians in their work. As you know, this award is given out annually. It has been a wonderful experience to have you with the committee, and it will definitely help us with our selection of future recipients.

Thank you once again, and thank you for your work and for being here today.

We're going to continue the meeting and move on to the committee's work. You're welcome to sit in, but you could also leave the meeting if you prefer.

[Selma Kouidri]

Thank you very much for this honour. Allow me to repeat that it's a real honour for me. We'll be doing a launch this fall and we will of course send you all the information about our report.

If anyone needs me to show a little more passion, I'll be available and would do so with pleasure.

Thank you for your attention.