Status of Women Committee on May 30th, 2006

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

You probably can't answer my next question, but it would seem that there needs to be some intervention in terms of spousal violence. Perhaps it's a matter of there not being the support systems available--home care or long-term care--to help people through this very troubling kind of situation.

[Karen Mihorean]

In Canada, I think there's only one facility for senior, older Canadians who are abused by intimate partners--I think it's still there in Calgary--called Kirby House. So there is one in the system. But the rates are relatively low. We do know that rates of spousal violence do decrease with age. Although it does exist, the rates are very low.

As far as I am aware, there used to be one in Montreal, but from our transition home survey, I think there's just the one residential facility for abused older Canadians. There certainly are other types of support groups and that, but as for residential facilities, there's one. Victim services that are located across the country do have programs that focus on older Canadians who are victims of violence, as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you.

Mrs. Grewal.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the presenters for coming here today.

I'd like to begin by asking a question in relation to immigrant women in Canada. One-third of the residents of my riding are immigrants, and a number of those undoubtedly are women. Canada was built by immigrants, but it increasingly seems as though immigrants, particularly women, are finding to difficult to gain lasting employment.

Are there any trends or statistics that might help shed some light on this issue? For example, what percentage of immigrant workers are currently employed, in comparison to Canadian citizens; and what, if any, are the differences in earnings?

[Colin Lindsay]

We talked a little bit earlier about this. Currently, if you look at the overall immigrant population--I'm talking about slightly different sources from some of the other data here, so bear with me--about 58% of all immigrant women are employed compared with about 64% of all women in Canada, so there's about a six percentage point difference. But as I said earlier, the big difference is in whether you're a recent immigrant or have been here for a while.

If you look at women who have been here longer, who came before 1990, their employment rate is 63% or 64%, the very same as the overall population, whereas in terms of women who arrived since 1990, considerably fewer are employed--just above 50%.

I don't have the actual income dollars here, but in terms of low-income rates, currently, among women who have been in Canada before 1990, about 16% or 17% have low incomes. Again, that's the same basic number as the overall female population.

Immigrant women who have arrived since 1990 have a low-income rate of 35%, which is over twice what it is for the overall population and the immigrants who have been here longer periods. So obviously there is that distinction, particularly for those who are recent arrivals.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mrs. Smith.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

I find increasingly very disturbing the plight of aboriginal women, and my colleagues around this table have been very concerned about it as well.

I don't know whether my question would be to Rosemary or Mr. Lindsay, one of you.

Aboriginal women living on reserve are showing that they have lower incomes than aboriginal women living off reserve. In addition, they have a challenge in view of the Marriage Act in Canada. When a couple goes through a divorce, women off the reserve have all the rights in terms of being able to have the house or share equally with the husband, but on reserve, that's different. If the marriage is broken up, the women do lose their homes, and so the women and children are basically out on the street.

I'm wondering whether your organization has done anything to look at the statistics of what has happened to these women, and whether you could comment on making very strong government policy to make sure there are equal rights there for the aboriginal women. Have you done any work on that study?

[Colin Lindsay]

Let me talk a little bit in very general terms.

We talk about diversity issues, and we've had some questions about immigrants and visible minorities. As a general rule, those populations don't do quite as well as the overall population, but the differences are fairly close. There are much wider differences between the aboriginal female population and the overall population. They're less than half as likely to have university training, for example. They're more than twice as likely to have low incomes. They are considerably less likely to be employed. There is also a difference between women who live off-reserve and on-reserve. The women who live on-reserve tend to have statistics—again, we're talking national averages here—that are not as positive as for those who live off-reserve, although there's not a huge difference between those two groups. Again, though, our role really is to present that data, and we haven't asked those other questions.

Rosemary may want to add something here.

[Rosemary Bender]

Only to say that we do work with national aboriginal organizations in order to really develop and design a survey for reserves, for example, that looks at the very specific issues that are really important for understanding the situation of aboriginals, and aboriginal women in particular, on reserves. We are working with the organizations to develop a tool that can really provide information they can use.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Minna.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to come back, if I may, to the violence issue with Ms. Mihorean with regard to immigrant visible minority women.

I know that the studies are done with the English-speaking and French-speaking only, and that's part of the problem. I did volunteer work in the immigrant community for 20 years before being elected and I was doing work in this area for part of that time. So I can tell you that the bulk of the women in the Portuguese community, the Italian Canadian community, and a number of others were simply not reporting. I don't think you're picking it up, with all respect to you, and you're missing out. I don't know how much you're picking up from other South Asian women and others.

I feel there needs to be a study. Maybe Statistics Canada is the one to do it, I don't know. Obviously you should seek those other statistics anyway, that really address this area and start to try to identify and penetrate. Maybe it needs to be done with bilingual, bicultural workers.

I wonder if you had thought of that. I don't think your figures are accurate until you factor in the population that is not anglo- or franco-Canadian.

[Karen Mihorean]

This is often one of the drawbacks in conducting a national survey. People want it to answer all kinds of questions for various segments of the population. Certainly, we are limited by the fact that the survey is conducted in only English and French.

We have conducted other surveys--Rosemary can speak to this as well--in multiple languages. This is certainly something we need to look at in the future, with the growing immigrant population and the growing number of people who speak neither English nor French.

It's not only a language issue; it's a cultural issue as well. Disclosing violence is very difficult, and depending on the culture you're from, it is something that would perhaps be more difficult for some than for others.

I released those figures to you. That's why I set out the limitations of the survey. Yes, our survey does get lower rates, but if we were to do more targeted research within those communities we might find a difference.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

My other question is still on violence, if I have a minute left.

I understand that the statistics show a decline, but I want to clarify that this has to do specifically with violence that has been reported to the police or in hospital. Really, what I am asking is if you think there is also a fair amount of violence that has not yet been reported.

[Karen Mihorean]

The decline that I spoke of very early was from our victimization survey taken in the study period between the 1999 and 2004. That was with wife assault. Drilling down even further, in particular with respect to previous relationships, there have been decreases. This is also supported in our police-reported data; there have been slight decreases.

This is good news. We've been part of the federal family violence initiative since the early 1990s, and there has been a lot of effort going on, not only at the federal level but also at the provincial and community levels, so we hope to see a decrease. There's a decrease of 1%. Whether or not that's a statistically significant decrease, our hope is that this downward trend will continue.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I have a very brief question for Mr. Lindsay with respect to income for seniors. One of the issues I worked on previously with my colleagues concerned poverty among senior women, specifically unattached senior women. Now, I see from your chart that senior poverty has declined. I wondered if you could expand a bit, because it says that one in five senior women who live alone is in poverty. Or am I mistaken?

[Colin Lindsay]

Stats Canada doesn't call it poverty. It's a low-income cut-off, which is defined based on family spending patterns, average spending patterns, and so on. I think if we put a word to it, it's called straitened circumstances, as opposed to poverty.

Yes, go ahead.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

The issue of senior poverty and economic security is still a major issue, obviously, with respect to unattached women.

[Colin Lindsay]

Again, these are national averages. I think what's significant is the fact that you had this massive decline from 60% to 20%, but one in five is still a fairly significant part of that population.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Next we'll have Ms. Grewal and Ms. Davidson on the list, with about eight minutes left to go.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

I have a very short question. Why is there a sudden drop-off in employment and wages for immigrant women who came to Canada after 1990, as compared to those who came to Canada before 1990?

[Colin Lindsay]

I think “drop-off” is probably a poor word. What we really would have to do is look at how women who had arrived before 1990 had done during their recent arrival years. In that sense, we're comparing apples and oranges. The recent arrivals have not really had time to adjust.

On the other hand, while we say their employment and income levels are lower, they're a very well-educated population. Among recent immigrant women, more than one in four has a university degree, so they have some tools to work with. To make a comparison between the two, whether recent immigrant women are currently doing better or worse than their counterparts, you'd have to go back and compare how those women were doing after they had been in the country five or ten years. My guess is you would see a similar pattern.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Davidson.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

I'd like to thank both of today's presenters.

Certainly, it's been very enlightening. I think we've seen some statistics that are encouraging, we've seen some that are discouraging, and we've seen some where we fully expected to see the trends going that way, given the emphasis this subject has had over the last few years. We still have a long way to go, but I think it is encouraging in some areas.

Mr. Lindsay, in your first slide, regarding the education and percentage of women and men with a university degree, I think that's very encouraging to see. Your comment that women will soon surpass male numbers is intriguing as well. I think this shows a very distinct trend.

Regarding your next chart, Mr. Lindsay, with the low income after tax—maybe part of this was answered when you were speaking with Ms. Minna—but what is the low-income cut-off? How do you base that? I did read the article in the large book, but could you go through that a bit more, so we can better understand what you're using? I understand it's not a poverty level, which apparently, from any work I've done in the past, is very difficult to define.

[Colin Lindsay]

It's very subjective, yes.