Evidence of meeting #49 for Status of Women in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was community.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Executive Director, National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada
Yes, I think it would really be good, and we can also encourage our community to start speaking out about their experiences, especially the women. We now have women who have been criminalized under this program.
Executive Director, National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada
Many have been deported back to the Philippines with their Canadian-born children, and there are many more who are actually working as prostitutes and are being trafficked because they need more income. Some who are no longer in the program and have no more legal papers have to resort to any kind of work in order to survive. The number of undocumented migrant workers in our community is increasing.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
I'd like to thank all three presenters. It is certainly very good information we're receiving here this afternoon. I'm sure we'll get a lot of very good suggestions from this.
Sheila, you talked about some different things, some of the challenges and some of the things that might help, and I thought that was very good. You talked about mandatory language training and so on. You talked about services in a multilingual setting, child care, and training dollars.
One thing I always wonder about, and I haven't been able to get that answer from people, is what the expectations are when people do immigrate. Is there a breakdown in what happens between the time they leave their country and the time they are here? Are they expecting more than they're getting?
Settlement Counsellor, AWIC Community and Social Services
Based on my experience of being a front-line worker and seeing people who have come into my centre requiring help, yes, there is definitely a feeling of being disheartened. Many of them come here as skilled workers, so they really do have the expectation that they're going to be able to put their skills to use. They come and realize that the foreign credential process is very lengthy or that the fees associated with doing that are very high, and it becomes very depressing and very debilitating. And if you cannot maintain a certain emotional stability, there is no way you can progress further.
Based on my clientele, I would say yes.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Ideally, it would be nice if we could overnight change the foreign credential policy and those things, but we've been working on this for a long time, and we're still not anywhere near being there.
Is there an avenue to at least have more realistic expectations for the immigrant? I don't mean to stop working on things from this end. We have to do that, and there are a lot of things we need to do, but is there an avenue to at least have things be more realistic for immigrants before they get here, or when they get here?
Settlement Counsellor, AWIC Community and Social Services
Upon getting here? Broadly speaking, people who come to our centre are unaware of the training that's available. They're unaware, so when we connect them with that—I don't want to paint a grim picture that there are no services available; there are some services, but I think the problem is that people don't know about them. It becomes a situation where there's no hope.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Is it difficult to get the client to you, to explain what the services are?
Settlement Counsellor, AWIC Community and Social Services
That's exactly it.
Settlement Counsellor, AWIC Community and Social Services
I don't know. Perhaps information could be provided when they get here. I don't mean all the information on everything they'll need, but information about the settlement agencies. Then they would flow to us first and we can assess them.
The problem is that they come here and there's no flow to the help they need. I see them when they're desperate.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
So we need to have an agency—a group or a branch of something that is going to explain the services they may need, so if they do need them they know where to access them.
Settlement Counsellor, AWIC Community and Social Services
That's right. Even simple things, such as in the airports—It's having more awareness as to what services are available. Again, I don't want to say there is nothing available for people.
Settlement Counsellor, AWIC Community and Social Services
There is a lot of help available. I think the immigrant women community is a hidden community. Somehow, they're not accessing the services we have.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to thank you. The expertise you bring here today is obvious and I want to thank you very much for sharing that with us.
I want to start with Ms. Diocson. You began to talk about the research that has gone into the work you do. I was wondering how your research is funded and how you go about doing that research.
Executive Director, National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada
When there was funding to do research, we received funding from the Status of Women Canada, both at the federal and regional levels.
We also collaborate with academics such as University of British Columbia Professor Geraldine Pratt. We have also worked with Habiba Zaman, who has looked at the economic security of Filipino women. We have just concluded one collaborative research. She came out with a book a few months ago entitled Breaking the Iron Wall. It's about immigrant women from the Philippines and from South Asian communities.
These are two areas where we can have more credible research by collaborating with the academics, and also other research institutions such as the Centre for Policy Alternatives in British Columbia. So this is what we have been doing.
As a community, we also continue to do research on our own. We organize our youth to do the community-based research. It is an important method for us to know what is happening in our community and to connect the issues so we can empower the community.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
We know this research component of Status of Women Canada has been eliminated. You started to say how very important it is to have research. Has it caused problems? Are you concerned about the loss of opportunity to be funded by Status of Women Canada?
Executive Director, National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada
Yes. I think it's a very important component of our work; it is also part of our development strategies. We have a lot of second-generation Filipino Canadians who have the knowledge and the skills to benefit the community, and we do have self-reliant initiatives to raise funds, but having the funding--even a little funding--to do the research is really important, because we do not have any core funding.
So having this is important. At the same time there is an opportunity for Status of Women Canada to know what is happening in our community, because we submit our report.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Okay, thank you.
Ms. Konanur, you were talking about the importance of a national child care strategy and—Well, we don't have one; what we have is $100 per child per month.
I'm wondering, does this help immigrant women? Are they able to get the kind of child care they need on what's available?
Settlement Counsellor, AWIC Community and Social Services
On the basis of the clients I'm seeing, no. There is still a problem accessing child care. I don't believe an additional $100 a month solves the problem. There may need to be more spots created so there's not as long a waiting list. There may need to be more of an allowance given. But as it stands now, no.
I believe the lack of child care, as I said before, really prevents people from going out there and working sometimes, and that's a huge problem. That may be why this group is so vulnerable.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Ms. Fast, you were talking about health care services. You made reference to the fact that so many caregivers end up looking after relatives because there is just not adequate home care. I'm wondering, would you support incorporating home care and pharmacare as part of the Canada Health Act? Should that be part and parcel of the services provided to facilitate women who are caught in this trap?
Co-Director, Research on Aging, Policies and Practice Research Program, Department of Human Ecology, University of Alberta, As an Individual
I'm not sure I can answer the question about whether it should be incorporated under the Canada Health Act. That certainly would secure the availability of services, or theoretically could secure the availability of those services, for those who need them.
I can say that the lack of adequate home care is a serious problem. And I should say that this has evolved over time into a problem, in part because the home care that is available has been shifted from what had historically been primarily targeted at chronic care, which is primarily the problems of old age, to post-acute care. People are being discharged from hospital earlier than in the past, and with fairly high levels of need, including intravenous therapy, catheterization, various medication needs, and other sorts of high-level personal care requirements.
So home care has now been shifted to serve that population, away from serving the population it historically served, which was the chronic care needs. What we have now is a situation where a group who had been previously serviced are no longer being serviced adequately.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Thank you, Ms. Mathyssen.
We now go to a five-minute round. We'll start off with Ms. Neville.
