Status of Women Committee on Oct. 22nd, 2009

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Ms. Neville.

We'll go to Monsieur Desnoyers.

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Fry.

Welcome to you all.

Ms. Ducharme, I shall start with you. I must say that I thought that in the federal public service women's labour rights would be more recognized than they seem to be. You spoke of harassment and discrimination. I believe that you submitted a study showing with important data cases of harassment and discrimination in the different groups or professional categories. I would like you to speak more on this subject.

I would also like to hear you speak further on the approach used to train women in non-traditional occupations within the federal government. You referred to child care. Family responsibilities also need to be taken into account. Are they taken into account? Are there reasonable accommodations made in non-traditional occupations so that women have access to these types of employment?

The last issue I would like to address is that of Aboriginal women. You touched on the subject and I would like to know more about discrimination. In this case, discrimination is more of a racial kind. While this is not only a problem at the federal level, it is in the federal context that I would like to hear you on that point.

I also have a question for Ms. Hiromi Matsui. According to the Conference Board, in 2025 we can expect an important manpower shortage in the non-traditional trades and professions. I would like to know what role could women play in alleviating this shortage.

This should use up my seven minutes.

[Patty Ducharme]

Thank you very much, Mr. Desnoyers. I shall answer in English because I am a little faster in English.

With the statistics that we used from the current public service, the statistics related to women who currently work for the public service, those statistics actually come from the most recent public service employee survey that was conducted by Treasury Board Secretariat on behalf of Treasury Board and other core administration employers. I believe it was done last year, in 2008, so that's where the statistics from the public service that are public service-specific come from.

I believe your next question was with respect to accommodation of women in broader trades and whether there was sufficient accommodation for them to fully participate in non-traditional work. Is that correct?

I don't actually believe that there's significant or meaningful accommodation of women and family status for women to fully participate economically in Canada, period. I do speak from a pan-Canadian perspective. While I recognize that Quebec has the best child care program in Canada--or at least I would suggest that it does--I recognize that there are problems for part-time workers, students, and shift workers who live and work in Quebec. There's also the whole issue of space availability for children.

For women across the rest of Canada, I would suggest that our failure to deal with the issues related to child care and eldercare definitely has a huge impact on women's ability to fully participate economically in the country.

On the question of aboriginal women, were you asking about the statistics or...?

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

My question was more concerned with the attitude of the workplace towards these women in non-traditional occupations. Is there more racism, discrimination or harassment? What are we doing to accommodate these native women?

[Patty Ducharme]

I certainly think we need to ensure that those work environments are free of harassment and free of racism, including institutionalized racism. A good example of that would be some of the language we try to negotiate in our collective agreements, language that is reflective of traditional aboriginal cultures, for traditional interment ceremonies, for example, and also for leave with respect to those who participate in hunting season; we have language that covers this for our members who live and work in the northern territories of this country.

Obviously there are ways in which we can work to ensure that people who do come into workplaces feel welcomed and don't feel excluded from the workplace and the workplace culture as new hires.

[Hiromi Matsui]

Thank you.

I just want to clarify the question. I thought you asked what women could do to increase the number of women in skilled trades. Is that what you were asking?

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

The Conference Board said that in 2025 there will be an important shortage of qualified manpower in non-traditional professions and trades. I was wondering how women could contribute to the solution.

[Hiromi Matsui]

It's very interesting how you phrased the question. I'll attempt to answer it.

With respect, I think it is a responsibility of all people, not simply women. In fact, there are many more men in power than women.

You know, I come to Ottawa now and then, and I have to say that I see a very big disconnect between what is going on in Canada, in real life, and what is going on in policy rooms. I see a very big lack of accountability and a very big gap between practice and principle.

I have to say that when I hear about the experiences that women in the skilled trades are experiencing now in Canada, and then you ask me this question, I am slightly taken aback by it. That's because I think all of us, particularly the people in government, in leadership positions, have a responsibility to educate and inform employers and managers about human rights legislation. I've sat in meetings very recently where managers have said that if they get a stack of applications from women and some from men, they'll put the ones from the women aside and they'll look at the ones from the men.

This is very common practice, so what this points out to me is that there needs to be an increased awareness and understanding of the legislation in our country by our legislators and by the people like yourselves who work for the country. Because people do not understand. I work in a university where everyone has their own point of view and we try to gently point it out when something goes against the human rights code.

Hedy's making faces at me. Sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

That's okay. Ms. Matsui, we have gone to eight minutes and 45 seconds. That was a long time.

Cathy McLeod.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to also thank the witnesses.

I guess what I want to do is to give two examples, and I would really appreciate comments from all of the panel in terms of what these examples might mean and what we can learn from them.

My first example comes from my work with an aboriginal community in the 1980s. At that time, they brought up Red Seal training to the community. There was child care available that the band was running. They actually had significant construction opportunities and there were a few women who had uptake of this particular program and continued to work within their community. This was significant construction that lasted for years. There was also cultural sensitivity within that example because it was a band-run project. I don't know if the government shifted away from that kind of model in the 1990s. I don't know what happened, but it's quite discouraging to hear that we're no further ahead. That's sort of my first example. I'm not sure if it was successful. It sounded like it should have had all the features of success.

My second example is that I believe at the time—or maybe it was ten years earlier, and Madam Fry might be able to comment—in medical schools, we had a really disproportionate male-to-female ratio. Of course that's turned around, so I guess in that one example, something happened so that it became much more proportionate and appropriate. In the other example, I don't know what happened because I'm not sure.

I'd really love to hear your thoughts about why one didn't continue to grow, because the goals were the same at the time. It's a puzzle to me, so I'd really like your insight.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ms. Matsui.

[Hiromi Matsui]

You speak about medical schools. The number of female applicants to medical school is very high right now. I'm not quite sure what your question was about the medical school issue.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

What we had was.... What was it at one point?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ten percent of the medical students in my day were women.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Yet we managed to shift the medical occupation to a much more equitable footing. What happened there that didn't happen elsewhere?

[Hiromi Matsui]

You ask hard questions. Yes, there are positive increases in the medical field. More girls are studying science because they see it as a way of helping make the world a better place.

In regard to what you talk about with the aboriginal issue, I'm afraid the cultural and historical context makes it much more complex. I'm sure Patty can speak to that too. These are not simple wrongs that can be undone easily. The start of sensitivity, of training, of understanding, is only a start. There has to be a coordinated national education on awareness, understanding, and implementation to start that kind of healing, I'm afraid. It's a huge task, as we all know, with many facets.

Every day I drive through a first nations area where they say “Save our future”, and they have pictures of the children. This is where I see that you have to do some fundamental work. There is work being done, but it's never been enough. It's a huge challenge.

Patty, I'll turn it over to you to give comment.

[Patty Ducharme]

Just on the medical school comment, highlighting the difference, I've never been to medical school. I have, however, been to law school. We were talking about that earlier on, about the number of women entering professions, going to university, getting their degrees in law or getting their medical degrees, who then leave their profession because as a society we don't support their work, and the expectations from their profession are just not realistic.

If you're a young woman and you're a mother and you're going to practise law and work an 80-hour work week, you're not going to see your kids. Quite honestly, there's a huge pressure on young professionals when, as Hiromi said about having equal consideration to the life realities of each gender, we don't do that in our society at this point in time, to the economic detriment for women's' full participation.

With respect to what happened in the band, not having been there, I can't speak to that specifically, but I recognize full well that there's a history of many layers of oppression with aboriginal people in this country. I think that is a full backdrop. There's the whole question of women within that community feeling comfortable and supported in assuming non-traditional work, which could fly in the face of the community and would present some challenges on a personal level for those women in addition to whatever is going on in their lives.

We like to think we can ride in on a white horse and help people out in their communities. We need to be really mindful of letting those communities determine what's going to work for the community itself.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I absolutely have to agree. Because they seemed to have all the elements of community control and support. There was something missing, or again maybe we don't.... Maybe their funding was for short-term programs, and then they got dropped off in the 1990s. I don't know what happened. We didn't create the tipping point that we'd like to hear about.

Anyway, I appreciate your thoughts on that issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Now we'll move to Irene Mathyssen.

If I could have the committee's permission, when we finish with the witnesses, I might say what I think happened with medical school. We cannot just judge the enrolment and the graduation as the ability to work at it. I have many colleagues who did not practise medicine until the age of 40, after their kids grew up, by which time they were out of modern-practice understanding.

The fundamental thing for women is about rearing children, and that is a big issue for them in being able to get into the workforce--to have the credential and the training, and actually work. It is still so in medicine, but I'll speak to that a little later if you will indulge me then.

Irene.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank all of you for being here and providing this perspective. We had heard from Statistics Canada, and while it was helpful, it was less instructive than what you did, which was to put a human face on the facts.

Ms. Matsui, Ms. Ducharme, and Ms. Pilon, you all made reference to pay equity. You talked about women earning only 68¢ on the men's dollar. I had the sense that you believe pay equity is essential for getting women satisfying jobs and full accessibility to the job market.

We have a Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act. It was part of Budget 2009. Does it address your pay equity concerns, or is it too soon for us to see the results of the legislation?

[Patty Ducharme]

I believe I appeared before the committee to speak on the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act. It was implemented in the Budget Implementation Act and enacted on March 12 of this year. It was all very recent, and we don't yet have any numbers to base an analysis on.

With respect to that act, I will say that it prevents public sector workers in female-dominated groups from filing complaints with the Human Rights Commission . It does that through a whole host of mechanisms.

First, it increases the threshold of what is considered a female-dominated group from 55% to 70%, which virtually eliminates all the outstanding complaints that we have. It obliges the worker to go ahead on her own, without union support, to present her complaint. You could hire a lawyer, but pay equity complaints, being highly technical, often last a long time. The system under the Human Rights Commission is not perfect, but it provides results and representation.

The act also bars unions from recommending that their members move ahead with a pay equity complaint, from supporting them in their complaint, and from providing them with representation. For example, if I were to have a discussion with a member and say to her that she should file a pay equity complaint, the union could be fined $50,000. So the union would be fined for doing its job, which, in my opinion, is to represent its members.

With respect to modernizing the pay equity system, we're critical of the new legislation. We are challenging it in the courts. We believe it's unconstitutional. We believe it violates women's human rights. We feel it's a regressive piece of legislation that's trying to roll the clock back for federal public sector workers in female-dominated bargaining units.

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

You made reference to the imbalance in the infrastructure stimulus funding and advocated tying the funding to gender. A lot of the funding is going to sewers, water, roads, and the kinds of things in which few women work. If some of that money had been invested in social infrastructure like child care, or more in affordable housing, would there have been a better outcome for women? Would we have employed more women? Would we have made life better for women by encouraging them to take the kind of jobs we've been talking about here today?

[Patty Ducharme]

Absolutely. I know there was a report just released. I'll have to get the details of it for the members of the committee. It was a report that contrasted statistically the numbers had the government invested the money in a national child care program, the increased number of jobs vis-à-vis people working, as opposed to the result from construction, road work, bridge work, and so on. So it focused on the fact that more people would be employed per se through those lines of work, as opposed to work where a large amount of the investment is going into the concrete, into the materials themselves, as opposed to people actually on the job.

We will get that information for you.

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

I'd appreciate that very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have one minute.