Status of Women Committee on April 14th, 2010

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much for being here. This has been a fascinating presentation, and I think we've gleaned more information than we need in order to write a good report. So I thank you for all of that.

I wanted to start with a general question for everyone. It comes from a report that is more than 20 years old. It's More Than Just Numbers. One of the things I think is the most disconcerting is that despite the fact this is a 20-year-old report, I think it still rings true. Basically the report says that governments have an important role to play in applying a diversity or gender lens to sectoral strategies, human resources development programs, procurement policies, communications, tax policies, etc. In addition, it said that policies related to parental leave, elder care, and child care all have a huge effect on the working conditions for women.

I'd like to throw pay equity into that mix, although it may not always apply. I was struck by the fact that Ms. Mihychuk talked about the discrepancy in pay. I'm wondering if you could comment on all of those things, the child care, the elder care, the pay equity piece in terms of making it possible for women to be all that they can be and enter those traditionally male jobs.

[Marie Carter]

The only reason I wanted to start is that one of the comments I'd like to make is that the province of Quebec has really led the way with having programs in place that help women. They led the way on maternity leave. They're leading the way now on child care, and I would hazard to guess they will likely lead the way on elder care. All of those things are working towards making two-income families a lot more sustainable.

As I mentioned earlier, we're finding that the guys who are going into the field are having the same difficulties as the women are. When we look at the demographics and the fact that our population is aging, the issues of elder care and who looks after those people as they get older and the fact that there needs to be flexibility and the ability for one or the other of either the child or the parent or whoever the caregiver is to provide that.... Certainly Quebec does lead the way on these things. I think the other provinces would do well to follow that example fairly quickly.

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

And the federal government has a role in terms of leading that.

[Marie Carter]

Absolutely.

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

Are there any other comments in that regard?

[Mary Ann Mihychuk]

From my perspective, the report indicated that it is about more than numbers, that there's a certain level of employment strategies that have to be taken, and that leadership has to be provided. Until industry recognizes that it's a problem, they're not really prepared to take steps to address it. That was one of the issues, and we're working with that. As a person with my own company and working in the mineral industry, I can say we always go back to the basics. Well, this is no longer an issue. So you have to go and present that.

Leadership from government would definitely be helpful, as would some flexibility. You can look at good business models. For instance, commercial tourist fishing camps have always engaged first nations women and men, I think, in a fairly successful model. They allow the whole family to come into a remote bush camp. I have always said that if you looked at it, exploration is not much different from a fishing camp. In fact, if we allowed families to bring their children.... Many of us would have to have our own nannies, but I think this also applies to men. It's really about being flexible, about looking at different ways.

If we're going to be working in Nunavut, or in the far north, or in some remote area, then be sensitive. Don't expect individuals to be away from their families for three, four, or five months at a time. It's just not going to work by today's standards, particularly for women.

Sending some of those messages to our industry brothers and sisters would be useful. It would show leadership and provide us with a third look, another look, and say that this is what we expect in our society, in modern Canada. That would be very useful.

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

That's very interesting. The response back might be that it's expensive or difficult. Yet we're hearing over and over again that when the workplace is satisfactory and people feel good, productivity is remarkably and exponentially improved. So I hope that message does get through.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have one minute and thirty seconds.

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

Oh, dear. I don't know what to say, Madam Chair. I have so many questions.

I'll direct one to Superintendent Lafrance. I was quite taken with how former commissioner Maurice Nadon described the need for women in the RCMP. You talked about the interests of women, the investigative interests being different from having toys and from what the boys like. How has the culture changed in the RCMP? I assume it's changed for the better, that there's a better delivery of police services and a sense of pride in the work. Could you describe that briefly?

[Supt Louise Lafrance]

Absolutely. I can really relate to what Mary Ann was talking about earlier, because at first people said if we're going to have women, that means we can't do this, this, or this, or there would be an environment in which people would think that because women were around, the world as we knew it before would change.

Bringing women along in police cars--and this has often been reported, and the partners I have worked with have reported this--did defuse a lot of situations that could have ended up as fight situations. Having a woman in the car makes the situation turn in a positive way, because I believe women communicate a bit better than men do and are able to defuse, as opposed to being aggressive to start with. When I was listening to Mary Ann, I thought, this is really close to policing.

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

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

Now we're going to a five-minute round, and I will begin with the Liberals. Michelle Simson.

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm going to keep my questions brief because I'm down to five minutes. I am going to restrict my questions to Ms. Lafrance, because I see the RCMP as being perhaps the biggest opportunity as an employer for women, because we've heard recently that there's going to be a crunch, and that there's a huge hiring blitz going on. It would seem to me that this would be a better opportunity for women.

You mentioned in your opening remarks that in 2000, 14.3% of the RCMP--I'm assuming you're referring to just the regular members like constables--

[Supt Louise Lafrance]

Yes.

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Okay. It's up to 20%. It seems to me, though--because we got some briefing notes--that between 2004 and 2009 it slowed down. Those are the statistics we got from the Library of Parliament. The increase was 3.3% between 2000 and 2004, and only 2.3% between 2004 and 2009. I find that interesting. That means it's slowing down. Either you're not getting as many applicants or they're leaving.

[Supt Louise Lafrance]

No. What happened is that we did go into a large recruiting drive with the RCMP. We needed to fill about 1,800 positions per year for about three years. We did complement our workforce with men. We needed to increase the number of members, period. A lot of people were retiring, we had new contracts, and so on.

All of that happened at the same time, and we--

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

So it did slow a bit, because you had to get them on board fairly quickly.

[Supt Louise Lafrance]

We needed to increase our workforce.

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Okay.

[Supt Louise Lafrance]

It went down to 18.3% on average over those years.

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Now, I have several friends who are with the RCMP. I'm very proud of the force, but there's no question in my mind that there was a rather substantial harassment issue when it came to women. Part of that was about reporting the harassment.

Typically, if you're a constable, who would you report that to?

[Supt Louise Lafrance]

Typically.... It depends on who is harassing you, obviously.

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Let's just say it's another constable. To go up the food chain, as it were, who would you report it to? The next...?

[Supt Louise Lafrance]

If they report to a corporal, they would report it to their corporal, who has the duty to report.

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

You have 3,570 corporals in the force. How many of those are women?