Status of Women Committee on March 22nd, 2010

[Lorraine Phaneuf]

In Yellowknife we have male-oriented upper echelons. We have only three women in our legislature, one cabinet minister. Up until two and a half years ago, the status of women minister was a man because there was absolutely no cabinet.... They are trying hard in the government. We all just attended gender-based analysis training in October. We are hoping to do training in programs and policies in the Northwest Territories. We would be arm's length, so we would work with the mining companies, the banks, more corporations than NGOs. The government workers, the minister's adviser, is already working trying to train programmers and lawmakers in the Northwest Territories on how we need gender-based analysis in all of our programs in the Northwest Territories.

I don't know the exact statistics, but I do know that most of the entry-level positions in the government are held by women and that the men are not there. We don't really know why that is. It's just amazing that they can jump to those next positions when the women have to go at the bottom.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

I have another question for you. You talked about the women who had taken the courses and you mentioned that five of them are working, but not necessarily in fields for which you had trained them. However, they are working, one in a library and the others in various locations.

So then, I was wondering if being able to provide them with tools such as self-confidence and the desire to succeed is even more important that the ultimate goal of this course, which is to find them jobs in the mines or some other type of work? Is it not more important to instill in them, through the training process, the confidence that they can do anything they set their minds to, the “yes, you can“ attitude? Isn't that as important as the training itself?

[Lorraine Phaneuf]

For us, as the Status of Women, it is very important. Probably the most important part of the project is the life-long learning and having the women working in sustainable positions.

I think our project will be deemed a success by the government, because we have learned that the wraparound services for the women are crucial for them to succeed. They are women we assessed for marginalization. We did not go and say, “Who is the best in the class? These are the people we're going to help.” We wanted to help the people who had been under-represented and who needed help. Even the assessment process was geared to those women.

For us, it's been a wonderful program. We have two government departments currently trying their best to fund us to continue the project. We did get funding for a pilot project. And you are right; three years is not long enough, because what it does is create a need.

Because we are an NGO, we won't stop doing the work. That work will fall on the shoulders of Lorraine Phaneuf, Annemieke Mulders, and all the women who work there, because we are not going to turn away women who need help and who we think we can help.

We had two project people, but the whole team is only a staff of six. Everybody worked on the mining project in some capacity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much. Your seven minutes are up.

We'll go to Mr. Calandra.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have a question for Ms. Phaneuf. We've been talking a lot about some recent initiatives brought forward by the Status of Women to afford northern women the opportunity to participate in non-traditional occupations. These allow them to not only compete but hopefully succeed so that there's much more broadly diverse representation in the workforce. Ms. Simson brought up Northern Women in Mining, Oil and Gas, a project that obviously is designed to boost women's representation in industrial and trade-based jobs.

I know that the emphasis is on training and skills development, but I wonder if you might comment, also, on how you would assess the role of the FTP partnership in the actual creation and implementation of the project.

[Lorraine Phaneuf]

For us, our journey with the federal government was very, very good. We did not really have the skill sets in the office to do their big cashflows. All of a sudden, it fell on the shoulders of...and it happened to be me. But they were very good with the partnership and with helping us build capacity in our organization. Our journey with them has actually been good.

We also had HRSDC. We were funded through the pan-Canadian initiative. We also got funding from INAC, which has the SINED fund. They helped with project management in terms of helping us figure out where we could get money and which would be the best departments to fund us.

For provincial partners, we had Education, Culture and Employment, which is the education piece in the Northwest Territories. For NGOs, we had the Native Women's Association, which we work very closely with all the time on other projects also. And we had De Beers, Diavik, and BHP, the three mining companies. We did have Irving Oil for a short period of time, but then negotiations were needed in other areas.

Our experience working with partners has been very good. I think it really added to the success of the project, because things we didn't have the capacity to do, others did.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Overall, then, it was a very positive experience and something that we can obviously learn from and utilize going forward.

Is there anything you might suggest?

[Lorraine Phaneuf]

I think the three-year multi-year funding is perhaps.... For the government, that may seem like a long period of time for a pilot project, but in fact it is too short, because for the women who are finishing the courses, there is no dedicated paid staff to take care of them. If the project had been even five years long--hindsight is twenty-twenty, I guess--maybe two years of the project could have been dedicated solely to helping people who had gone through the program. If I were to do it again, I would put in those two years of research, but we didn't do that.

We also learned about community-based programming. If we'd had the courses in the communities where the women live instead of bringing them in from all over the Northwest Territories.... Their families were very supportive of them and it kind of excluded that day care situation, but then we ran into the next problem, which was that, okay, the mémères and the dads would take care of the kids to allow them to take their training, but who takes care of them after that? We have a few women, especially in Trout Lake, where they're doing a lot of work, and they have nowhere to put the kids because there's no day care.

We've been trying our best to figure it out. Maybe we could suggest some kind of cooperative program in the community, but as it sits, only x number of people live there, so some work and some take care of the old people and the kids.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

I know that you definitely wouldn't suggest that only women who are working are good people, and mothers who--

[Lorraine Phaneuf]

No, their role is just as important.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

--need to have their kids in day care, and that a woman who works at home, like my wife, is not contributing to society. So overall--

[Lorraine Phaneuf]

No, that's not what I mean. No, no.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

No, no, I know. I was making a comment--

[Lorraine Phaneuf]

I stayed off work eight years myself to take care of my kids.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

--on something else. I'm sorry.

So overall, though, from what you're suggesting, we've made some extraordinary progress in the last while, especially with what you've mentioned with respect to the territorial government and the partnerships with the federal government. We're moving in the right direction. We're starting to see some changes and it has been an overall positive experience. There's some work to be done, but the particular program we're talking about is a good example of how we should be working together, and how we have worked together to actually afford some changes.

[Lorraine Phaneuf]

Yes, it was a positive kind of experience. At first when you see those big cashflows, you think, “Ay-ay-ay, come on....” But after three years, you think, “Oh, maybe I could be an accountant now.” There is some value to building that capacity in the NGOs. I find myself now helping other NGOs with their financial work, because numbers people aren't the kind of people that NGOs typically would hire. They look for a different kind of people, but unfortunately, if you don't have the money, you can't do the projects.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

So it's a good spinoff, then. The investment has led to a maturing of all of the organizations that help. Perhaps one day it might not just be southern white men working in the north, as my colleague--

[Lorraine Phaneuf]

Well, Iqaluit is in Nunavut, so that's different. Where I work, I'm an Acadian from Nova Scotia, so I'm very used to.... Most of the men were fishermen and the moms had different kinds of jobs. Having moved to the north, I thought it seemed that there were a lot of people not working, and I could never really understand that.

I think the more training and the more resources that are pumped in.... It's not just the training with people. They have to want to go to work and they have to feel they're wanted there and that there are good opportunities for them to grow. You can't just say, “Here's a two-week training course, so okay, you're set now.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Ms. Phaneuf.

Ms. Mathyssen.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for your wonderful presentations and your candour. It has been a very important and helpful addition to our deliberations and I do appreciate the advice that you've given this committee. I'm hoping that in our report we can indicate how very much we value that and how integral it will be in terms of addressing the needs of women, no matter where they work, whether it's inside the home--because we know that women work very hard in the home--or if they choose to aspire to work outside the home.

I have some little points of clarification. I hope you can help me. I'll start with Ms. Phaneuf, but anyone who has any thoughts, please jump in.

You talked about your training program being very successful, with 37 participants in year one and 41 in year two, and by year three, you were up to 73 participants. So very clearly there was a need and there was a real uptake.

Now, when you were talking about the funding, who funded you? Was it the mining companies plus Irving or was there another funder?

[Lorraine Phaneuf]

No, it was pan-Canadian initiative funds. They funded us for $1.3 million over three years.

For INAC, for the federal government, I think it's probably close to $200,000 over the three years. But in all fairness to the INAC folks, they had also funded us in the proposal development phase, so it's probably even a little bit higher.

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

Now you're looking for new funders. Who are you looking to? Where does the hope lie?

[Lorraine Phaneuf]

Well, we have applied to....

Are you allowed to say if you haven't been funded yet? I guess you are.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You're allowed to say whatever you wish, Ms. Phaneuf, other than obscenities.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!