Status of Women Committee on March 22nd, 2010

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Again, my question is about access to assets, knowing they've got collateral. Are they being encouraged? Many people who go through skills training in southern Ontario go into their own businesses. They establish their own enterprise and they offer themselves as an independent business. Are the women being given those kinds of business skills to set themselves up?

[Carey Calder]

Work is being done right now in the economic framework development plan. The Native Women's Association of Canada is working directly with INAC to develop a culturally relevant gender-based analysis framework. So we are looking at other ways to see what types of assets women do already have that perhaps just haven't been looked at the same way.

This goes back to seeing what access they had in the past in order to be able to establish a track record, and what types of things need to be considered in order to allow them the same opportunities to access loans, etc.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

But if a woman is--

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Sorry, Lois. Thank you.

Madam Demers.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I found Ms. Brown's comments quite interesting. In Quebec, the SOCLE provides microcredit to persons looking to start up a business. I think that is very interesting, because in terms of employment opportunities, small businesses are probably the solution for the future.

Ms. Phaneuf, I was very interested to hear what you had to say about child care for women who want to enter the labour force. When I'm confronted with a problem, I see an opportunity. You mentioned cooperatives, and I was wondering if perhaps one solution might be to set up cooperatives managed by aboriginal grandmothers who would be paid for their services and at the same time transfer their values and cultures to the children in their care. Grandmothers always make the best babysitters, of course. If there is an opportunity to have well-structured child care services, then so much the better.

What about possibly setting up user cooperatives? Persons using day care services could determine the needs of these cooperatives and how they should be run. I like this idea, which could be an answer to your problems.

[Lorraine Phaneuf]

I think that could work, except in some of the communities,

a grandmother could have 75 grandchildren.

So I don't know if there are enough grandmas in the small communities, but in the larger communities in the Northwest Territories....

You have given me food for thought, because we do have an older woman's program,

and it could work.

Maybe that could work.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

I like the idea. Also, small businesses could extend microcredit to persons wanting to set up a small private daycare, which obviously would be subject to state regulations, but which would nevertheless provide opportunities in this area.

I believe that all of you are working very hard for your communities and that the answers you need lie within you. I am confident, Ms. Phaneuf, that the minister who reviewed your work will give your project the green light. I wouldn't be worried if I were you, because she has stated repeatedly that she looks favourably on this type of initiative. She has visited you and seen first-hand the work that you are doing.

So then, I expect that you will receive a positive response. I truly hope that you will. I also hope that you will continue your amazing work and that you will get the funding you need. Thank you, on behalf of all the women you are helping. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Merci, Madam Demers.

Ms. Mathyssen.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I don't want to put you on the spot, but when the discussion came up about the loss of Aboriginal Healing Foundation dollars, you responded. I wondered if you had something to add to that.

[Denise Thomas]

Well, I guess I did bring that up. It's close to my heart. When it came to Manitoba, I was kind of looking after that. We did a lot of groundwork, working with the young people, and the healing started. Now that the funding has gone over to another area, truth and reconciliation, how many more times do we have to tell our stories? That's kind of what we thought. Now we have no counsellors for those people who were healing.

It was something that was close to my heart. We used to have life skills programs, for example, and we can still have them. We always implemented the cultural component and the wellness component, so it took more dollars, but it was very important in the work we did. Because we don't have our dollars now to keep our counsellors hired, we'll have to look at something else. I guess we'll use our training dollars to do that.

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

You're sort of starting again.

[Denise Thomas]

We can't just drop those people. We have to continue to try to help them.

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

Thank you.

I want to get back to the pay equity question.There was reference made to the large number of women who are pipefitters for heavy equipment and are earning less than their male counterparts. How on earth are employers getting away with that? If they're doing the same job or they're at the same level as other workers, how can they be paid less?

[Denise Thomas]

I think some of the ones who are hired for construction jobs are paid less. They start on heavy equipment and are then moved to something else so that they'll be paid less. It's very difficult to keep women in those positions and to have them paid equitable wages.

For example, there was a lot of racism in the hydro project. The people who were hired were let go or the women who were hired were given more menial jobs.

I'll give you a very good example from when I first became a vice-president. I live in a tourism area. Grand Beach is one of the biggest beaches in Manitoba. I had to fight with our provincial government so that Métis women could get jobs other than janitorial and maintenance positions. We had to fight so that women could get jobs working at such things as the campground office and the gates. Transients, like the ones who came to work for hydro, would get the jobs. It was and it still is a real problem.

A lot of it is racism. For construction jobs, I don't know. I guess they still try to keep women down.

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

We heard about that from another group last week. Women were trained for one job and were then relegated to something that paid much less.

[Denise Thomas]

Yes, that's what happens. They are relegated to something else.

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

Thank you for clarifying that.

Ms. Wong started to ask a question about women not being suited for certain jobs. Perhaps it's more a matter of this exodus occurs because they don't have the support systems in place to stay in the jobs. Is that another way of looking at the situation?

[Denise Thomas]

Yes, it is. There is a lot of that, especially when trying to get women into the fire department. It's looked down on. There are women who want to be firewomen.

The fishers are now called “fishers”, not fishermen. We had that cleared up.

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

We need “firefighters”.

[Denise Thomas]

We train some truck drivers. We have a lot of community-based courses for truck drivers. It's still very looked down on for a woman to drive a truck. I don't know why. It just is.

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

It's interesting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Irene, I think you've come to the end.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Madam Boucher.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you very much to our witnesses.

I very much enjoy listening to you. It's interesting to see the problems faced by women in general who work in non-traditional fields. This is truer still for aboriginal women. We have heard from many witnesses, but one question often comes to mind. I write it down often, but I've never asked it before. But that's about to change.

I'll put the question to you, because you are aboriginal women and the situation is even more difficult for you. Do men react negatively to you when you express the desire to work in a non-traditional field? Are men the ones slamming the door in your face, or do you also get this reaction from women? Are men opposed to the idea of women working in non-traditional fields?