Status of Women Committee on Nov. 4th, 2014

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Thanks very much.

Ms. McDonald, we have been talking about mentorship in this study and have talked about it considerably today. There is a program here on Parliament Hill, and there are a few of them where women university students come from. There is Women in House at McGill. The University of Western Ontario has one. At the University of Toronto, I try to take the opportunity each time that I can. It's only a one-day program, but it's a great day.

I keep in touch with my mentees. They're always wonderfully accomplished young women, and I know they're going places. They don't necessarily want a career in politics, but I think the program opens their eyes to some of the possibilities. I think we all know that in elementary school and even in high school, young women sometimes don't know what kinds of careers they can have. They know they could be a teacher, a lawyer, a doctor, or a firefighter, but after those, they have no idea that there are a million other things they could do.

I want to ask you specifically about your mentorship program and what kinds of knowledge you impart to your mentees. What do you want to teach them?

[Janice McDonald]

There are a few different things. I think your example of making sure that young women see leaders in action is critical, because the saying that you can't be it unless you see it is I think very true for women. You have to have the role models and see them to know what is possible. That's the first thing, which I think is critical.

Another important piece of advice is that what got you here won't get you there. You may have had strategies that got you to a certain level of success, but if you're ambitious and want to get to the next level, you're going to need to develop new strategies. We heard that culture in the workplace is important. If you think about the example we heard in regard to non-traditional roles for women in construction and the trades, you need to be able to move successfully in that kind of culture, so you have to seek out the new skills that you need.

That's where I think mentorship is very important. It allows you to talk to someone who is invested in your career, but in an impartial way, if you will. They are perhaps willing to call you out, nudge you in some ways, and sometimes just be a great sounding board.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Do you think one's status in society plays a role in becoming successful?

[Janice McDonald]

What do you mean?

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

I mean that sometimes you grow up with lots of advantages. I would argue that my daughter has grown up with many advantages. I'm wondering whether you think that makes it easier for some women than for others, and if so, what we can do for the ones who need a little more help.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Again, be very brief.

[Janice McDonald]

I think that with advantages comes responsibility. As long as those young women are aware that they have a greater responsibility, that's critical. And yes, women who don't have those advantages definitely need to be supported in other ways.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much. That was very brief but to the point.

Ms. Ashton, you have the floor for seven minutes.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

I'll direct my questions first to Ms. Roy, and then to Ms. Archer.

Ms. Roy, could you briefly share your thoughts on your role as a student union president? The reason I ask is that I find it problematic that my colleague across the way asked something of you that I don't believe has anything to do with your work and proceeded to not give you any time to respond.

I want to point out to members of the committee and to those listening that there is an irony in asking young women to come to speak out and display courage in speaking out and that it is incumbent on us to listen, rather than to silence those who bring testimony even though we disagree with it.

Could you briefly clarify what your role is?

[Anne-Marie Roy]

As the president of the student union at the University of Ottawa, I represent 35,000 undergrad students. We manage a big budget. We have a $15-million turnover that includes payments to our health plan and to the U-Pass program, which we also manage at the student union. We have about 150 to 200 staff who work at the Student Federation. In a nutshell, what we do is support students through a number of services from academic advocacy to support for students with disabilities. We also have a women's resource centre that we run, as well as a pride centre. We do a lot of equity work on our campus.

We also lobby all levels of government, municipal, provincial, and federal, on a variety of student issues. We also lobby our administration on a number of issues from tuition fees to creating new grants and scholarships, but also ensuring that the university is upholding its responsibility to properly promote and share the information and opportunities that are available to students.

As a student union, it isn't our responsibility to be doing the work of the university and other institutions, but rather to ensure that they're properly doing their jobs and ensuring that the information is transmitted to students.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Great. Thank you so much.

Briefly on that point, given that this committee is tasked with bringing forward recommendations that the federal government can take, and I know you alluded to it in many ways in your presentation, how important is it for government members in this committee and the federal government to take seriously the need to invest in post-secondary education?

[Anne-Marie Roy]

As I mentioned in my speech, education is certainly the key to advance a lot of women to getting successful and meaningful employment and therefore getting a good-paying job.

The two biggest recommendations that I would present to the government is, first of all removing the cap to the PSSSP to ensure that all aboriginal students can access post-secondary education, but also create more grants.

I had the lobby document here that the Canadian Federation of Students presented to the government last year. The government in 2013-14 was expected to issue $2.46 billion in student loans, but the government also has the tax credits savings schemes, the RESPs for families who have a little bit of a higher income. They're investing about $2.58 billion in that. One of our recommendations was to take this money that was invested in tax credits and transform it into non-repayable grants to ensure that those who come from lower income families and from marginalized communities have access to these grants and can therefore continue their education and therefore have meaningful employment and good sources of revenue.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you very much for that important recommendation.

Ms. Archer, thank you very much for sharing your work and the progress that you've seen.

I am proud to come from a mining town in northern Manitoba. I represent communities where women do their darndest to get into traditionally male-dominated work and find immense challenges in doing that. The number one challenge is the lack of child care in our northern communities. I'm wondering if you could speak to what you hear from women whom you work with in terms of that and if you see the need for federal government leadership on this front, including a universal child care program.

[JudyLynn Archer]

A universal child care program would have our vote absolutely today. Child care is one of the biggest barriers that women face coming into this industry. From the industry's perspective, we are asked every day, “You go away and figure out that child care problem and we'll hire more women.”

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

That is pretty succinct. Thank you very much for sharing that.

I'm wondering, you mentioned earlier in response to one of my colleagues' questions about the Canada job grant, the extent to which the federal government can play a leadership role. I realize they have to work with the provinces as well; there's no question. How important would it be to have a gender lens, as well as a lens understanding what indigenous women go through in trying to pursue work in male-dominated areas?

[JudyLynn Archer]

It would be a huge bonus. We're big supporters of that particular program, but there are inconsistencies in terms of eligibility or inclusiveness for women, the aboriginal women that we see. They do need the day care, the transportation, and living costs. Otherwise they won't be able to access that training and therefore employers won't hire them. It's pretty simple.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

One of the studies that has come across our table here in the discussion of this topic is the way in which women as a whole, particularly in western Canada and in cities like Edmonton and Calgary, earn far less than men, obviously not only in heavy construction and those sectors, but overall. I'm wondering if you could speak to the impact of, perhaps, what you would like to see when it comes to women's work being valued in communities like yours.

[JudyLynn Archer]

Oh, gosh. This is a conversation, as we all know, that we've been having for decades and decades. Of course we should have equitable lives and equitable opportunity. We don't have equitable opportunity here in Canada. I don't know what the answer is. I don't know what the solution is. For us, we've chosen this one specific area where there is equity. There is definitely pay equity and there's opportunity equity. If you want to get into a leadership role within this industry, they're going to be losing 24% of all those leaders in this entire industry over the next 10 years. There's plenty of opportunity there. I wish it were the same all around. I wish we didn't have to talk about sexism and sexual violence. We shouldn't have to be talking about that any more. Certainly that's not the case, of course, and as part of our programs we definitely have to talk about it. When you're working in a predominantly male environment, those realities go up a notch.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much, Mrs. Archer.

Ms. Crockatt and Mr. Barlow, you have the floor for seven minutes. You will share your time, correct?

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

I believe we're sharing our time between the three of us.

Briefly, I want to follow up again with Ms. Archer.

Have you thought about putting a day care centre in your facility in order to expand the number of women who are enrolled? I ask you that because the Calgary Immigrant Women's Association and other organizations have done this and found that it was incredibly successful. I am wondering if that's something you have considered with your facility.

[JudyLynn Archer]

Yes, we certainly did consider it. We wanted 24-hour child care in our building when we built it. Unfortunately, we also had to manage our cashflow. We ended up filling our facility with training and housing and simply didn't have the capacity to put child care in our facility. That said, we chose a facility that was right in between two big organizations that have child care programs.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Great.

I think I'll allow my colleagues to have time. Thank you so much.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

I'll let Ms. Young start for one minute.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

I want to address or clarify my earlier comments, given the comments from my colleague across the way.

Ms. Roy, I wanted to actually encourage more contribution from you in fact, not silence you, as was said earlier. We would really love to hear more about what the university is doing in this specific area. Again, I would like to encourage you to provide this committee with that information in the future.

Yes, I did not have a seven-minute slot today, so that limited my ability to....

Do you have any further comment around that, although this is Mr. Barlow's time.

[Anne-Marie Roy]

Okay. Very quickly, in that case, I would say that universities are certainly in a tough situation in the sense that they've been chronically underfunded for a very long time. The means by which they promote opportunities for students are limited, so it is very difficult on campuses for universities to adequately promote all of the opportunities that are available.

In the situation of a grant, you would have to go to the financial aid page and kind of navigate through all of the grants and all of the scholarships that are available to find the specific scholarship you were referring to. That's one of the reasons we've been calling on the government to make a direct investment in post-secondary education, because having the money directly invested and reducing tuition fees will prevent the necessity of having to navigate web portals to find different scholarships and grants.

While I think that should be advertised and I welcome grants much more than loans—