Status of Women Committee on Sept. 26th, 2018

[Daniela Chivu]

I grew up in a communist environment. I came to Canada after the revolution. I've experienced the kind of—what would one call it?—abomination of democracy that Romania decided to have. Canada is my home. It is the only home I want. It is the only home I love. For that, I will fight fiercely, which is why I believe that what Canada is doing right is taking care of its women and taking women's issues to heart and doing it seriously.

However, we need to see concrete results. It's easier said than done. We establish policies. We discuss the topics. But we need to see all this materialized. So this is done the wrong way. I still have to see results. Yes, it's beautiful to have a fifty-fifty government, but what is beyond that?

I would like to open a parenthesis, if you don't mind. When our government announced that we had a fifty-fifty government, I loved it. I said this was wonderful. But then when the Prime Minister was asked the reason for this, he said it was because it was 2015. I would have said it was because these women are competent; because they are capable individuals; because they will defend Canada with integrity; because they are strong, independent, powerful women who can make a difference. This is what I would have said about the newly elected women.

In that direction we still need to make a lot of improvements. We've just touched the surface at this point. It's not done, and it's not done the right way. I'm sorry.

[K. Kellie Leitch]

If I can intervene, I'll also ask all three of you about this issue of bullying, if you have thoughts on initiatives we should be taking as federal politicians to deal with this issue.

I know that Status of Women Canada when I was there and also currently, is moving forward with initiatives. I think both governments can be commended for that. What are the specific things that you would recommend?

[Madeleine Redfern]

I would recommend, under workers' compensation safety board.... I can tell you that harassment, bullying and sexual harassment are not adequately dealt with in that federal piece of legislation.

In Nunavut, interestingly enough, we passed occupational health and safety legislation that extends our employer's obligation not only to our staff but also to our volunteers. It protects the volunteers by ensuring that any form of harassment or bullying is addressed.

Lastly, Israel has some of the most interesting sexual harassment policies. Any time there is a power relationship in the workplace, it is presumed that for the person in power—even if it is consensual or started by the person not in the position of power—that relationship is inappropriate and should never have been allowed. I would recommend that this committee look at that legislation and those policies in Israel.

[K. Kellie Leitch]

I have one last question. It will be directed to you again.

We have challenges in having women involved in politics. The previous panel mentioned travel. Having come from a northern community, I recognize how long it probably took you to get here. We obviously have these physical barriers. For example, my sister would never consider running, and her flight would only be from Calgary. Do you have any thoughts on dealing with the management of the travel issue?

[Madeleine Redfern]

The biggest issue I have regarding travel is that when our Inuit male leaders travel with their female staff, they think it's a benefit and a perk that they can sexually harass, sexually assault or have relationships with women on the road. I know that's not answering your question, but the bigger problem is that outside the workplace, many of our leaders or managers believe those workplace rules don't exist.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

Ms. Benson.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

I'm going to try to do two things in my time. One is to do a motion and some committee business. I have five minutes, which I'm probably taking up talking about it now.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

You have seven.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you.

What you've brought here has been awesome. It's been an awesome two hours here. I've learned a lot.

I'd like to ask all three of you if could you leave us with one point, note or reflection that you really want us to highlight in the report. I know that's hard to do, but from my point of view it would be helpful for us for you to leave us with a bit of a parting thought, like “Don't forget to do this”, or “This is what's important.”

We can start with Madeleine and go down, if that's okay.

Thank you.

[Madeleine Redfern]

I think the fact is that in schools we need to start having the topic of women in politics as part of civic courses. I can't believe how many young men don't even know what sexual harassment or sexual assault is. They literally just think it's rape. They don't think having sex with someone who is unconscious is rape. We see that part of the orientation of employees in the workplace is actually incorporating the whole concept of rights, gender imbalances, power imbalances, what's acceptable and what's not acceptable.

Thank you.

[Arezoo Najibzadeh]

I agree with Daniela. I think we need to have external and non-partisan support systems for women considering running for office and also for women at different levels of engagement who are involved with our democratic processes. That can include the realm of policy creation and also actual mental health and wellness supports. A lot of women in politics, aside from experiencing the sexual harassment and cyber violence, go through other experiences that result in mental health issues, such as depression and different things. Focusing on holistic wellness and support systems for women in politics with a non-partisan, trauma-informed and survivor-centric lens will be great for a lot of women.

[Daniela Chivu]

I agree with both of my colleagues. I would like you to strongly consider the idea of a non-partisan coalition that would encourage women to get engaged in politics, provide mentorship and guidelines for women to prepare for their political challenges, and in a way answer Ms. Leitch's question regarding bullying in media.

All political parties are responsible for setting the tone when anything is published—a statement, an article or a journal, regardless of what it is. The use of language and the description of your opponent matter, because other people pay for them. Therefore, educating the population is a way to control bullying.

Thank you very much.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you.

I'm not quite sure how to do this.

I have a motion that everyone has a copy of.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

I think you just move the motion.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Can I speak to it?

If agreed to, it would allow us to refer to the report of the Special Committee on Electoral Reform, and to use it to inform our work here. In other words, we would be building on what has been done already.

I don't know where people are as far as agreeing or not, or if you have any questions. I have another option around amending it if people don't want the whole report. The idea is to take what we learned in that report with regard to the barriers to women in politics, and use it for this study.

I'm moving that, I guess.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

Thank you.

I understand from the clerk that we need to debate it first.

Ruby.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Having been a member of both committees—status of women a while back as a permanent member, and electoral reform—I believe that we should take a holistic approach and bring forth all the witnesses that we want before this committee. That's how we should do it. In electoral reform the aim wasn't necessarily how to remove barriers for women.

You may have narrowed down these specific ones, but there were bits and pieces we heard all over the place, and I think it's not going to be the best approach. We should just have the witnesses here as a part of this new study.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

Can I point out to members as well that we're talking about the report? That's the volume of testimony we'd be bringing into it.

Is there any other debate?

Sheri.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

I'd like to build on other work that has been done by other committees if it could inform this. My amendment was to enable us to just look at what specifically was talked about from a different perspective in terms of the barriers facing women in politics, not the whole thing. It could form a reference to our work here. That's the amendment.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

That was never the lens that testimony was being viewed through. The lens was quite different, and there were different motivations for the people who were testifying at that time to come forward. There were a lot of politically motivated groups. There were organizations whose sole motive was to get a certain type of PR.

We'd be tainting the work of this committee by bringing that evidence in, because it wasn't done from a perspective of just studying the barriers to women in politics. It was done under a different lens and for a different motive.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

Bryan May.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Madam Chair, given that we have witnesses here today and very little time left for questions, can I suggest we call the question?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

You have the motion in front of you. We're going to vote on that.

Sorry. Is your motion to adjourn debate?

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

No. I want to call the question to vote and get back to the matters of today.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

You want to vote on the actual motion. Is there any other debate on this motion?

As long as there is no more debate, we can do that.

You can't actually call the question like we do in municipal politics.