Status of Women Committee on Feb. 28th, 2019

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

To you.

[Madeleine Bélanger]

The women are often responsible for managing the entire house alone. Their husbands didn't prepare them for financial management. In terms of the legislation governing family or social life, the women must deal with the unknown if they hadn't been asked to get involved and participate. They must often deal with the unknown in terms of finances. I think that the issue stems from the fact that their husbands may not have asked them enough to get involved. On a social level, this way of preparing for life together must change. Of course, I'm talking much less about legislative requirements than social requirements.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

It seems clear that the next generations and my generation will see greater gender equality in the way the house is run. However, how could we help women who are already in circumstances where it's too late to work together?

[Madeleine Bélanger]

I think that we should listen to them. That's the most obvious issue that I've noticed. These women in need, who have no choice but to live in an establishment, feel as though they're losing their value as people. They feel diminished. I think that we need to listen to them. Many committees work well and do great things, but often only young people and well-meaning professionals sit on those committees. That said, we must take the time to listen to senior women. We must listen to women in establishments or CHSLDs, but also in their home and social environment. I'm thinking of the people from the Réseau FADOQ who spoke earlier, but whom I didn't have the chance to listen to. The network carries out a great deal of work when it comes to leisure activities, help with management and assistance with social responsibilities, for example. It's less obvious. I think that work must be done, not only by the people themselves and their communities, but also by the authorities.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you.

I'll give the rest of my speaking time to my colleague.

[The Vice-Chair, Ms. Irene Mathyssen]

I'm sorry. We're at five minutes, but I thank you for your indulgence.

Now for five minutes we have Ms. Harder, please.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you. I'll be splitting my time with my colleague.

My question goes to Ms. Twinn.

Ms. Twinn, thank you so much for being with us and for sharing the video clips. I look forward to watching them in whole. My question for you is with regard to indigenous women. You talked a lot about the need for growing up in a community and belonging. That was a really key word that you used, that need for “belonging”.

Now, I think sometimes governments take it upon themselves to tell women what they should do with their lives, what career they should pursue, whether they should be stay-at-home moms or in fact enter into a career. Governments put policies in place that help direct women in the way the government thinks they should go.

But what I'm hearing from you is something very different: Women should have the freedom to choose their path, to chart their future, but they need overall structural policies put in place that will contend for equality of treatment and opportunity. Can you comment on that further?

[Catherine Twinn]

For a long time in this country, government policy, government practices and government laws have dictated to first nation communities on every level of human life, and the results have been catastrophic. Those have been driven by political interests, political agendas, not community interests and not human needs.

The problem is that today, as I see it, we have a shift to the other extreme, whereby the government has vacated the field when it comes to the rule of law and its application at a community level vis-à-vis fundamental human rights and freedoms. There's a balance that needs to be struck, and I believe that what government should be doing is supporting all communities, because indigenous communities are the miners' canaries that mark the shift from fresh air to poisonous gas.

I am a widow; I was widowed in 1997. What I heard the other witnesses speak to was that older women need the support of our healthy, functioning communities. In a first nation context, it's highly politicized, highly legalized, because Ottawa's policies are having a direct impact on the rule of law. You see that with respect to the First Nations Financial Transparency Act, because in 2015 we were not going to enforce that law. There's Charmaine Stick, who went to court and got a court order. It was upheld by the court of appeal, and she's still today being denied access to those finances.

What type of environment does that create within a community if there's no accountability and transparency of the leadership to the people they serve? It all turns on trust and affection, without which you don't have healthy, functioning communities. Communities, I would say, are essential to the raising of children, to the care of the elderly, to the support of the environment, to the protection of nature.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Ms. Irene Mathyssen]

Ms. Leitch, you have one minute.

[K. Kellie Leitch]

Thank you.

Ms. Bélanger, my name is Kellie Leitch and I'm a surgeon. Thank you for your time today. I'll ask my question in English since my French is bad.

One of the issues that I think face senior women across the country is access to health care. You receive a lot of stories, I'm sure, in your day-to-day interactions with all the seniors you deal with.

Do they bring forward any stories with regard to challenges in health care access? To your point with respect to providing pensioner protections as well as financial protection.... Can you comment on whether or not there are health care challenges? Once you have those stories, do you report them? Do you make them publicly available so that individuals like me and other members of Parliament may be able to act upon them and provide direction?

[The Vice-Chair, Ms. Irene Mathyssen]

Thank you, Ms. Leitch. I'm very sorry, but we are at the end of our time here.

[K. Kellie Leitch]

Could I ask for consent from the committee just to hear a brief answer?

[The Vice-Chair, Ms. Irene Mathyssen]

We have to vacate the room because time is up.

[K. Kellie Leitch]

My apologies, Madame Bélanger.

[The Vice-Chair, Ms. Irene Mathyssen]

I would like to ask the committee whether we should invite the witnesses back so that we can in fact have the questions we would like to ask of them.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Yes, I think we could invite the witnesses from both the first round and the second round, because most us, including Ms. Leitch and from our side also, didn't have the time to ask them questions. I think they have a lot to do with seniors and could tell us how we could advance senior women in Canada.

[The Vice-Chair, Ms. Irene Mathyssen]

Thank you.

Do I have agreement on asking witnesses back so we can ask questions?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Vice-Chair, Ms. Irene Mathyssen]

Thank you very much. I, too, would like to ask some questions and had no opportunity.

Thank you to our witnesses. You have been very patient and very kind. We look forward to hearing from you again in the very near future.

The meeting is adjourned.