Status of Women Committee on April 30th, 2019

[Dr. Lia Tsotsos]

Thank you so much.

That's an excellent question, and you're quite right, the new horizons program is incredible. I think one of the challenges when it comes to funded work like that is the long-term sustainability, whether it's adjusting how we fund things or providing additional funding to help people make it to the next stage of longer-term sustained efforts. I know in our community in our region I've heard of so many wonderful new horizons programs that have unfortunately come to an end as soon as the funding to hire that program co-ordinator is up, or has been used.

Ways of stretching those dollars and helping to encourage more longer-term development and implementation of those things, maybe that's part of how we change funding and granting criteria, perhaps by putting a bit more emphasis on embedding all these new programs and services that we develop into either existing infrastructures or supporting the creation of new infrastructures so that they don't disappear as soon as there's a different government priority or that particular fund is used up.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

I don't know whether you're aware, but the program is renewed every year. This is not a program that ends after one year. It is therefore possible to use it again.

I have another question. Seniors from cultural communities, aged 50 or 60, who often come here to care for their grandchildren, are much more vulnerable than English-speaking Canadian seniors. They don't speak either French or English most of the time. Clearly, I am not here to say that we must find programs for each community, it is almost impossible. However, what more can we do?

Let me ask Ms. Herrick to answer that question.

What is happening in Quebec? I know that Quebec has many more programs, such as meals on wheels for people who live alone, which also exists in Laval, as well as public transit, which I mentioned earlier, but what more can we do?

[Vanessa Herrick]

I think it's an important point, and I think what we see in Laval and Montreal is a real effort to reach out to non-English and non-French speakers because we do have a large community and they don't only live in Montreal and Laval.

I will echo a little of what was said before. A lot of the community organizations that do the work, that hire the translators—there are some excellent examples in Montreal—operate on project funding from the government. That is you apply and you get this amount of money for this much time.

They spend a great deal of time worrying about funding, and worrying about trying to ensure that their services are going to be continued rather than finding new and creative ways to support the community. Again I'm not an economist. I'm not sure the best way this can be done, but perhaps identify strong community leaders and ensure that their funding is sustained and that they can work with smaller players and different communities.

Maybe not create an entirely new organization for every immigrant population, but maybe have somebody working within this larger group who does represent the Chinese population, the Lebanese population, who is able to do a little more of that work in the field. Then they could reach out farther. I can speak only for Quebec because this is our area of expertise, but there are community groups around the province and they're quite tightly knit through different organizations.

That's an excellent existing network. Let's use that network and allow them to reach out farther and try to find the people who are not being served.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Excellent. Thank you very much.

I'd really like to thank you all. Michael Udy, Vanessa Herrick and Lia Tsotsos, thank you so much for joining us today.

We're going to suspend for two minutes and we'll be back with our second panel.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Welcome back to the 139th meeting of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

For the second hour, I am pleased to welcome, as individuals, Juliette Noskey, here by video conference from Calgary, Alberta; as well as Colleen Young, who is a member of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan for the district of Lloydminster. She currently serves as the chair of the Standing Committee on the Economy, and the chair of the caucus policy committee on the economy.

Colleen, later you can write me a brief on how I'm doing as chair—I'd appreciate that—but I'm now going to turn the floor over to you.

You have seven minutes to start.

[Colleen Young, As an Individual]

Thank you.

I have come here today to impress upon this committee the need to find a way to put in place some kind of financial security for stay-at-home moms.

If a woman chooses to stay at home and raise her children, she usually has to become totally reliant on the money her spouse gives her. If the marriage is solid and his employment is stable, they usually can manage. But if their marriage or common law relationship falls apart, she may be left having to find a job to look after her children.

As we know, getting child support and going through a divorce is a process that may be very stressful, challenging and costly, and may not happen all. The partner may just walk away and disappear, or even come back later to challenge visitation of the children, creating more stress and court costs.

She may risk falling into poverty and relying solely on income assistance programs, if she even qualifies. She may have to work at one or more jobs to help support her family's needs, missing out, I believe, on opportunities involving her children's upbringing.

She may have to rely on other family members for financial support, if they are able to help her. Even her children may have to get part-time jobs to help out with the family's needs. She may have even worked for her husband and made his business successful, all while attending to their children and home, yet got nothing in the end.

I'm sure every one of us in this room today knows a young woman, a mom who has met this fate, and has heard many stories that fall upon similar lines.

A young woman today should feel secure in having the choice to stay at home and raise a family, work part or full time if she wishes to, and know that as she ages, she can receive the same deductions and benefits, and maybe even a pension, as her spouse does. Here is where the key lies. Where are her benefits if she chooses to stay home, is unemployed but plays a key role in the development of her family? No dollar value has ever been assigned to such an important and extremely significant job in this world.

I am 62 years old and have been married to my husband, Kim, for 38 years. I brought into this world and raised, together with my husband, eight very strong and successful children. As a single young woman, I worked from 1974 to 1978 before deciding to go to university. I worked as a waitress evenings and weekends to pay for my post-secondary education and living expenses. I married Kim in 1981 and had our daughter in June of 1982. During this time, my husband was elected to the Saskatchewan legislature. I helped him get elected and fully supported his decision and work, while I continued to go to university and raise our daughter. My first son was born in August of 1983, and I took a year off from university before going back in the fall of 1984.

My husband had been a lawyer for eight years prior to being elected, and he made a reasonable living. He stopped practising shortly after being elected and our annual income dropped significantly to only $32,000. We had a mortgage, vehicle expenses, utilities, food, clothing, a baby and children and all the other things that go along with them. We managed our money carefully, kept our expenses down, lived in a modest home and did not let our expenses exceed our income. I got a meagre family allowance at the time, around $55 per month. My husband got to deduct the children in the family allowance payments. His father passed away the year we married and we took over the farming so as not to get hit with capital gains at the time.

I helped my husband with the farming and he paid me a small amount of income. He was able to claim my salary as a deduction, but guess what. I had to pay on average about $10,000 a year in income tax, which was money neither he nor I had. However, we did our duty and paid it through installments. I remember being angry and frustrated at the time, believing the federal government did not want strong families in this country, nor did it want women to stay home and help bring up strong, well-educated and emotionally well-developed children.

What was wrong with this picture then, and what is wrong with this same picture today? A $500 child tax credit after the fact doesn't cut it either. Even if you qualified, you'd already had to find the money to pay for your child's expenses up front.

A June 2011 national article from the personal finance magazine MoneySense shows it costs $17,236 per child per year, or an estimated cost of $310,244 to raise a child from birth until their 18th birthday. That was eight years ago. It is scary to consider what those figures would be today. We need to do better.

Our young women today are delaying having families into their thirties, until they have established a career and have secured a job—hopefully with a pension. Many whose careers or places of employment do not offer benefits or a pension plan are afraid to begin a family, or they choose to have only one child. It shouldn't be this way.

I'm happy and thankful and I appreciate being able to be a stay-at-home mom and do everything possible to raise eight children who are of good character, have strong moral values, and are well-educated, resilient and successful in their lives. I did a lot of volunteer work in the schools and community and I was there for my children where and whenever I was needed. In 1995, and with a daughter and seven sons, I decided to run and was elected to the local public school board. Any money I made, right up until I resigned from the board in 2015, went to support all of my children's needs. This included monthly support to those attending university.

I was elected as an MLA in November of 2014, and today, even with the job I have, I can tell you that 95% of my monthly income continues to go to support the needs of my children who are working hard on their education and careers.

I have sacrificed a lot throughout the past 38 years for the benefit of my children—willingly and happily. I am fortunate and grateful that where I am now provides me with benefits and pensions. I fear for those young women who are wondering how they will manage and survive as they age, and who have to continue working well into their senior years just to make ends meet. My granddaughters should never have to be afraid to choose between being a stay-at-home mom and not having children at all. Young women today and into the future should know that they are valued and that what they are contributing to society in staying home and raising children has a secure financial price tag attached to it. They deserve benefits and a pension as well.

As women leaders, we can and must do better in putting in place policies and legislation that recognize and show value to today's—and our future's—young moms. Thank you for this opportunity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much.

We're now going to pass the floor over to Juliette. You have seven minutes.

[Juliette Noskey, As an Individual]

My name is Juliette Shirley Noskey, née Kapashesit, which means “small” when translated to English. I'm a member of Loon River First Nation, which is a reserve about four and half hours north of Edmonton, Alberta.

I was born and raised in Moose Factory, Ontario, which is located on the Moose River. I am the daughter of Oliver and the late Alice Small, who were, throughout my childhood, harvesters working in various locations in northern Ontario. At an early age, I was placed in a residential school—Bishop Horden Hall—where I resided for nine years. Although my parents committed us to the residential school during the academic year, their commitment to our family never wavered. Family was important to my mama. Today, it is still important to my baba and nine siblings.

My mama, Alice, set an example of commitment to family through her love, hard work and perseverance. Just like my mom, I knew that I wanted to be a mother and have many children. When I became a mother, I decided that I would stay at home—a privilege not offered to my mama—and be totally involved in parenting my children.

Being a stay-at-home mom was a privilege and an honour. One of the deciding factors was that I wanted to control and protect the environment in which my children would grow up. I desired to provide for my children a loving environment where they could grow as responsible individuals and as contributing members of the community. I wanted to ensure that my children would be raised to be responsible adults in society. During challenging days I would remind myself that my children were only small for a little portion of their lives. I kept my focus on parenting for their futures as adults. Therefore, I took an extended absence from the workforce due to motherhood and parenting. Also, I kept the in mind the Bible verse found in Proverbs 22:6, which states, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

It has been said that family is the cornerstone of our society. I truly believe that. That is why I decided to take that extended absence from the workforce. I had always thought that I would enter the workforce when my children were older and no longer in high school.

Unfortunately, I became a single parent—not by choice—when my youngest child was only four years old. Two years later, I decided that my children, Joanne, Candace and Adam, needed a mother who was healthy in every way, so I made the decision to leave our community. I needed to find an environment that would help me to address the issues in my life and become a better mom for them. I then decided to pursue an education so I could provide for them financially. The decision to uproot my children from the only home community that they had known was an extremely difficult one.

For nearly 20 years, I concentrated on parenting my children and worked on providing a stable environment in the home, except when I had to work when my then-husband was not employed. In the latter part of the 20 years, I made the decision to return to school and actually graduated with my oldest daughter from Portage College.

Unfortunately, throughout my time being a stay-at-home mom, I had made no pension contributions to any retirement plan. I had only made contributions to the Canada pension plan prior to having children and once again when I returned to the workforce upon completion of my education in 2006. There is no provision for retirement for women and, nowadays, for some men who decide to stay at home and raise their children.

As I near the end of my working career and look forward to retirement, I believe that my pension will not be sufficient to cover all living costs. It seems that choosing to be a stay-at-home mom penalized me and other women for doing the most important thing in society, which is to make certain that our children are cared for and to contribute to society in this manner.

I believe that today there are thousands of mothers, now retired, who live in poverty because of their decision to focus on parenting their child or children and not to enter the workforce. Many have no other pension but the small contributions made to the Canada pension plan when they entered the workforce after their children became independent and/or entered the workforce. I know some of these women personally.

One friend comes to mind. She lives in the Northwest Territories where the cost of living is high compared to other areas of the country. She has to rely on other family members to help meet her living costs. I am certain there are numerous stories of once stay-at-home moms who are now retired and live in poverty today.

I would like to highly recommend that the government look to provide adequate pension funding for individuals like me who chose to stay at home for many years in order to raise responsible adults for the society in which we live. It would be ideal if stay-at-home mothers could have a retirement plan where they could make a small contribution and possibly have the government match that amount.

In closing, I want to thank you. I consider it an honour to share a bit of my life story with you in the hope that it will somehow contribute to the advancement and recognition of all women in our country.

Meegwetch. Thank you. Hiy hiy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much, Juliette.

We're now going to start off with our seven-minute question round. We have Salma Zahid.

Salma, you have the floor.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thanks to both the witnesses for sharing their life stories.

When I started my life and had my first son—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I do have to interrupt. The bells are now ringing.

We have to make a decision as a committee. We have two individuals right now. Would we like to sit for another 15 minutes?

[A voice]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

That would provide us with an additional 15 minutes.

What I would like to do, in order to hear everybody, is to reduce the rounds to five, five and five. This way everybody gets their time.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you for sharing your life stories with the committee as we do our study on the issues facing senior women.

When my kids were young I also decided to stay home for five years. I went into the workforce here in Canada when my elder son was five years old, so I have gone through that. We had to rely on just one income. We were newcomers to Canada at that time, in 1999, so I've gone through those struggles.

My first question is for Ms. Young.

What are your recommendations for those women who choose to stay home to raise their kids, to make sure that they have financial security in their old age? Do you have any specific recommendations that you think we should recommend?

[Colleen Young]

Having financial knowledge is key first and foremost, and being involved in the finances of the home. I think many of us know that even with our own parents it was the husband who dealt with all the bills and all the finances. I think more young women today are smarter on that end of things. At the same time, if they aren't working and they don't have an income, they are relying on the finances of someone else.

I think it's really imperative, as has been said here, and Irene brought it up in the earlier conversation—I was here listening—that there be a way for stay-at-home moms to contribute more to a pension plan in some way or some sort of benefit so that if something does happen in their lives where they are a sole provider for their children and their family they are able to contribute to a pension plan that will sustain them down the road and we won't have 61% of women living below the 20% poverty line in one province alone here in Canada.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

From 2013, we have data that the median income of senior women was $21,900. In contrast, the median income for senior men in this area was $32,300 so there is a big gap.

[Colleen Young]

There is a huge gap. If there were some way we could improve that for younger women starting now, we wouldn't have aging populations living below those income lines now.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Juliette, did you want to add something?

[Juliette Noskey]

I agree with Colleen that something needs to be done.

It wasn't by choice that I became a single mother. When my child was young I went through a difficult time. Actually, my middle child, Candace, says that raising a child costs about $100,000 a year. She tells her brother and sister, “Mom could have been $300,000 richer if she didn't have us, but she's poured her life into us.” There should be some compensation for it.

Yes, we've chosen this role to be mothers and to stay at home so that we can put responsible adults into our society.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

My next question is for Ms. Young. You quoted in your opening remarks that the approximate cost per year to raise a child is about $17,236. What do you think about the Canada child benefit and how is it helping families to bear that cost of raising a child?

[Colleen Young]

It is a help; there's no doubt about it. As we add more to those kinds of programs and that kind of assistance, that's great, but it's still not enough. We're talking about aging women here, so I guess I should have brought my 95-year-old mother who had 12 children and stayed at home the whole time. She worked for the first four years of her life as a teacher. Then she started having children and raised 12 of us. She's 95, doing very well, but all she has right now to rely on, besides family, which is a great support for her, are the little bits that she gets from CPP and also from my father's veterans plan. That's it. It is sad to say that we've gotten there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

We're now going to pass the floor over to Kellie Leitch for five minutes.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you, both, for taking the time to present to us. It's greatly appreciated.

I come from Fort McMurray, so I can relate to northern Alberta, Fort McKay, Fort Chip, and all of that area.

I want to follow up, Juliette, on what you commented on and maybe get Colleen's comments on it. It's your idea of having a retirement plan. In a previous committee we had a woman present here about the idea of having something similar to an RESP. Right now you can contribute to your child's education and withdraw on that in the future, but what she recommended was that, while she was a stay-at-home mom, each year, similar to the RSDP for disabilities, there would be a contribution made by the family and by the government that then would be saved and accumulate until she was 65 so that she would be able to access it well beyond the time frame when she had raised her children, whether she entered the workforce or not.

I want to ask you your thoughts on that idea, and also, both of you, if you do have ideas, I'd like to ask you to submit them to us. It's great to have conversations, but if you have specifics, Juliette, it would be great to have those specifics on paper so that they become part of our report. I think that would be very valuable.

I just want to ask for your comments on that type of specific retirement plan, or if you have other ideas, please submit them.

[Colleen Young]

I think that's an excellent idea. You've answered your own question in a sense that, having something that they can contribute to along the way that would benefit them.... The only part that I question is the age 65. Yes, we wait until we're 65, but I have women who I've dealt with in the role that I'm in now as an MLA who have worked, who raised children, who are only 55 or 57, but their health has stopped them from working. Now they have no income, they have no spouse and they're waiting until 65.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

The expectation—