Status of Women Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2017

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

Sorry. This isn't scientific. This is anecdotal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

No, it's true.

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

There may also be some systemic issues around the way in which women are perceived as being successful in entrepreneurship. We are looking at a variety of issues around that.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Okay.

When we're looking at layoffs, do we have anything predominantly showing—in seniority that may not be the case—that more women are being laid off than men? Do we see anything like that when there are bouts of layoffs? Is there any data showing more men versus women, or are we seeing it based 100% on seniority when it comes to layoffs?

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

I don't have statistics on that.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Drew, do you have anything like that when it comes to that information?

[Drew Leyburne]

No, I don't. I know that in cyclical industries like natural resources, which are affected by commodity prices, it tends to be the men, because of their overrepresentation in the workforce, who are affected. But there's nothing about selective benefits.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We'll go to Ms. Malcolmson for seven minutes.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses. I have a couple of pieces that I want to follow up on.

I think this is probably for Mr. Brown, but maybe also for the broad department. I'm very concerned about the plight of women between 2002 and 2013 who were not able to collect their EI benefits because they were sick during their parental leave. That is an example of a barrier that women face in terms of economic security and their fair participation in the labour force. There was a promise during the 2015 election campaign to end the class action lawsuit involving sick mothers on parental leave, but those lawsuits have continued.

I'd like to hear that there's a plan to ensure that these women get access to those benefits and also that there's a plan going forward to ensure that economic security of other women is not threatened in this way.

[Andrew Brown]

Thanks for the question. This does relate to an ongoing case that's before the court, so I can't speak to that class action in particular. I can speak to the current situation and note that in 2013, in fact, the rules of the employment insurance program were changed. It is possible now for a man or a women receiving parental benefits to interrupt those parental benefits, switch to sickness benefits, and subsequently return to their parental benefits, if needed.

That was changed in 2013 and is why this covers the period up until 2013. There is ongoing litigation with respect to the situation between 2002 and 2013, when it was not possible to access sickness benefits in that way.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you.

I have a second question, which I think is also for you, but maybe again for your department, I'm very concerned about the effect of domestic violence on women's economic security. Violence against women resulted in an economic impact of approximately $21 million in lost wages in 2009—that's from the Department of Justice—and domestic and sexual violence also cost the Canadian economy more than $12 billion a year. I'd like to be assured that the department is aware of and is discussing the legislation that's been adopted in Manitoba and tabled in Ontario and British Columbia, and also the new contract language that was just negotiated by a local of the United Steelworkers union in Alberta, to ensure that leave can be taken in situations of domestic violence. In those situations, the woman usually needs to take time off work so she can find a new apartment and get her children settled as they change their lives.

[Andrew Brown]

Perhaps I'll just try to jump in a bit there to mention that, certainly, leave is something that ESDC takes a lead on with our labour program. They've undertaken consultations over the last year with respect to more flexible leave provisions, and have received feedback that went beyond that and have since published their report on those consultations. However, I'm not well placed to be able to speak specifically to what may be going on with respect to domestic violence and potential changes to leave provisions.

[Doug Murphy]

I can't get much more specific on that, but I do know that our department is working with other key government departments on the issue of domestic violence—Justice, I believe the Public Health Agency as well—but I don't have any more specifics on that work.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

If your department does see this evolve, because we're going to be involved with this study for several months, we'd certainly benefit from knowing what the federal leadership is on this topic.

[Doug Murphy]

Yes, and I think you'll probably have witnesses from our department, or other departments, because it's an important issue undoubtedly.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you.

I'd like to ask you another question in relation to some of your very positive words about the impact of child care on women's economic participation, and looking forward to the implementation of a national early learning and child care framework. But I would like to know that you're able to allay the concerns noted by groups like the Childcare Resource and Research Unit that this kind of framework might still result in an uneven child care system rather than a national plan where women across the country have equal access.

[Doug Murphy]

It would be difficult for me to speak in great detail about the framework as it is still under development now with our provincial and territorial partners. I can't get into specifics. I can tell you what the principles are for guiding that work, which are affordability, inclusiveness, high quality, and flexibility. Those are guiding our joint work on that with the provinces and territories.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Is even access one of the principles?

[Doug Murphy]

I think access will be covered, but in the mandate commitment those were the principles that were articulated.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you.

I'd like to switch to Natural Resources Canada. Because we've heard about uneven impacts, both harmful and beneficial economically, for women around major resource projects, can you tell us whether the department is using gender-based analysis to ensure that the economic changes created by recent approvals, such as of the Site C dam and the Kinder Morgan pipeline, were screened specifically to make sure that the economic benefits were not concentrated only on traditional male employment?

[Drew Leyburne]

As you know, any of the projects that go forward through approvals by Natural Resources or other departments are subject to that gender-based analysis plus. In the case of those specific projects, I don't know if I can speak to the details of that analysis specifically, just because I don't know them offhand, but I can certainly get back to you on the specifics of those projects.

I would say generally that we are very aware of the differences between the impacts on women and men from natural resources development. I mentioned earlier the remote community aspects of a lot of natural resource development, the fact that fly-in/fly-out operations can have really disruptive impacts on family life. We know, for example, that when there are new natural resource projects, there can be inflationary impacts on communities with a disproportionate impact on women. These are all things that we look at when we're studying projects. They are part of the calculation that goes into a policy-maker's decision on this.

What I would say, though, is that the natural resource economy of the future will not look like the one of our parents or grandparents. Increasingly for industries that were driven by brawn, the stereotypical pick axe and lumberjack, a lot of these operations will be run by an iPad 10 years from now, and they will be much more open to that balance.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That's her time.

Now we're going to Mr. Fraser for seven minutes.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thanks very much for being here. I really appreciate your testimony. I'll jump right in because I can't possibly cover everything I'd like to in seven minutes.

Starting with you, Ms. Miller, I found very interesting the stats you shared about women owning businesses and scaling up at a much lower rate than men. I'm curious first with respect to the scaling up. You highlighted some of the obstacles, like access to capital, relationships, and a few others, but ultimately we're going to be making recommendations to the government. What do you see as the best steps that we could take to help overcome these obstacles?