Status of Women Committee on Feb. 7th, 2017

[Ann Decter]

Yes.

We know that there's a shortage of affordable housing across the country. There are massive waiting lists to get into social housing. Housing affordability has taken a real hit in the last decade in the major cities. It's very difficult, so one of the things that's happening is that women can't leave the shelters when they're ready to go. Depending on the province, it varies. They might be there for three weeks or for six months, but at the point where they are ready to return to the community and live safely, they can't find affordable housing, so they're left with the choice of returning to the abuser, becoming homeless, or moving into hidden homelessness with families.

It is my contention that if we expand access to safe and affordable housing for women who are leaving shelters, we could relieve some of the pressure on the shelters and it would be possible for more women to enter. As they come, fewer would be turned away.

I think that rather than immediately expanding the emergency shelter situation, we should expand the affordable housing, and then let's see how much more emergency shelter is needed.

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

In the “Blueprint for Canada's National Action Plan on Violence Against Women and Girls”, issued by the Canadian Network of Women's Shelters and Transition Houses, the YWCA was a major contributor and supporter—

[Ann Decter]

Yes.

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

—and many NGOs signed on to it. It notes that “the total cost of intimate partner violence has been estimated at $7.4 billion per year” for Canada.

Can you talk more about how violence against women affects women in the economy and how a national action plan—not a federal plan, but a national one—to end violence against women could help protect women's economic security?

[Ann Decter]

One thing that happens when women are fleeing violence and go to a shelter is that they lose their employment. It's not all, but I think it's about two-thirds of them. They're giving up their income and they need to start over. Obviously, it's a long path to get back to having housing for those who lose employment, and to re-establishing an income and a stable living environment for their children. There can be long-term trauma. Certainly in Canada we need more supportive housing with trauma-informed services.

I would like to defer a bit to Anuradha on this and see if she has anything to add, because she is the director of violence prevention at the CWF.

[Anuradha Dugal]

The one thing I would add is that we're a member of a national and international network on how violence against women affects women in the workplace, on how it distracts them and causes them to lose productivity at work. Also, they will not necessarily apply for promotions and they won't disclose at work, because they're extremely worried about how it will affect how they're seen in the workplace. Even though HR policies might be in place to support them, they won't necessarily access those HR policies.

I think that points to some of the important new legislation in places such as Manitoba and what's being floated in Ontario to give women protected leave in cases of violence against women.

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

With regard to legislation coming up, Manitoba has implemented it, and B.C. and Ontario have private members' bills, I believe.

[Anuradha Dugal]

Yes.

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

The Steelworkers got a big win on this just a few weeks ago.

[Ann Decter]

It was negotiated in the contracts. Yes.

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

Can you talk briefly about whether you see a federal role in coordinating and making sure that with this extra protection for women through unemployment insurance and other things, their work is not jeopardized?

[Ann Decter]

There's always room for federal leadership on violence against women, and I think it goes a long way to setting a national standard and an attitude. It sets a standard for governments to meet across the country.

I think the federal government working on sexual harassment in federally covered workplaces is key. I think that a big chunk of the unexplained reasons that women don't advance in the workplace is.... We haven't really talked about sexual harassment in the workplace as a reason that women don't advance and aren't comfortable advancing, but we've seen it. From the CBC to the police forces to the RCMP to firefighters, it's in the news all the time. Those workplaces really need to change, and anything the federal government can do to set a tone and a standard on that is really influential, I would say, across the provinces.

I give lots of credit to the Canadian Labour Congress, which has really been moving forward on the issue of training people to recognize domestic violence in the workplace, to recognize when it's happening to someone, and to be able to start to probe and get supports.

They have also been moving forward on the legislation, which, for those who don't know, gives 10 days of leave in instances of domestic violence. That's now been brought in in Manitoba. People are working on that in other places across the country, and also trying to negotiate it in union contracts so that women have some time to be off and regroup without jeopardizing their jobs. This will change the rate of job losses for women who are going to shelters. I've certainly seen personal instances of that.

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

I have a final question.

Women with disabilities are among the poorest populations in Canada, with an unemployment rate of up to 75% and very high levels of domestic violence also. Can you talk a little bit about how it would help to have the federal government increase operational funding to help address the situation, particularly around shelter space?

[Ann Decter]

Across the country for the most part, we have a mature social service system in the shelters serving women fleeing violence, but there are definitely gaps in the system. In northern Canada, for example, in rural and remote communities, women don't have the same access. Women with disabilities don't have the same access, because shelters aren't necessarily equipped to support them, and of course shelters are always operating on absolutely shoestring budgets.

Within the infrastructure spending that the government is doing, some funding that's dedicated to shelters and increasing access to shelters for women with disabilities would be really excellent.

I also hope that this committee is going to hear from the DisAbled Women's Network of Canada to talk about a lot of issues concerning women with disabilities.

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

We will. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Excellent.

We'll go now to my colleague Ms. Vandenbeld, and I'll give you extra time so you can inform the committee about the event today.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

First of all, I just wanted to inform the committee—I know most of you already know—that the official launch of the all-party parliamentary women's caucus will be today at 3:30 in room 356-S, which is on the Senate side on the third floor. I hope that all of you will be there.

I have a couple of questions.

Mr. Adema, I see that on page 5 of your slides you talk about the unexplained wage gap. I know that some have said, “Well, this is an unexplained gap, because it's based on people's personal choices.” However, what I heard you say is that there's an element of discrimination there, and also that sometimes because women are working shorter hours, bonus payments, promotions, and things like that might be less accessible to women.

I also noticed, Ms. Dugal, that you mentioned unconscious bias. I'm wondering if you could delve into that unexplained wage gap a little in terms of the unconscious bias, or discrimination, or socio-economic factors that might make up part of that unexplained gap.

Maybe we'll start with Mr. Adema.

[Prof. Willem Adema]

This is an econometrics exercise. Basically, we have various variables we can use to explain the pay gap, including the worker's education, the worker's job, and whether the worker works long hours or short hours. All those variables are included in the econometric regression, but there are other variables we cannot include. It's much harder to model attitudes towards women or their career progression. It is much harder to model social institutions. There is the tax benefit system. Is that really neutral towards both partners working in couple families? There are various factors that the econometric exercise doesn't capture.

You can see from this chart that in some countries the unexplained variable is much bigger than in other countries. For instance, in Korea a lot of workers are on annual contracts that are renewed, but their earnings progression isn't as strong as for workers who hold a full-time or a permanent contract, so to speak. Then the question becomes why we have this pay gap, since on the whole, young women in Korea are now much better educated than are young men. There's a generation gap, in that women 20 to 30 years ago were not in that strong an educational position, but there is also an element of disadvantage, an unwillingness among employers to invest in women, and there are still very traditional expectations. Korean employers still expect their women workers to either leave employment when they become pregnant or take leave and maybe not come back, so their level of investment is much lower, but it's very difficult to capture that in econometric regression.

If you ask me what that unexplained bit means, it means two things: there are a certain number of things the econometrics don't pick up, but there may also be an element of discrimination in the labour market. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you how large or small that particular element is.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Dugal, could you talk about the unconscious bias that you were talking about?

[Anuradha Dugal]

Unconscious bias is the idea that we all, inside of ourselves, have attitudes and ways that we behave toward people, judgments we make about people, regardless of what our higher thinking is telling us to do. We have a belief, particularly when it comes to promotion, particularly in hiring situations, particularly when we are comparing..... The idea that somehow somebody will be hired based purely on their merit...as if we can do that, first of all. Even when on paper two people look the same, there is an unconscious bias playing behind the decision between two candidates in that way. Sometimes it's way more than unconscious and it's very obvious, but that is something that I think we can address through training and HR policies.

I will go back to some of the examples that Ann used from YWCA Canada about sexual harassment and the ways in which women are treated in a workplace that tell them that they are not allowed to succeed, that they can't push themselves forward, that they shouldn't go for promotions. Those things are sometimes unspoken in a workplace also.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you. That's very helpful.

Ms. Decter, I was quite astounded by the statistics that you gave about the level of poverty for single senior women going from 9% to 28% in just 20 years. I know that increasing the guaranteed income supplement for single seniors will go some way to alleviating that, but are there other things we can do? Of course, this becomes a perpetuating cycle, in which women make less money, have more precarious work, don't have pensions, and then, once they retire, of course live in poverty. What can we do for those who are currently single seniors, and also for the future?

[Ann Decter]

What can be done currently is a little trickier, but I do think you need to take a hard look at it. Certainly more affordable housing would help. I think we need to look at affordable housing for seniors.

You also see a concentration in the population. It becomes more and more female as people get older. We need a lot of alternatives to the current system of having either to survive on your own, return to family, or go into something that's full care or fairly expensive care. If there were more options for women to generate different ways of living, of sharing, I think that would be really useful.

I do think you need to look at the CPP and what's going on with that. You can see that some of this change parallels the move from defined benefit pensions to defined contribution pensions. You're making individuals dependent on really understanding the stock market and beating the stock market to be able to be secure in their older years. I think we need to roll back to some of those other things we had in the past.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you.

I'd like to give my last minute to Ms. Damoff.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you.

To our friend from the OECD, you talked about Japan and the parental leave for men. Do you have the numbers on that? When I was there last year, I understood that very few men actually take it.

[Prof. Willem Adema]

This is very true. The legislation came into place around 2010, and the latest numbers for Japan suggest that about 2% to 4% of the eligible men actually take it. The main problem is that if you take leave, this is perceived as curtains for your career, or as detrimental to it.

However, there are signs that some change is happening. If you look at Korea, about five years ago about 2% of the eligible men took it. That has gone up to over 5%. What's more, once Korean men decide to take the leave, they actually take it for a long time. On average, their period of leave is about eight months, only a little bit shorter than that for women, so there are some encouraging signs there. I won't say that this is a major breakthrough, but if it can help bring about a shift in gender expectations in this area, which could do wonders in the long run.