Status of Women Committee on April 6th, 2017

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to both witnesses.

This is to the Company of Women witness, Ms. Day.

I want to talk a little about parental leave as it intersects with women doing well in the economy. The parental leave changes announced in the budget two weeks ago seemed like a good thing, but it looks as though they lead to a penalty for women. With the new changes, a woman can take 12 weeks before her due date as well as up to 18 months of parental leave with her child.

The problem, however, is that women would need to take time out from the workplace, because the government didn't include the dropout clause with the Canada pension plan calculation for new mothers, the expansion of CPP. That means that there's a CPP penalty for women who use the full time allocated to them for maternal leave. It ends up, in effect, being rather clawed back. At the elderly time of their life, they are again going to have that compounded problem of not having the benefit of all that time in the workplace.

We heard from Professor Kathleen Lahey back in February at this committee. She said that the government should have included a provision for women who take time out to care for children and that it wouldn't have been an expensive or difficult change to the expanded CPP.

Do you agree that women should not be penalized for taking that leave?

[Anne Day]

I don't think they should be. Actually, because I am here more to represent women entrepreneurs—and of course I have run out of time—let me say that women entrepreneurs can't afford to take time off. We had a woman the other week who is expecting her first baby. She was in tears, because she's worried about her business and what is going to happen. She wants to spend some quality time with her baby, but she can't also afford the time off with her business. She's worried about her business and what's going to happen to it.

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

In her case, then, these leave provisions might—

[Anne Day]

Yes.

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

She can't afford to take them up.

[Anne Day]

She can't afford to take them up.

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

That's worrying.

I want to turn to the Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women. Thank you, Linda Davis, for your work.

Your organization has noted that women are under-represented in fields such as skilled trades and science, technology, engineering, and math. Given this, I'm concerned that the federal government's spending on infrastructure—as in the focus just in last month's budget—looks as though it may leave women out of the equation so far as infrastructure spending is concerned.

We heard earlier in this study from Professor Marjorie Cohen about the Vancouver Island highway construction in the nineties, which used equity hiring to promote the participation of both indigenous people and women in the highway construction. As a result of inserting that provision into the tenders, they went from 2% of women at the beginning of the project to having women and indigenous people constitute 20% of the labour force on this major highway construction on Vancouver Island.

Do you support initiatives like that to increase women's participation in—I wanted to say “non-traditional sectors”, but I know you're saying I shouldn't say “non-traditional”—STEM and infrastructure projects?

[Linda Davis]

Absolutely. I think that we as a society have to start thinking about the spending. Government spends a lot of money. They are a driving force in our economy. Without their considering the gender impact to that spending, we can find a lot of expansion of the gender wage gap by virtue of that kind of not thinking ahead. I applaud, then, that kind of initiative.

We have to have infrastructure spending. How do we balance it? Do we also balance it by spending in the health care and human services at the same time? Do we split the spending dollar so that we're making sure we're balancing it, or do we try to balance the spending by means of initiatives such as you've mentioned?

I certainly would support that kind of thinking.

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

Thank you.

I'd like to also talk about your brief to the Canadian government. In 2006 the Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women called for a national seniors strategy to support older women in Canada. We've been hearing from witnesses already that elderly women are often the most economically vulnerable women in Canada. I'm hoping you can reiterate some of the parts of your brief, or just let the committee know your advice, on what the government can do to make sure that older women in Canada do not live in poverty. How might a national strategy help that?

[Linda Davis]

Of late there seems to be a movement to youth. I'm seeing a lot of grant money available to young Canadians. I'm seeing youth being a part of every aspect that's happening. As my co-presenter here today has mentioned, let's not leave out women over 40 from the mix. It's almost like a discriminatory practice starting to happen now, when we see the attention paid to youth. I think older women will suffer if we continue with that and do not have opportunities for women at an older age.

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

In the national seniors strategy, I'm not thinking so much of women entrepreneurs who are over 40, although we're getting good testimony on that, but of seniors and retired women particularly. Do you have advice for the committee on that?

[Linda Davis]

I haven't dealt with that specifically. I've been focusing on the gender wage gap, which is really more about women during their employment years.

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

Okay.

If your organization looks at the submission you made in 2006 on the national seniors strategy and finds that you think it might be of benefit to this committee, we'd be glad to receive it and we could include it in our final report.

[Linda Davis]

Thank you. We'll do that.

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

Thanks, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Very good.

Now we'll go to Mr. Serré for seven minutes.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you so much to the two witnesses for all your experience and the work that you've done.

My first question is for Ms. Day. You have 38 years of experience. Thank you so much for all you've done. What I want to follow up on a bit is what Ms. Malcolmson mentioned concerning a national seniors strategy.

I've submitted a bill, we're going to be voting on the bill, and I hope everyone will be supporting the creation of a national seniors strategy in May. I've been talking to the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, and long-term care associations. Part of the strategy they've outlined as a priority is concerned with compassionate care and caregiving and a lot of the unpaid work involved. From your experience, I want to know whether you have any recommendations specific to that area.

[Anne Day]

When we were writing our book we talked to a lot of women who were what I'd call the sandwich generation. They have teenagers, they may be going through a messy divorce, and they also have senior parents. It's a question of having time to deal with those situations. It's almost as though it could push them over the edge, because it's very difficult.

Having some supports, either paid time off work, or in the case of entrepreneurs, maybe there's a benefit they could get....

Trying to work the maze of all the different services that are available and all the different criteria involves extremely difficult navigation, so I think that even having a plan—whereby you could see that if your partner has X or your mother has this, then here is where you would go for help—would help. It's very difficult to navigate and it's time-consuming at a stressful time.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Davis, you indicated in your presentation the lack of data. We've heard this pretty much for all the studies. I want to know whether you have specific recommendations for us linked to Stats Canada or Revenue Canada. You started to talk a bit about data by gender, but do you have other specific recommendations for us?

[Linda Davis]

In our consultation process we saw there was a huge lack of data and lack of continuity of data because of the census' being discontinued. When we were gathering our data we had to jump among different forms of data, which aren't always comparable. I applaud the census' being established again. We need that information and data.

We have to have employer data. I know that we're looking at a pay equity act nationally. That act really should involve the gathering of data. There should be a requirement within that process that employment and wage data be gathered and shared. Even though I know that the information is already being gathered.... We talked about this as well, that Revenue Canada gathers much of that employment and wage data, but it's not necessarily shared, or there's no access to it. To be able to use it in a meaningful way, we have to have that.

I would say that an easy fix whenever programs and projects are funded would be that there be a data-gathering component to them.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

I forgot to mention, too, the work that the BPW does nationally and internationally, and also to recognize Carol Stahl from Sudbury, the BPW president, they've done a fabulous job in Sudbury.

Even prior to being an MP, I sponsored many of the business awards, luncheons, and suppers. Continue the good work that you're doing.

What I wanted to ask is this. You mentioned also in your presentation the need for a national awareness campaign. We heard about this from other witnesses. Do you have any examples or suggested partners, or can you expand a bit on the idea? How can we look at implementing it? It would be large as a campaign, but do you have a specific area that you would recommend it focus on?

[Linda Davis]

The Ontario government ran a campaign for “It's never okay”, for gender violence. It was really hard-hitting, I think, and very effective. They showed a scene happening that people, I'm sure, will have seen every day. We've normalized these kinds of things, and no one says anything, a young man taking a drunk young woman out of a party, as an example, and looking to the camera to say, “Thanks for not saying anything.” Then they show the repercussion of that, or the situation when somebody does say something, and the young woman leaving the party saying, “Thanks for saying something.”

I think there's a great example there of showing the situation, in a campaign that I think was very effective. Echoing something along those lines would be very helpful.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

I want to ask, Ms. Day, about the lack of a woman's centre in Ontario for entrepreneurs. You talked about future entrepreneurship and looking at funding and you applauded the recent government budget and also indicated some of the success stories with a gender-balanced cabinet.

Do you, however, have any specific recommendations for the future entrepreneurial.... You mentioned the “over 40”, which is a good example. Do you have any other recommendations?

[Anne Day]

I actually used to volunteer for them, so I'm familiar with their program. I think the key is that not only do the young people get a grant, but they get a mentor for two years. That's actually what the government needs, I think, because—let's face it—this is taxpayers' money. If you are giving money to futurpreneurs, you want to make sure it's being well spent, especially given the failure rate of new businesses.

Extending it to those over 40 makes sense to me. We are seeing many women being downsized or ending up in divorce. What do they do? They may stay at home the whole time and not have any skill sets, so they start looking at what they could do.

Broadening it with futurpreneurs.... You already have a base there, a program that runs and runs well, so what would be the difference in extending the age? Plus, if you're over 40, one hopes you have some experience and some skills that would make your business more successful.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That brings us to the end of our time to hear witnesses today. We have a little bit of committee business to take care of.

I want to thank our witnesses. You are both a wealth of information. Thank you for the work you do. I would invite you, if you have any other comments that you think would be helpful to the committee, to feel free to send those to the clerk. We appreciate them.

In terms of the business we have as a committee, you will have received the eighth report of the subcommittee. It basically considered the work we're going to do on Bill C-337 and said that there's a budget of $9,000 for it. There is a press release that we were going to send out to ask for briefs on it.

There was a decision by the subcommittee that we want to include all of the testimony we heard on violence against women and girls. Because there was a lot of overlap and a lot of testimony that pertained to the judicial training, we want to make sure it's included in the study so that we don't have to recall all those witnesses, in an attempt to narrow a bit.

The subcommittee also decided that we should set aside two days, April 11 and April 13, for all of the witnesses we've agreed upon—and there is a work plan for you to review—and that we would then undertake clause-by-clause on May 4.

That was the first part.

The second part had to do with the economic security study that we're now doing. We wanted to reissue the press release to make sure that we can extend and get more briefs. Then we talked about how, as we go along here in this study, we have noticed that questions may come up or there may be witnesses we have not heard from, so we wanted to have an opportunity to put forward some more witnesses to fill in any of the gaps.

Originally, we were thinking we would do so today, but I would propose, if the committee is happy to do it, that we allow some time for people to submit those names, because it's not as though we're in a hurry. We're continuing this study into the fall. It would be great if we could get the list of any additional witnesses people want to hear by the end of April.

I would be looking for a motion to adopt the subcommittee report.

That is so moved by Ms. Damoff.

Is there any discussion?