Status of Women Committee on April 6th, 2017

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

Before we start our meeting this morning I want to bring you some news and encouragement about our work here on committee.

Yesterday, Facebook announced that they have upgraded their functionality to address revenge porn issues. Now, if there's objectionable material that was put up without your consent, you have a button to notify them, and they will take the material down from their platform, from everyone's pages. They will also use face recognition software to take it off Instagram and any of the platforms they are in charge of.

Kevin Chan cited the work of our committee. How exciting, you are having an impact. What an encouragement this is as we continue with our study on economic security.

Today, we have with us Carole Gingras, Director of the Status of Women Service of the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec.

We also have Meg Gingrich from United Steelworkers, and Debora De Angelis from the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada.

Welcome, ladies. You each have seven minutes for your remarks.

Are you there, Ms. Gingras?

[Carole Gingras, Director, Status of Women Service, Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec]

Yes, I am here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Excellent. You can begin.

[Carole Gingras]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank the committee for giving us the opportunity to present our views this morning.

I would like to begin by saying a little bit about the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec.

The FTQ is the largest union federation in Quebec. We represent more than 600,000 members. We represent the largest number of unionized women in Quebec: over 200,000. We also represent more than 125,000 members who work in federally regulated sectors.

To advance women's economic security, the FTQ advocates acting simultaneously on several fronts; I will address six of them.

The first point is recognition of the value of women's work. The federal government needs a proactive pay equity law now. We believe this would be one way of respecting women workers' right to a fair wage for the work they do. In Quebec, a law enacted in 1997 has significantly reduced the wage gap, which has gone from 16% in 1997 to 10% in 2015. I will not dwell on this point, but it is clearly one way to advance women's economic security.

The second point is an increase in the minimum wage to $15 per hour. The FTQ fully supports that recommendation, which has also been made by the Canadian Labour Congress. We reiterate that, in an economic context where non-standard jobs and precarious employment are of growing importance, the federal government must set the tone by establishing a minimum wage of $15 per hour. We would point out that a very large number of women in Canada work for minimum wage. There are also men working for minimum wage, but women are affected more: nearly 60% of people who work for minimum wage are women. These women's work needs to be better recognized.

Another effective way of advancing women's economic security is to balance work, family and school. This is an important lever for reducing inequality between men and women while producing positive effects on the economy. In Quebec, we have a family policy that includes child care, the Quebec parental insurance plan, which covers maternity and parental leave and work-family balance measures. I would like to address those elements one by one.

First, a complete public network of high-quality reduced-contribution educational child care services is important, to support women and keep them in employment. In Quebec, this measure has markedly improved women's labour market participation rate for two decades. In the initial years of the plan, between 1997 and 2004, we saw a significant 10% increase in the presence of women in the labour market.

This measure has also resulted in the creation of thousands of jobs in the child care industry. In its 2002-03 budget speech, Quebec's government indicated that subsidized child care had already led to the creation of 12,000 jobs, and, in 2014, 30,000 full-time jobs had been created in the industry.

According to Statistics Canada, 45,000 people work in child care in Quebec. Over 90% of workers in this occupation are women. This is therefore an important issue. The industry is far from perfect in Quebec, but this measure has had a positive impact on women's employment.

The other measure relates to maternity and parental leave, which has resulted in a significant increase in women's labour market participation rate in Quebec. This measure has been in place since 2006. The Quebec parental insurance plan allows 90% of new mothers in Quebec to receive parental benefits, versus 65% of Canadian women governed by employment insurance rules.

Recently, the Quebec government did an evaluation, and the economic and social impacts were extremely positive.

In addition, there is a widening gap between Quebec and the other Canadian provinces. For example, in a household with total income of $30,000 or less, mothers are more likely to take paid leave in Quebec than in the other provinces. In 2013, 85% of low-income women in Quebec had access to paid maternity leave, as compared with 44% of Canadian women.

There is also the entire question of fathers. We can see the effects of this measure on fathers' participation when it comes to taking leave, whether paternity leave or parental leave. We see that the rate rose from 28% under the employment insurance plan in 2005 to 83% under the Quebec parental insurance plan in 2004. This is beneficial in terms of the role of parents and the division of labour in the home.

There is also the entire question of adapting workplaces. This is an important measure. In Quebec, we work with the Coalition pour la conciliation famille-travail-études. For several years, we have been calling for framework legislation on family-work-school balance. Its aim would be to require employers to initiate a labour-management process with employees and the unions that represent them to determine the needs relating to family-work-school balance in each workplace and to put measures in place, with a focus on equality.

Another element of this is the protective reassignment of pregnant or breastfeeding workers. In the last federal budget, we saw a measure referred to as protective withdrawal from work that covers up to 12 weeks before the due date rather than the eight weeks allowed at present. That does not trigger additional benefits for the claimant. In our opinion, this is not genuine protective withdrawal; it is disguised maternity leave. In Quebec, protective reassignment is not maternity leave and is not a social measure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you.

Your time is up.

[Carole Gingras]

I have more to say, but you will be asking me questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Yes, that is right.

We will continue with Meg Gingrich for seven minutes as well.

[Meg Gingrich, Research Representative, National Office, United Steelworkers]

Thank you.

I'd like to thank everybody for the opportunity to speak today. I'm here from the United Steelworkers union. We represent about 220,000 active members in Canada. USW members are men and women of every social, cultural, and ethnic background, and virtually every industry and job.

Over the years the steelworkers have developed courses for women to train other women in the union. We continue to work in politics and the community to advance the interests of all working women.

We've submitted 10 recommendations covering a wide range of issues. They cover some of the same issues that were just spoken about, but they cover federal pay equity legislation, universal child care, secure pensions, and address gender violence. These areas all have an impact on the economic security of women.

An unacceptable pay gap remains between men and women in every jurisdiction in Canada. At the federal level we believe it's absolutely essential to pass proactive pay equity legislation. We also know that legislation on its own doesn't necessarily eliminate the gap all of the way. We know that unions and collective bargaining have been important to reducing the wage gap. In terms of hourly wages, unionization diminishes the gap to close to 5%, from upwards of 15% to 20%, and then on an annual earnings basis, where the gap is much larger, unionization reduces it from over 30% to closer to 15%, which we recognize is still too high.

Beyond wages, collective bargaining and unionization provide women with a protected collective voice to negotiate improved pensions and benefits, as well as flexibility to prevent the negative economic consequences that arise out of the unpaid labour that women are often expected to do and do perform in the domestic sphere. There are OECD studies that say that women in Canada report upwards of four hours of unpaid work on a daily basis, and that's close to two hours more than men report.

We believe this is a contributing factor to women's economic inequality. It forces women to take on more part-time and insecure work that's often lower paid and with fewer workplace protections. For that reason, USW calls for an immediate increase to the federal minimum wage, to $15 an hour, and we further call for the protection and expansion of union rights.

Close to 40% of women outside Quebec cannot access the current EI maternity and parental leave system, either because of a lack of eligible hours or because they simply cannot afford to take the leave based on their replacement rates.

USW recommends a federal leave system that's more equivalent to the Quebec program, so an eligibility based on $2,000 of income during the eligibility period, a reduction of hours required to become eligible to 300, a longer eligibility period of up to five years. We also recommend raising income replacement for maternity and second parent leave to 70%. We're trying to get an equalization of care between parents, and we recommend a “use it or lose it” second parent leave, which would typically be the father, though not necessarily.

Then, there are wage replacements and improved flexibility for compassionate care leave, as women take on the majority of all types of family care.

Canada must go much further than it has to create a universal child care system as well, one that's accessible and affordable to all families. It must also be inclusive, regardless of ability; economic, cultural, or linguistic circumstances; location; or workforce status. It must also include a living wage for child care workers.

Canada must also ensure equality of access to decent pensions that do not simply perpetuate the wage gap until death. USW applauds the recent CPP expansion and recommends that all provisions of CPP, including child-rearing and disability dropout provisions are included to ensure that women receive the full economic benefit of the expanded CPP.

Old age security and the guaranteed income supplement eligibility must remain at 65, and there must be further work with the provinces to reduce social assistance and other clawbacks that arise from OAS and GIS payments.

The steelworkers also ask for increased federal-provincial collaboration on apprenticeship programs and placements aimed at equity-seeking groups. We also call on the federal government to assess infrastructure investments through a gender and equity lens.

We call on the government to invest in social infrastructure, such as affordable housing and public transportation, and we call for procurement provisions and policies that meet gender and equity standards with clear enforcement mechanisms and that do not simply continue occupational segregation.

Women cannot achieve true economic equality and security if we do not also address the particular inequalities faced by indigenous women, black and other women of colour, women with disabilities, and LGBTQ women. Women facing multiple inequalities experience even larger wage gaps and are more likely to be in precarious work.

Last but not least, Canada must protect and expand our public health care system by implementing a national pharmacare plan that is accessible, publicly funded, and publicly delivered.

Finally, access to and protection of reproductive health services is essential to women's economic freedom and security.

That concludes my remarks. I'll be happy to answer any questions you have. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Very good. Thanks so much.

We are now going to go to Debora De Angelis.

You have seven minutes.

[Debora De Angelis, Regional Director, Ontario, United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada]

Thank you.

On behalf of the members of UFCW Canada, we welcome the opportunity to make recommendations to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women on how to improve women's economic security and ensure the equal participation of women in the Canadian economy.

UFCW Canada is this country's leading private sector union, representing more than 250,000 workers throughout Canada. We are the leading force for workers in the retail, food processing, and hospitality sectors. Over 50% of UFCW Canada's members are women, and 40% of our members are under the age of 30. Close to 10,000 UFCW Canada members work in federally regulated sectors. They work in the security sector—for example, for G4S; in transportation; at Canadian Forces bases; in credit unions; in the fisheries sector; in the milling sector, including flour, grain, and malt; in the mining sector; and in other federally regulated workplaces.

We applaud the federal government's commitment to take action to close the gender pay gap, including actions to reduce occupational segregation, reduce women's poverty, and eliminate sexual harassment and violence in the workplace.

UFCW Canada recommends the following actions that the government can implement now to close the gender wage gap.

Make closing the gender wage gap a human rights priority.

We call for a proactive federal pay equity law modelled on the recommendations of the 2004 pay equity task force. UFCW joins other trade unions and pay equity advocates in calling for legislation this year.

We call on the federal government to legislate a living wage. Women dominate low-wage, precarious work. One in three women earn less than $15 per hour compared to one in five men.

We call on the government to address the barriers in accessing leave such as maternity and parental leave. Research shows that Quebec's maternity and parental leave does a much better job at reaching low-income families than does the program available in the rest of Canada. There are several elements behind this, including a lower entrance requirement, additional “use it or lose it” weeks of leave for the non-birthing parent, and higher replacement rates for portions of the benefit period.

UFCW Canada members have many diverse social and economic concerns. The following additional recommendations are based on issues that are particularly relevant to them.

UFCW Canada recommends that legislation be amended to compel employers to provide reliable scheduling practices and better notice periods. The majority of retail workers are women working part-time hours. Employers do not always give guarantees as to how many hours a part-time employee will receive. This results in insufficient notice of shifts, last-minute changes to schedules, cancelled shifts right before they begin, and abbreviated shifts once the employee has arrived. This gives employers a large pool of individuals willing to work at a moment's notice, as this is the only way they can get their hours. Unreliable scheduling practices operate to the detriment of many workers, particularly part-time employees. These practices disproportionately affect women and worsen the wage gap.

UFCW Canada local 1006A and locals 175 and 633 recently negotiated scheduling languages with a large food retailer aimed at addressing the notice issue. The two-week rolling schedule provides each employee at least 10 days' notice of what their schedule will be for the week. With the exception of emergencies, without the consent of the affected employees the employer cannot be allowed to change the schedule once posted. Providing adequate notice is important for allowing employees to plan their lives in such a way as to maximize their work hours to their desired level.

We also call on the federal government to champion, support, and help fund a high-quality, universal child care system. UFCW Canada recently surveyed its young members, of which more than 60% are women, on what they would like to see from the federal government when it comes to addressing young worker issues. Access to high-quality, universal child care ranked as one of their top three responses in the survey.

Women are unable to access better-paying jobs or full-time jobs because of the lack of affordable and accessible child care in this country. Working mothers in Quebec have been able to benefit tremendously from the implementation of high-quality, universal child care, and this is widely accepted as a key component of reducing the gender wage gap.

We understand that negotiations towards a new framework for early learning and child care are under way. We recommend that the federal government, in co-operation with the provinces and territories, make adequate funding available to ensure that all Canadian families can access quality, affordable child care, and that this universal system be considered a priority to be achieved without undue delay.

On behalf of the membership of UFCW Canada, we urge the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women to consider all of the above to ensure that the economic security of women is improved in Canada. We look forward to working with all of you.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Very good. Thanks so much.

Now we're going to begin our first round of questions. We are going to start with my colleague, Ms. Ludwig, for seven minutes.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, all, for your presentations today.

We've done a very good job in Canada redirecting young people from the arts into business and some other fields. How would you recommend that we encourage our young people to relook at the arts fields but also women to be more involved in STEM—in science, technology, engineering, and math?

I'd like to ask both Meg and Debora.

[Debora De Angelis]

Recent research in the STEM industries continues to show that there is an incredible amount of discrimination towards women. Even though women graduate more than young men from universities in the STEM fields, they are still disproportionately not in those fields. There is a systemic discrimination that is going on right now, and I think that this needs to be addressed before young women are willing to enter those fields.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you.

Meg, go ahead.

[Meg Gingrich]

I echo that. Women face a lot of discrimination. It goes deeper than that to the unexplained wage gap, which goes into stereotypes and assumptions about women's and men's abilities, and things like that. That starts from a very young age. Just getting girls in school interested in those fields.... I don't want to say that we want to just push everybody into STEM and business at the expense of other programs. We want to focus on job creation, rather than just on individual responsibility to get a particular type of education.

Those are my comments.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Great. Thank you.

We've heard other witnesses speak about the same wraparound support, for example in terms of affordable, quality, accessible child care. For women who want to be involved in, say, working in the steel industry, sometimes the hours aren't conducive to day care hours. Within your program, the women of steel program, is there anything you are doing to expand and look at accessible, affordable, quality child care that's outside of the nine-to-five realm?

[Meg Gingrich]

When we're looking at creating a universal child care program—and the provinces would create programs—ideally it would also provide child care for hours that are not just nine to five. That is one of the things that we recommend. I didn't say it explicitly in the report, but generally, when we are talking about a child care system that is accessible for everybody, that includes women who work all shifts. It goes beyond just steel. It's any industry—service industry, or whatever it may be. People don't work nine to five anymore.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

My next question is about the $15-an-hour minimum wage. As a small business owner, we employ about 20 people in the province of New Brunswick. We pay higher than the minimum wage. However—and we've had this conversation within my family—with 20 people, it is a bit of a stretch sometimes to meet the payroll. It's not always easy.

If the minimum wage is increased to $15 an hour, the consequence is that a number of people within our company and others would be looking at.... If they are making $20 an hour, they'd like to see their wages increased by $3. How would you explain to employers the economic return of an increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour?

[Meg Gingrich]

There have been numerous studies on this that show the overall impact. There is often an argument from employer groups that they would have to lay people off and so on, but the increased demand that comes from people having more disposable income actually tends to offset any sort of increased demand on employers to pay their workers more. In an immediate sense, it might be difficult to adjust, but in the long term, having more disposable income, especially for people with lower incomes—they are the ones who spend that money, and they spend it on consumer goods—the ultimate economic benefit for everybody is positive in a net sense.

[Debora De Angelis]

In my role as director in Ontario, we receive calls daily, especially from women trying to improve their working conditions by wanting to join a union. A lot of those women are in precarious work but are working two or three jobs because minimum wage just isn't cutting it. An increase to minimum wage would help with the fact that they wouldn't have to work two or three jobs. They would be more available, not only to society but to their families as well.

I also agree with the comments that Meg has made.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

In terms of the $15 per hour minimum wage, in eastern Canada that would be high. In western Canada it may not be enough.

How did you come to $15 per hour?

[Debora De Angelis]

We use the $15 statistic because it's available, but we are actually requesting a living wage. It would be different in different places, but it's whatever the markers are that would make it comfortable for workers to be able to survive above poverty in their provinces.

[Meg Gingrich]

We also support a living wage. We also support the expansion of union organizing, union rights, and collective bargaining, workers determining and having the ability to bargain with their employers so that if $15 is not enough they can actually have the ability to collectively bargain for higher wages.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

What about those who are not unionized in the private sector?

[Meg Gingrich]

We're always pushing for everybody to be unionized, but for those who aren't we call for a $15 minimum wage. It's a baseline. It's not necessarily as high as we would like it to be, but it would immediately bring a lot of people out of poverty who are making $4 less per hour now. That's a significant increase.