Status of Women Committee on March 10th, 2016

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

If the minister is willing to stay for 10 more minutes, is there consent to allow two more questions, or three?

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

It's so rare that we get the minister here. We should honour this time and the 10 minutes we have.

We have the committee meeting for another hour.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That's fine.

If you have time to stay, we'd love to have you stay.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I would be happy to stay for the remaining eight minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

In which case, I will move over to Ms. Vecchio, who I understand is sharing her time with Ms. Harder.

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

We have some time there, ladies. Are there any questions specifically you haven't asked that you feel you want to ask?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

All right.

We chose as a committee to study violence against women, but it's also of course a part of the department and what you're doing. I guess one of my questions is this. I'm not a huge fan of doing redundant work, so I'm wondering if there's a way we can partner together to make sure the research that we're doing here at this level is complementary and beneficial to the department so that we can actually move forward. Again, coming back to that idea of concrete objectives but also results, I'm just wondering how we partner with you in that.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Absolutely. As I said, there's not a ton of research on the issue that we raised earlier around the social media cyberworld that young girls and women are facing. Also, the issue of campus violence is something that's fairly new and fairly—well, not new. I shouldn't say the issue is new. The focus is new, but the issue is not new, which I can say as a woman who was on campus many years ago.

Also, we talked a bit about the hypersexualization of girls in the media the last time I was here. There's this culture that we're raising our young women and girls in that demands that they look a certain way and be a certain way, and in fact they are sexualized at a very young age. Those are things that I think certainly you could focus on that would be complementary to the work, and the research that you will do will fold into the federal strategy, so it will not be redundant. We won't be calling the same level of witnesses, but what we can do is present this committee's work as the evidence around those topics.

Then, of course, is the notion of engaging boys and men. How we do that, and how do we make sure that we do that in a way that's complementary to the work?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Excellent. Thank you.

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

Carrying on with that, one of the concerns that I have heard and I am aware of is the fact that we have seen some violence in some of our situations because of the cultural differences. Don't get me wrong, I do support bringing refugees into this country. When new Canadians are coming to Canada, what is it that we can do right now, as the government and as Canadians, to support the way our culture and our values...? I do see there has been a bit of an issue with that. What would you suggest? What are we doing to help those women who are coming as new refugees?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Absolutely. One of the things that we can do is make sure we don't stimulate a culture of hate and fear. It's extremely important that especially Muslim women who are coming to this country are not made to feel ashamed of what they wear or what they believe, and that we don't stimulate that perspective in our citizens. These people are fleeing war-torn countries. They're coming from horrible conditions. They're looking for safety for their family and themselves. What we need to do is be supportive allies in their resettlement process.

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

Although I agree with that, I am fully aware of the situations people are coming from. I am speaking of one-offs, where we do see the violence that is existing within those, and some of the organizations that I've worked with in our communities have also been concerned with the values.

I do support what we're doing as Canadians. I think it's very important. As a Canadian, I would sit there and also support their coming and trying to integrate them into our communities, but we have seen some of this, so I'm wondering what we're doing to promote that within their families, not so much for Canadians but within their own families, so that there is not the violence in those new refugee families.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

One of the things that we are working on is the permanent residency for spouses. It is a very important component of making women safer. The dangling of citizenship that a male spouse can do to terrorize his spouse is one of the biggest tools he has to actually controlling his spouse. Part of the rationale behind giving that permanent residency to a female spouse is to make sure she does not have her citizenship threatened, so that if she is in an abusive situation she has the freedom to go to the police or go to an agency or go to a shelter, for that matter, and not be threatened of having her citizenship revoked. That is one very important piece.

Many of our multicultural organizations work very closely with families and are able to work really closely with women who are experiencing violence. Often they have people who speak their own language, who are familiar with the culture, and who can provide culturally appropriate supports.

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

That's exactly what I was looking for, making sure we have those organizations and those associations that are reaching out, because I recognize we have seen some of this in our larger cities in southwestern Ontario. That's why I'm asking those specific questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Ms. Vandenbeld, you have two minutes, so just one question.

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

Thank you.

Minister, thank you so much for being here again.

I noticed that in the five priorities in the RPP, the one that we haven't had a chance to address yet is the one on the representation of women in leadership roles. We all know that if you have a critical mass of women in any legislative body you start to see advances in the material well-being of women and girls, you start to see advances in health and education. I wonder if you could comment just a little about that in the remaining time.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Well, I'm pretty excited about this part of the mandate, not that it's not all great, but I agree with you that one of the ways we can actually move gender equality forward in leaps and bounds is to make sure our agencies, our organizations, and our private sector, for that matter, have more women leading the way.

We can do it ourselves, of course. We as a party had an event where we called women and girls and encouraged them to step forward into politics. I think we're all free to do that kind of mentorship at the ground level. We have a number of projects, and our recent call for proposals is focused on exactly that, empowering women to step up to participate, whether it's at a community level or a political level, and at all levels of politics. We often focus on federal politics because we're here, but really the numbers are even more abysmal at the municipal level. We've supported organizations that have done a lot of research around municipal elections, and we're disseminating that information as fast as we can.

Again, the leadership and the focus that our Prime Minister has placed on the need for gender equality and the value of gender equality, not just from a human rights lens but from a fiscal lens is stimulating a lot of activity within the Status of Women, and I'm happy to report that they're very busy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

You have 20 seconds.

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

Thank you.

In my last 20 seconds, I want to thank you very much for your leadership on that. We, particularly in this committee, all know that, but it also makes a big difference for younger women growing up to have those role models.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Absolutely. Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you again, ladies. You did a wonderful job.

[Voices]

Hear, hear!

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We'll now go to the vote on our supplementary estimates (C).

OFFICE OF THE CO-ORDINATOR, STATUS OF WOMEN Vote 1c—Operating expenditures..........$76,000 Vote 5c—Grants and contributions..........$1

(Votes 1c and 5c agreed to)

Shall I report the supplementary estimates (C), 2015-16, to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Now we will turn to the main estimates 2016-17. Pursuant to Standing Order 81(4), votes 1 and 5 under Office of the Co-ordinator, Status of Women, were referred to the committee on February 23, 2016.

OFFICE OF THE CO-ORDINATOR, STATUS OF WOMEN Vote 1—Operating expenditures..........$9,801,615 Vote 5—Grants and contributions..........$20,630,000

(Votes 1 and 5 agreed to)

Shall I report the main estimates 2016-17 to the House?