Status of Women Committee on June 8th, 2017

[Jennifer Howell]

Being a parent, I can empathize with them and help them to get that form filled out. Then if they're denied, I can tell them I'm there for them and we're going to fight this together.

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

I totally agree with you. It's great to hear about the work you are doing, but we don't see that in all the communities. A lot of times you can walk into a social assistance program and they won't know what's available.

I always felt that we were pushing people from the federal to provincial level and back and forth. People who are living with issues wonder every day what this can of worms is going to look like. It's sometimes too much for some people, and we need to make sure we are advocating on behalf of the people who need help.

I really appreciate all the great work you are doing. It is wonderful to see that.

[Jenny Greensmith]

Could I leap in for a moment?

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

Please do.

[Jenny Greensmith]

It really depends on the family getting to the right person to help them. They need help over and above the time it takes to fill in these forms. One of the problems is the literacy level required by some of the forms. I know they are written in plain language, but they can be very hard to understand. The usual response is to tell them there's a website.

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

It's too much.

[Jenny Greensmith]

I actually don't know whether all our families have access to the web. Some don't have email. Some would like us to text them because they can get free text packages.

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

Absolutely. Southwestern Ontario is one thing, but we have to take into consideration that fact that people living in remote areas do not have the same access. We have to take all these things into consideration.

I've been working with a lot of families who have children with FASD . Everybody talks about a wraparound approach, but nobody wants to connect one individual to the next, and I have sat in with families where we'll have—

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'm sorry, but that's your time.

We will now go to Ms. Nassif and Mr. Fonseca, for five minutes.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

I will give my speaking time to Mr. Fonseca.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you.

I'd like to follow along the lines of Ms. Vecchio's questioning. She was talking about navigating the system and how difficult it is with all the barriers in place.

One of the things our Liberal government is proud of is getting rid of boutique tax credits. There were tax credits for sports. There were tax credits for all sorts of different things for families, but most families couldn't access those because their income was too low. They couldn't even put their kids in organized sports. What we did was take those funds and put them all into the Canada child benefit, making it tax free and providing as much money as we could to families with children, especially single moms. It raised 320,000 children out of poverty. That was a good initiative, and that is the type of approach we should take to bringing down those barriers.

I think of some of the other programs we have. I read an article recently in the Toronto Star or the The Globe and Mail about the registered disability savings plan. It allows you to have a registered account if you have a child with a disability—but it's so challenging. It was put in by the late Jim Flaherty, but almost nobody accesses it because it is so hard to do. You have to go through so much paperwork. You need accountants. This needs to be streamlined. It has to be made easier so families that really need it can access those things. I think this is the approach we need to take. Is that what you're thinking needs to be done?

[Jennifer Howell]

Yes. For instance, speaking about the registered disability savings plan, to access that, first of all, a family needs to have the disability tax credit. Now we're faced with the first barrier, which I mentioned earlier: the form needs to be filled out by a doctor, so there's a fee. For those families that can't afford that fee, then they're not eligible for the registered disability savings plan.

Then, if they do have it, one, a lot of the banks don't have the proper information about how to run a registered disability plan, and two, a lot of these families don't have the money to put in. One thing I do try to tell the families is that they might only be eligible for three years, because with the disability tax credit now, depending on the disability, they're strict with autism now. That family has to now reapply and pay another doctor to fill out that form.

Families have been told that you have to put money into the registered disability savings plan, but in fact you don't have to right away if you don't have the funds. But once they get that disability tax credit, they should try to connect, and I've tried to supply resources for them to get the accurate information. They should open the account, have it available, because three years from now, if their child does not qualify for the disability tax credit, no on can take away their registered disability savings plan. Again, that key piece is that families don't know, or financially they can't support.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

I'm thinking of another one, the Canada learning bond, which is available to those families with very low income. Again, the uptake is low. Families have a difficult time. There are a lot of barriers in place. They don't know how to navigate the system. Many of the programs that are being put in place are for those who really have the resources, the wherewithal, and the know-how; they are not who we're trying to help.

What would be the answer, the approach? Would government look to streamline those services to make them a lot easier? Would it be able to provide advocates to help navigate the system? How can we make it better, so that we do get the type of numbers that avail themselves of those programs?

[Jenny Greensmith]

From my perspective, leading an organization, I would say that I hear most often from families, “We don't know where to go. We need someone to help us.”

We don't necessarily have in our community that navigator person whom we could send them to. Perhaps that is an opportunity for the federal government. It doesn't have to sit at Pathways. It could sit anywhere in the community, as long as the community knows that this is the person to help those families, because whether it's websites or getting the message out, we never get the message out to all the people who need it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Very good.

Unfortunately, we're at the end of our time for today, so I want to thank all of our witnesses for the work you do, as well as your testimony. Certainly, what you said resonates with what we've heard previously, and we thank you for that.

We're going to suspend now briefly while we change the panels, and then we'll be back at it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

All right, we're back with our second panel.

We've got Sheila Block from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, who's the senior economist there. We also have Grace-Edward Galabuzi, a professor in politics and public administration at Ryerson University.

I just want to remind you that their presentation was sent to you. It's a PowerPoint presentation, and it will be on your iPads if you're looking for that, so you might want to pull that up.

Folks, I'll give you seven minutes to give your opening comments. I might be lenient and give you a little bit more. You can begin.

[Professor Grace-Edward Galabuzi, Professor, Politics and Public Administration, Ryerson University, As an Individual]

Thank you very much. I'm glad to appear before the committee.

We are essentially going to review some of our research relating to disparities in the labour market that impact racialized populations, racialized women in particular, and the experience of discrimination in access to employment and employment itself.

Sheila will start with a presentation of some of our analyses, and then we will talk about some of the solutions that we believe can make a difference in those experiences.

[Sheila Block, Senior Economist, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives]

I'll just echo Grace-Edward by saying that we're very happy to be talking to you about this.

We're apologetic that, when we're looking at the national data, we are actually talking to you about data that is, in fact, 12 years old. We'll explain some of the reasons why that is the case.

In the study that will be the focus of most of what we will be talking about today, we used 2006 census data to really paint a picture of the labour market experience of racialized Canadians. We looked at a number of measures there to describe that.

What we found was that racialized Canadians are very willing to work. Both racialized men and women had higher labour force participation rates. If people are participating in the labour market, it either means they are employed or are actively looking for employment. Despite this willingness and eagerness to work, racialized Canadians had higher unemployment rates. In particular, racialized women had the highest unemployment rate of the four groups that we were looking at: 9.3%. We have to remember back to 2005. At that point, we were really in the midst of a boom in Canada. Still, racialized women had that higher unemployment rate.

We first looked at those broad aggregate numbers. What was the participation rate? What was the employment rate? What was the unemployment rate? Then we went in. We wanted to take a look at where racialized Canadians were working and how that differed from non-racialized Canadians. We were at a pretty high level of aggregation, but what it showed us was that there were some insights, even from this limited data. The first—which is very important, particularly 11 years later—was that there was an overrepresentation of racialized workers in private services. They were working as security guards, in janitorial services, in call services, etc.

That's the kind of work that is precarious. It is more likely to be at minimum wage, to have turnover and contracts, and to not have the kinds of supports and benefits found in what we describe as a more standard employment relationship. That is also the kind of work that has really expanded over the last ten years as we see more low-wage work and more precarious work.

We also saw at that time a concentration of both racialized men and women in manufacturing. We also know that industry has had a very tough time.

Something that I think is really important to note, particularly with regard to this group, is that there was an under-representation of racialized people in public administration. Public administration doesn't include health care or education. It really includes the people who are making policy and administering government programs. The lack of that perspective and voice in public administration is a concern for us.

With more direct regard to what I understand your committee is looking at, I will say that we also saw that the construction of gender differs between racialized and non-racialized women. You might ask what that means or how that plays itself out. What that really means is that racialized women are concentrated in different jobs and have different experiences, different concentrations of work. For example, racialized women were more likely to work in manufacturing and processing jobs than non-racialized women. Although both racialized and non-racialized women were under-represented in natural and applied sciences, racialized women were more likely to work in that field. Similarly, non-racialized women were more likely to work in education.

What this points out to us is the importance of really looking at women's experiences across the broad spectrum and not just looking at those averages. We have to disaggregate those experiences across a number of factors. We have to look at the experiences of indigenous women and racialized women. We also have to break apart those groupings of racialized women because we know that women from different racialized backgrounds have different experiences and different labour market experiences.

We looked at who is working and who isn't working, access to employment, and where people are working. At the bottom line, we indicate average employment incomes. What that showed us is that racialized women earned 55.6¢ for every dollar that non-racialized men made. When you do that comparison, you can also say that racialized women earned 88¢ for every dollar that non-racialized women earned and 71¢ for every dollar that racialized men earned. We see that the combination of gender and racialization really has complex and disadvantageous impacts on racialized women in the labour market.

We're uncomfortable talking about labour market racism or perhaps any racism in Canada. Therefore, when we look at that labour market experience, there is a temptation for us to say that for all non-indigenous Canadians, for everybody who immigrates to this country, they struggle a bit—either the first generation, or they struggle the first few years—and then it's a level playing field.

What we wanted to look at with this data was immigrants who were racialized or non racialized. We controlled for age. We had only 25- to 44-year-olds, the people in their peak earning years, and people with a university degree or certificate. What we found was that the immigration experience is very different if you're racialized or if you're non-racialized. That difference continues between racialized and non-racialized immigrants, through to the second generation and continues to the third generation. This is not a problem of recent immigrants. This is really a problem of racism in the labour market.

Having already looked at the labour market experience and the income experience, then we're really looking at the next issue. What is the impact of this labour market discrimination on families? We found that racialized Canadians had three times the poverty rate of non-racialized families. Again, this was during the boom years, and as opposed to a 6.4% poverty rate, it's a 20% poverty rate.

That data for the national picture was from 2005 and we wanted to update it and the analysis using the national household survey data. We set out to write a paper that would update that data to see what the experience was post-recession, what the impact was, and whether things were better or worse. Instead, we wound up writing a paper about the problems with the national household survey data because there were just too many problems with it reliability for us to draw conclusions. We were very happy and relieved that the census had been reinstated and that we can go back to that analysis.

Just to give you something that's a little more up to date, we are looking at some analysis using another Stats Canada source, which is the “Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics”, and that data is from 2011. If you have 12-year-old data, the data are only six years out of date. It reinforces that racialized women are concentrated in low-wage work and that a higher share of racialized workers are working for minimum wage. When you break it down by gender and by racialization, the highest share of workers at minimum-wage jobs are racialized women.

On on page 12 we looked at the share of employees who were 25 years of age and over and low-wage workers, those within $4 of making the minimum wage. We found, once again, that racialized women were the most likely to be working for those low-wage jobs and that racialized men were also very likely to be doing this.

We're going to move to what we want to leave you.

One of the things we want to say is that the availability of data is very crucial, because if you don't have the data you can't understand the problem and therefore give appropriate policy solutions. For example, we have a 10-year gap resulting from the national household survey, but until very recently we used to have annual data that had a variable describing racialization, so we could understand the labour market experience from year to year. I know you all have a lot of information. That was the “Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics”. When they switched to the “Canadian Income Survey”, they dropped the racialization variable. That is of extreme concern to us because it means that we are limited to an analysis every five years. As we and others have been urging StatsCan, we urge you to recommend that that survey be reinstated so that we can really understand what's happening in the labour market on a year-to-year basis.

While all three groups experience labour market discrimination, racialized women's experience differs from that of racialized men and non-racialized women. We really need to understand that through the data and really need policies that will address all of that complexity.

Now I'm going to pass to Professor Galabuzi.

[Prof. Grace-Edward Galabuzi]

I think essentially the argument we're making is that we've established through the analysis that all three groups experience significant vulnerabilities, but in particular racialized women. These vulnerabilities arise from both their racialized and gendered identities. It is essential for the federal government to regulate the labour market in such a way that it addresses the precarious nature of the work that is available to them.

In terms of that regulation, we're thinking about some changes in labour law or women's standards that would address the experience of those who are under federal jurisdiction, but also provide leadership for the jurisdictions of the provinces so they can address that experience too.

We recognize that there is employment equity legislation at the federal level. There have been ongoing discussions about making changes to the legislation that might strengthen the associated regulation and ensure greater access to employment and equitable employment for all three groups, but in particular racialized women. I should not only say racialized women, but also indigenous women.

Pay equity is another area where we believe that there is some scope for making the experience of racialized women much more equitable than it is today.

We believe that other dimensions of policy that relate to the experience of access to employment, like child care for instance, also represent an opportunity to address that disproportionate experience. We also believe that one of the challenges in the labour market today is the extent to which employers have disproportionate power in their relationship with their employees.

Part of that has to do with the level of unionization. Unionization is significant lower that it has been in the past, especially in some of the areas of jurisdiction outside the public service. We believe, both from the point of view of access to unionization for those workers who have the vulnerabilities, but also dealing with the responsibility of the federal government to meet its obligations under international treaty, that it is essential for us to look at how we can regularize unionization to make it easier for under-represented groups to unionize. The three groups that we're talking about are likely to be less unionized than other groups.

I want to echo what Sheila just said about the question of data collection. Precisely because of this vulnerability arising from intersectional impacts, how we collect data is really important to our having a better understanding of that experience. I think it's essential for us to disaggregate the data so that we have data that explains the experience of particular groups in the labour market. In this case, without this disaggregated data, there is no way we can understand the challenges that particular groups face in the labour market. That is last point I want to make, to really emphasize the question of data collection and this disaggregated data collection.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

We will begin members' questions with Ms. Vandenbeld, for seven minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

I want to thank you very much not only for coming today but also for the extensive work you've done. I had a chance to take a look at the report that was based on the 2006 data.

Just to clarify, you mentioned that the national household survey data, the more recent data, was not usable in this regard. Could you explain why?

[Sheila Block]

We set out to replicate this analysis with the national household survey data. The results that we got were inconsistent with other research and were very odd. We went back and forth with Statistics Canada, as we sometimes do on these occasions, to see if we were misunderstanding something and if there was something that we were missing. Then we wound up writing a paper that basically said what these problems were, how it was inconsistent with other analysis, and that we couldn't do that analysis for the 2011 data in that way.

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

Was it not to disaggregated? I noticed you mentioned that in the annual data they actually took the racialized category out, which is a little bit disturbing and certainly something the committee might want to recommend be addressed. But is that also part of the problem? Was there something that changed in the 2016 census?

[Sheila Block]

No, it wasn't a change in the questions. It was that it went from a census to a sample. We know that people who are more privileged are more likely to answer those voluntary surveys than people who are less privileged, who can have low incomes and be racialized. As a result, the sample size was skewed. You had a lower sample of the racialized cohorts, and as a result, the data that were available and the data that we had to analyze were inconsistent with the other research and had some surprising results. We then had conversations with the officials at Stats Canada, and because the national household survey was an experiment, where they tried to adjust the data and correct the data so that.... I'm using non-statistical terms, but they did some statistical corrections to try to correct for the methodology, and those—

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

Just for clarification, and I apologize if I've misunderstood you, but the national household survey that you're talking about was the one that was done when the long-form census was cancelled. Is that right?