Evidence of meeting #68 for Status of Women in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was disability.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Corinne Prince  Director General, Settlement and Integration Policy Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Amanda Deseure  Manager, Socio-Economic Development, Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada
Charlotte Kiddell  Deputy Chairperson, Nova Scotia, Canadian Federation of Students
David Cashaback  Director, Temporary Resident Policy and Programs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Wanda Morris  Vice-President , Advocacy, Canadian Association of Retired Persons
Violet Hayes  Executive Director, Island Crisis Care Society
Bob Vansickle  Manager of Employment Services, Sarnia and District Association for Community Living
Ronell Bosman  Programme Director, Samaritan House, Island Crisis Care Society

9:30 a.m.

David Cashaback Director, Temporary Resident Policy and Programs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Thank you.

Thanks for the question. I'm pleased to announce that on April 18 of this year, the government repealed that requirement.

9:30 a.m.

Liberal

Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON

Good. They did.

9:30 a.m.

Director, Temporary Resident Policy and Programs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

David Cashaback

It had been in place for spouses who had been in a relationship for less than two years, with no children in common. There had been a period of so-called conditional permanent residency, which really only required the spouse to cohabit with their sponsor for a period of two years.

This speaks to your second question. One of the things that we realized was that there was the potential for staying in an abusive relationship out of fear that the person's immigration status could be jeopardized. Even though there were mechanisms to address that, that fear and power dynamic is something we saw operating. With the repeal, we're confident that someone will be able to get out of a dangerous or abusive situation, let alone assure their economic stability.

9:30 a.m.

Liberal

Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON

Thank you.

I'll pass the rest of my time to Ms. Damoff.

9:30 a.m.

Liberal

Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON

I want to thank all of you for being here.

I wanted to start briefly on child care. As you probably know, there has been a lack of federal leadership on child care for a number of years. We have committed $7.5 billion over the next 11 years towards child care.

Yesterday, our minister signed a framework with most of the provinces and territories. There were a couple that weren't part of that, but there is a will to have a framework around child care.

Could you perhaps speak to some of the guidance you could give to the federal government as those bilateral agreements are done, and as we move forward on those investments in child care from our side? It is something that has been lacking for quite some time.

9:35 a.m.

Director General, Settlement and Integration Policy Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Corinne Prince

Thank you for that important question, particularly with regard to immigrant and refugee integration.

The policy of the department is that if we don't provide child care, transportation, and interpretation services, we likely won't be able to get the clients, particularly the female clients, to the language classes, employment services, or the full suite of services we offer.

Child minding and child care is an inherent component of the settlement program. When refugee or immigrant mothers or women—any clients—want to come to a settlement agency in their community to access programming, a child care facility is provided there to care for the children while the client is in the class. There is transportation funding available to help get them to the class, and while they are there, there are interpretation and translation services, should they need them.

Now, I must admit that with 45,000 Syrians arriving in Canada—many of the Syrian families are very large, with six, eight, 10 children—this has put an immense pressure on our settlement agencies when the family arrives at the door. The settlement agency may have 25 child care spaces, but a mom arrives with eight children, and there may only be two vacancies in the day care. This has required the department to quickly react and add additional funding to increase the number of child care spaces.

9:35 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu

Very good.

I want to thank all of our witnesses today for their excellent work. We certainly could talk at length, but what I want to do is squeeze in committee business here to try to maximize the number of questions for the next witnesses.

We just have three little things to talk about.

The first one is the order in council appointment. You, I think, received a notification that this appointment is happening. We have an opportunity as a committee to call the appointed person before us if we want to interview or ask her questions. I don't know if the committee's interested in doing that.

Ms. Malcolmson.

9:35 a.m.

NDP

Sheila Malcolmson NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC

Can you tell us more? I don't have that with me.

9:35 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu

Okay. Let me just pull it out.

The memo says that Gina Wilson of Gatineau, Quebec—who previously, I think, was with Public Safety—as an order of council appointment is now coming over to Status of Women. I don't know why people would want to interview someone once the appointment has been made, but apparently in the past it's been something that has been offered to the committees.

No? Okay. I didn't think there'd be huge interest in that one. That was easy.

Oh, Ms. Damoff.

9:35 a.m.

Liberal

Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON

I was just going to say that with the year-end coming down, I think I'd rather continue with the study.

9:35 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu

We can do it until October 7, so we could do it in the fall.

9:35 a.m.

Liberal

Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON

She's well into her job then.

9:35 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu

I know. I agree.

The second thing is the Bill C-337 letter. If you remember, there was a letter that we were going to provide to the justice minister on that bill, that she could then give to her provincial counterparts. The draft was sent. Are there any changes that you'd like to see to that?

Ms. Malcolmson.

9:35 a.m.

NDP

Sheila Malcolmson NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC

I'm very grateful that our previous changes were all incorporated, but in reading it again I have three suggestions.

One is that we should say who the letter is to, because it doesn't. I think we're directing it to the Minister of Justice, but it should say that at the top of the page.

I'd also suggest in the second full paragraph that instead of “the Committee would like to invite the Minister”, we change it to, “the Committee encourages the Minister”. We want to be, I think, a bit more active about this.

At the very end, partly because what we're asking the minister to do is fan this out to her provincial counterparts, I'd like to see a very final sentence saying, “Will you please let us know if you do relay this to your provincial and territorial counterparts”, so that we have some kind of feedback about whether the message was delivered or received.

9:35 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu

Ms. Damoff.

9:40 a.m.

Liberal

Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON

I like those additions to the last sentence. I wonder if we could not just inquire if she reached out, but add “if you could advise us on the outcome of your conversations”, or “the outcome of your...”.

9:40 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu

“Communications”?

9:40 a.m.

Liberal

Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON

Yes, thank you.

9:40 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu

It's like a team effort, super.

Are there any other changes? Those are excellent, thanks.

The last thing is regarding our work plan. We have Thursday's meeting and witnesses coming. Then for next week we were uncertain about what would be happening. Many of the next witnesses—we have two or three panels left—are not able to appear at that time and can't come until the fall. We had said that at the end of the study we would recall all the different departments that we had at the beginning of the study. The idea was maybe to plan that for Tuesday because those people are local people, and then depending on if the House rises or not, we have something to do there.

This leaves us with one other meeting, which is the Thursday, if we're still here next week. I thought perhaps we would devote the time to figuring out what we're going to study next.

9:40 a.m.

Liberal

Karen Ludwig Liberal New Brunswick Southwest, NB

[Inaudible—Editor]

9:40 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu

I know, don't cry.

I thought we should have a conversation about what we're going to study after this because when we come back in the fall, there are really only two or three meetings to continue on this study before our analysts will be able to start drafting a report, and we'll be able to call other people.

Ms. Vecchio.

9:40 a.m.

Conservative

Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON

Could I get a time frame? We're still going to continue with this study in the fall. It's not that I don't want to work on Tuesday. I'm just saying that we're going to be calling them back. How many meetings have we actually had to date on this, before we start calling them back?

9:40 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu

I'm winging it here, but I think that initially 24 sessions were scheduled and we have about four left, so we've probably had about 18 or 19.

9:40 a.m.

Conservative

Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON

I just didn't know whether we want to do it more as a true wrap-up, because this is a kind of three-quarter wrap-up, that's all.

9:40 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu

There are 12 witnesses left to call, and three at a time makes four panels, which is two meetings. Then there is a list of people we would call if we couldn't get the other ones to come. That's really all that's left to do, other than the departmental witnesses.