Status of Women Committee on June 15th, 2017

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I'll begin with Ms. Smith.

Thank you so much for bringing a rural perspective to this conversation. As somebody who lives in a rural community, as you know, it's very important to me.

You mentioned a couple of times the importance of transportation for families, to access child care and whatever other support services there might be. In the last budget we announced funding dedicated for rural infrastructure, including, hopefully, public transit.

In communities that are small, sometimes we don't have municipally funded transit services. Do you think it would be helpful if federal money was made available to support community transit organizations and help the rural communities?

[Jaime Smith]

Absolutely.

Local organizations such as CHAD transit in the Antigonish, and the transit organization they have in that community as well, Mr. Fraser, offer very innovative solutions for local communities, and they provide access. They're working very hard with their partners locally to provide more opportunities for transportation in those communities.

As we've gone out into communities and engaged in different work and conversations about health in the last 7 to ten years, transportation was always the number one challenge that people in local communities felt was hindering their opportunities to improve their health.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Sure.

You brought back some memories for me, from when I was a kid and you could sort of slip $20 to somebody to help with child care in the home. In rural communities, this is a very big deal. We don't always have access to stand-alone child care facilities. When I was growing up, there were six kids in my family; Barb was a part of the family and she watched over us for my entire upbringing.

Aside from investing in child care facilities, can you comment on how programs like the Canada child benefit, for example—which put money directly in the pockets of families to help with things like that—would assist in rural communities to help offset the cost of care in the home.

[Jaime Smith]

Absolutely.

We have to be very innovative in our approaches to child care. We must understand the different challenges that we have in rural communities, and that accessibility to such centres is not really an option.

We also need to find ways to support women in rural communities who want to provide that service to families. I'm not sure what we can do about that, but it means really looking and having conversations in local communities about what child care can look like and where the accessibility options are, and then supporting those women so they can step into that employment.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I'd like to move away from the supports you talked about and delve a little more into your experiences as a rural entrepreneur. Are there programs out there now or that could be out there that would have made it easier for you to get a business off the ground in a rural community?

[Jaime Smith]

Absolutely, the Centre for Women in Business at Mount St. Vincent University offers some wonderful services to local women. We've accessed them through a group of associates that I have as well, to come in and do some work with us around growing our local businesses.

That was something we had to invest in ourselves—to bring them out into the rural communities—so if we could have greater support for those kinds of organizations, which have two decades of experience in supporting women in business in rural and urban environments in Nova Scotia, that would be wonderful.

Other options we have are CBDCs and Northern Opportunities for Business Limited, as well as growing opportunities through local chambers of commerce to fill the gap in economic and entrepreneurial development in rural communities.

At universities in Nova Scotia, for example, we have entrepreneurship and innovation centres at St. Francis Xavier University and, I believe, at Acadia University that provide those supports. Ensuring that they have that additional support to go out and provide that in the rural communities would be very beneficial.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

We heard during a previous study on ending gender-based violence that supporting community organizations directly on the ground was an effective strategy. We haven't, to my recollection, heard something similar.

Are you suggesting that direct federal government support for community-based organizations that help women entrepreneurs get off the ground is a simple and effective strategy?

[Jaime Smith]

I think that's a simple and effective strategy.

As I mentioned when I came in, I really wanted to focus on the strengths of rural Canada and rural women, and those already exist. If they were further supported, we could be very much augmenting the role that women can play in entrepreneurship in rural environments.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Excellent. Thank you very much.

I'd like to shift gears and talk to Ms. Laurin-Bowie a little bit about individuals living with disabilities. We're on the verge of spending a lot of money on infrastructure, including for things like child care, and you mentioned the need for inclusive care.

How can we design the program to ensure that the investments we're making as part of a national approach do consider the need for inclusive care? What pitfalls are out there that we should be avoiding so we don't spend money and waste?

[Connie Laurin-Bowie]

I think that the best place to begin inclusion is in early childhood, so that the child with the disability is included with their peers at a very early age when they're beginning to learn. It is incredibly beneficial, both in terms of learning and their long-term prospects of inclusion in life.

It's also important, I think, to families. Inclusive child care makes a difference in the lives of families, and women in particular, being able to continue to be in the labour market. So I think a model must make it very clear that however child care is going to be funded, there must be some recognition of the need for inclusive child care, available equally to all children.

Then there needs to be some investment in resources to support those child care centres so that they have the means and the knowledge to support children with very different kinds of disabilities. They could also, for example, address issues of English as a second language—

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I'd like to jump in because I've only got about 30 seconds left, so I'll ask this very quickly. Should we be investing in training to make sure we have the work force to deliver inclusive child care services in addition to the inclusive space?

[Connie Laurin-Bowie]

I think we have that in Canada. It's a question of how we deploy it. Those resources exist. It may require that we figure out how best to deploy them in a child care environment.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you.

We'll go to Ms. Vecchio for the last five minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

Connie, I want to stick with you because one thing that we've also looked at in the anti-poverty committee is the issue of episodic disabilities, such as MS and cancer—well, cancer doesn't fit in there really. It may be a disease that fluctuates. Somebody is not feeling well for a couple of months, and then for a couple of years they may be okay.

What sort of solutions would you recommend so that employers...? And when we're looking at economic prosperity for those people, what are the things we can assist them with? Do you have some ideas on the opportunities here?

[Connie Laurin-Bowie]

Yes, and I would include in that category people with mental health issues. One of the growing issues for women caregivers, women with disabilities, and women in general, is the episodic nature of mental health issues and reasons for leaving the workplace. I think that's a critically important issue.

Again, it has to do with creating provisions that allow for short-term unemployment, potentially disability related leave and sick leave that are flexible and family-friendly. At a federal level, I think there are some provisions that could be made on the employment insurance side of things for anything that's longer than a month or a couple of months. With the shorter mechanisms, there must be some discussion with the private sector, and at least with federal employers, about how to treat episodic leaves from the labour market.

Some of it is very informal. Some of it requires the private sector to have family-friendly business practices.

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

Yes, I fully agree with you.

I was a small business owner for a while as well, and I had seven employees. Two of them did suffer from mental illness and mental wellness concerns. You try to do everything possible, but as a small business owner, you also have the challenges. If there's a larger pool of employees, having someone pick up a shift is much easier, but when things are on a smaller scale, it's difficult.

What suggestions would you have for these smaller businesses that may only have three or four employees, yet they have a situation like that? We want to see the well-being of the employee who is suffering, and we want to make sure that the business is surviving as well. We recognize it's a challenge, so what are the solutions to that?

[Connie Laurin-Bowie]

I run a very small operational organization. One of my staff has just taken leave because she needs to care for her children with disabilities. It puts us in a very difficult situation because we don't have the resources to replace her when she's one leave.

I think there is just a cultural shift. How do we work?

I think, though, that there could be some provisions that would help small business to have some human resource support. If you are hiring a person with a recognized disability, then there may be some provisions allowable to employers that would compensate them or support them as they are employing people.

There are different models in different parts of the world for that. That might be interesting. I could put something together for the committee in writing on that.

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

I would like to see something like that. That would be great.

And Samantha, I just want to turn back to you. You've talked a lot about people coming over here and trying to get back into the workforce. What are some of the concerns you're having with credential recognition? What are some of these obstacles, as well?

[Samantha Letourneau]

I can only speak a bit to that.

I would say that one of the biggest barriers is the cost. Having your credentials recognized is a quite expensive and lengthy process. If you're living on a very fixed income, you don't have the resources for that.

Now, within some employment programs and immigrant services they can help with the costs of foreign credentials recognition, but it doesn't cover it all.

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

Yes.

I know when I was in Medicine Hat doing a study, we had talked about looking at credentials.

Do you have a lot of uptake of that assistance program that's available within your own community? Do you know?

[Samantha Letourneau]

Through the Province of British Columbia and its employment programs, we receive a bit of funding to help new immigrants getting those foreign credentials.

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

There are the federal programs as well, though. Is anyone using the federal programs?

[Samantha Letourneau]

Within our agency, not that I have seen.

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

Is that something maybe at the federal level we can do better, making sure that people are aware of the services?