Status of Women Committee on June 15th, 2017

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Good morning, colleagues. We're resuming our study of the economic security of women in Canada.

I hear that a couple of our witnesses who were supposed to be present are on their way, so I think we will start.

We have from Inclusion International, Connie Laurin-Bowie, the executive director, by video conference.

I invite you, Connie, to make your opening remarks to the committee. You have seven minutes.

[Connie Laurin-Bowie, Executive Director, Inclusion International]

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee, and to the committee for your work on this important issue.

As you said, I am the executive director of Inclusion International. We are an organization for people with intellectual disabilities and their families.

I am speaking to you from New York today. We are at a conference of states parties at the United Nations. Minister Qualtrough is here with us, talking about issues affecting people with disabilities. In particular, there has been quite a lot of conversation this week about women with disabilities. Therefore, the opportunity to speak to you about the context and the particular issues facing women with disabilities, in terms of economic security, is very well timed and certainly important both internationally and in Canada.

We are working globally and with our member in Canada to talk about the multiple forms of discrimination that impact people with disabilities, particularly women with disabilities. I want to speak to you today about two slightly different aspects of economic insecurity for women. One is for women who themselves have a disability, and in the case of our work, a particular focus on intellectual disability. The other, though, is the impact on women who have children with disabilities and are the primary caregivers of children with disabilities, very often children who grow up to remain at home and live with the family throughout their adult lives.

Starting with the first issue and category—women with disabilities themselves—Statistics Canada estimates that about 15% of women in Canada have some form of disability that limits their daily activities in some way.

What we know across the country, wherever people live, is that women with intellectual disabilities are underemployed and among the most excluded from the labour market. The reason for this very often doesn't have to do with their disability. It has much more to do with the supports they're able to access in order to go to work. Sometimes, depending on the province, it also has something to do with their relationship with the provincial supports they receive provincially for their disability. In some instances, if you go to work and you receive disability support from a province, there's a limit to how much work you're allowed to do before that gets taken back. Very often, because of the nature of the relationship with the labour market, part-time employment, insecure employment, things that produce low income, the reluctance to let go of the eligibility for disability are quite a barrier to remaining in and having a significant long-term attachment to the labour market.

From some of the other presenters, you will probably have heard more about the specific challenges to employment for women with disabilities. So I'll turn briefly to talk about the issues we see related to women who are caring for a child or adult with a disability.

What we very often see is that women's attachment to the labour market, when they have a child with a disability, becomes quite precarious. They are more likely to have to take time off work, not only for caregiving but also for various doctor appointments and their advocacy work, for lack of a better term, to make a place for their children in the community. If you're spending your time arguing with your school system about your child being able to go to school, it's very hard to maintain a strong employment relationship.

What often happens is that women who have children with disabilities end up having to leave the labour market because of the various responsibilities they have. In the long term, particularly for families who have children with intellectual disabilities, wherever they live in the world, not just in Canada, we know that most adults who have intellectual disabilities live at home with their families. That's true in low-income countries as well as higher-income countries, whether or not we have good, strong support systems.

I think there's a real challenge in understanding the role that families play in enabling their family member to participate in the community as adults and, particularly when they're young, with issues around inclusion, whether in child care or education. This can really have an impact on a woman's ability to continue to be in the labour market, and then obviously there's the impact related to income insecurity.

I will just mention quickly some of the areas where the federal government may be able to have a role to play in both the impact on women who have disabilities and the impact on women who are caregivers of children, or mothers of children, with disabilities.

I'll start with the one that is probably the most impactful and that is the area of child care. If we have good, inclusive child care that allows children with disabilities to go to school, the impact of their inclusion later in school and for mom to be able to go to work is enormous. This is inclusive child care, and I think this issue will have come up for children without disabilities, but certainly for mothers having the additional care and responsibilities related to children with disabilities, if they aren't able to access good-quality inclusive child care, that's the beginning of where the relationship to the labour market falls apart. So child care is huge.

I would also say that, in terms of income security, housing is a major issue for women who have disabilities themselves. We do not propose particular housing initiatives for women with disabilities. We think that the larger housing strategy has to take into account the needs of women with disabilities.

We need employment measures to support people with disabilities to have stronger relationships in the labour market.

Finally, I think there is always room within the tax system to explore ways of compensation for costs related to disability.

Without going into long recommendations, I think those are the kind of high points of things that the federal government could be thinking about to better the income security of women with disabilities and women caring for people with disabilities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That's excellent. Thank you.

Joining us here in person we have, from the Central Vancouver Island Multicultural Society, Samantha Letourneau, the settlement manager in Nanaimo.

I assume you know Ms. Malcolmson from our committee.

As an individual we have Jaime Smith, the executive lead for the Centre for Employment Innovation at St. Francis Xavier University.

Welcome, ladies.

We're going to begin with Samantha for seven minutes.

[Samantha Letourneau, Settlement Manager, Nanaimo, Central Vancouver Island Multicultural Society]

Thank you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of the Central Vancouver Island Multicultural Society. I greatly appreciate it.

Just as a quick snapshot, the multicultural society serves about 1,100 newcomers a year. As many immigrant services across Canada have experienced this year, we've had a massive influx of government-assisted and privately sponsored refugees. I will speak on behalf of the immigrants who have come here either through private sponsorship or the government-assisted refugee process, or as newcomers wanting to immigrate to Canada in different ways, and specifically around women, of course.

We know that women are at a disadvantage in the labour force simply because we're women, and even more so for immigrant and refugee women. For the economic participation of immigrant and refugee women who are culturally and linguistically diverse, current barriers have to be removed.

One that was already addressed is the lack of available and affordable child care. Fluency in the local language is vital for newcomer integration, especially in the labour market, as such fluency is a strong predictor of employment and salary. We have seen that immigrant women often stay home to take care of their young children due to the lack of available and affordable child care, and they therefore have limited opportunities to learn English.

In terms of educational levels and work experience, the preference of employers for local qualifications and work experience obviously places immigrants at a disadvantage. Immigrant women who delay entering the labour force because of child care or taking care of elders may face greater difficulties when trying to do so in the future.

In regard to discrimination, women from culturally diverse backgrounds face discrimination on the basis of race and sex. This can be indirect or direct. In the central Vancouver Island region, we have seen cases of immigrant women facing discrimination based on their faith as well. These cases have gone to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.

In light of these realities, we would like to propose the following recommendations.

The first is for universal and affordable child care. This would benefit all women, especially low-income and working-poor families from immigrant and diverse backgrounds.

Second, provide financial support to immigrant centres to operate English classes for women and their young children. These specially designed English classes would include both an English teacher and an ECE educator working together to assist the mothers and children in improving language skills. This addresses both insolation and lack of child care.

Third, increase financial support by adding on to contribution agreements already in place with not-for-profit immigrant societies to develop and implement innovative women's employment programs. Currently in B.C., there is a gap in employment programs for women, and there are no employment programs specifically looking at immigrant or refugee women.

Fourth, provide educational incentives, such as bursaries and grants, for low-income immigrant women wanting to pursue careers in environmental sciences, policy development, and engineering, in order to address the gender gap.

As well, actively implement the convention on the elimination of discrimination against women. Canada is a signatory of CEDAW, the United Nations convention. The convention defines discrimination against women as “any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition [and] enjoyment [of women].” It continues, “By accepting the Convention, States commit themselves to undertake a series of measures to end discrimination against women in all forms, including” incorporating the principle of equality of men and women, abolishing all discriminatory laws, and adopting appropriate ones prohibiting discrimination against women.

General recommendation 19 of CEDAW states that there is a “right to just and favourable” working conditions for women.

Canada could be a leader in putting CEDAW into action.

Finally, I'd like to mention a motion by MP Sheila Malcolmson on the importance of more beds in shelters and transition housing.

We see many immigrant women who have come to Nanaimo or the central Vancouver Island region fleeing abuse, and they are often isolated because they have no other family members in Canada. With limited housing, limited beds in shelters, and limited affordable housing in general, these women often choose to stay with their abuser in order to have shelter.

I know this is not a new idea, but what we need to look at is a national housing strategy to assist women, and low-income and working poor families achieve economic security.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you very much.

All right, then. We'll hear from Jaime Smith for seven minutes.

[Jaime Smith, Executive Lead, Centre for Employment Innovation, St. Francis Xavier University, As an Individual]

Thank you very much for having me today. I'm certainly very honoured and humbled to be here.

I've been asked to share my story of entrepreneurship and leadership from my perspective as a rural Nova Scotian. Although I was asked to share the challenges of being an entrepreneur and a community leader as a rural Nova Scotian, to add a little colour for you I could add stories such as changing into my dress in the back of a minivan following a full day—I see some nodding around the table—and rolling in from board meetings to attend an awards gala for the inaugural Women in Business Award that I received for perceived work/life balance. Again, I remember rushing out of a provincial board meeting I was chairing as my phone was ringing off the hook, my mom spidey-senses going off and thinking I'd better answer this to learn that there was a rather significant issue at school and, luckily, my husband was able to deal with it.

I might also talk about the challenges of balancing a growing and innovative business in a rural community, where you need to grow your brand through relationship-building and networking, stepping up and saying, yes, when those leadership opportunities come along, and learning about conflicts of interest in the most interesting way. I could also talk about the challenges of finding financial support to go back to school, to build my own capacity for community development and women's leadership. But I digress....

Through my story, I aim to portray the strengths and the resilience, as well as the realities, of rural women who are starting to grow businesses and social organizations in rural Canada. I see entrepreneurship as a way to connect to a professional life and balancing a home life, as well as a way to address social challenges.

In the first decade of my career I worked as a professional planner in two Atlantic Canadian cities while my husband was in medical school. I often had side consulting gigs to pay the bills, and we had two small kids. Life was busy. In the summer of 2009, I decided to retire. I told my husband that I was retiring—he was working, and we had our third son—and I left my job as a community health planner in my rural community. I was seeing the coming health cuts and I was only recently in a job, and so would probably also be the first to be out. So I took and rode this sea of change that was happening.

I stayed at home and I did the things that many rural Canadian women do. I volunteered. I started a library program. I coached. I was at home with the kids, and I was in a very privileged position to be able to do so. I think that's really important to state. But at that time, as my youngest was becoming more independent and I was missing that professional capacity of my work, I decided to go back. Urban planning jobs were not really accessible in my community and community health planning jobs were long gone with the health sector cuts.

At that time, I began a consulting practice, and it started small. I thought I would take two or three contracts a year, that I could do that while Charlie was napping on the couch and that we'd all be fine. However, it quickly grew. There was a rather big need in the community for community development, community engagement, and working with non-profit organizations in the community health sector. I was able to access child care at the local YMCA, and my kids could access YMCA care after school, but it cost almost 40% of my income from the business at the time. For some reason, women always think that child care should come from their side of the pay in the family.

Through all this growth of my business, I received incredible emotional support. There were lots of tears and stress that came with running a business, and financial support from my husband. As the business grew and more contracts came in, I reinvested what I could and began bringing on a group of associates, who just happened to be some other incredibly gifted women in my local rural community.

I joined the chamber of commerce, I connected with other business owners, and I attended some sessions at the Centre for Women in Business at Mount St. Vincent, but they did not have the capacity to provide those services to rural communities. When you live two or three hours from the local city, it's quite an investment to take a full day for a one-hour seminar.

I strengthened relationships locally and I noticed that a number of local organizations for women entrepreneurs were starting to emerge in the community, and they are still growing. In 2014, in partnership with the Nova Scotia Community College, businesses, and the chamber, four local women and I began a community-based participatory leadership platform called Pictou County 2020. We began by hosting community conversations about the welfare and well-being of our local community. We were astounded when over 200 people came out to participate. Together they envisioned a community that was healthy, united, thriving, and bold and that embraced change through leadership, collaboration, mentorship, and entrepreneurship.

Our 2020 team of experienced and dedicated facilitators continues this work, and in 2017 we hosted another session where more than 30 local organizations and businesses came forward to talk about their stories of success and positivity. We didn't anticipate that almost all of the presenters would be women, who were coming forward with new organizations to service the local community and new businesses with a social purpose. We're starting to see an emergence of social innovation and entrepreneurship in the local community.

At the time I also decided to start my master's in adult education at St. FX University and went through another shift. I currently find myself the executive lead for the centre for employment innovation at St. FX University. We are really inspired by the principles of the Antigonish movement and the work of Reverend Moses Coady. The extension department believes in empowering communities and individuals to provide a full and abundant life for all.

The centre for employment innovation aims to facilitate a resilient, effective, and skilled workforce for Nova Scotia through research, community engagement, collaboration, leadership, and capacity building.

My journey is really about creating a full and abundant life for me, my family, and my community. What I challenge you to consider, through a rural lens, is how we can create accessible and equitable access to child care, transportation, and other services that support women as they engage in entrepreneurship and meaningful work. How do we support sectors like health and the community that primarily engage women in their workforces? How can we engage women in meaningful dialogue about the future they envision for themselves and their families? How do we celebrate the strength and resilience of women in Canada?

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Excellent. Thank you.

We'll begin our round of questioning with my colleague Ms. Damoff for seven minutes.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thanks to all our witnesses for being here.

I'm going to start my questions, most of which will probably be directed to Connie Laurin-Bowie.

Hello, Connie. I just want to thank you for being here and your tireless work to make our society more inclusive, not just here in Canada, but around the world.

Because your organization is worldwide, I wonder if you could share with us some best practices you have seen that self-advocates or governments have worked on and that we might look at doing here in Canada.

[Connie Laurin-Bowie]

Thanks, Pam. It's very nice to see you, and thanks for this opportunity.

As I mentioned at the beginning of my comments, we're here at the United Nations talking about the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. With the increasing focus on the issues of people with disabilities and particularly women with disabilities, there is an interesting conversation happening about practices in different countries. A lot of it focuses on the real barriers that women face, so there is the beginning of a conversation about what innovations might be useful that we could build on.

Following the last speaker, I think one of the really interesting and growing areas of work is around women entrepreneurs. I think that women with disabilities in low-income countries often work in non-paid volunteer roles, and they are doing an enormous amount of work in their communities both as mothers and as women with disabilities.

What I think is really interesting is how we begin to invest in those kinds of things. How do you support entrepreneurship? How do you support the role that women play in transforming communities? It's more than a workshop where you have women making beads or something. It's much more about the role that women play in their communities in helping to make those communities better, because they, themselves, know and understand the nature of that community and the relationships in that community.

I think that on a public policy level, there are some excellent examples of good, inclusive child care, and there is probably not one speaker who is going to come before your committee and not talk about child care. Whether it's formal and supported through government or it's informal and created by women in communities to support each other, it is an enormous area.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Connie, who does inclusive child care well?

[Connie Laurin-Bowie]

There are actually some very good examples in Canada. Interestingly, one that is close to your riding is in Milton. There's an association for community living in Milton that provides support to inclusive child care initiatives. They don't provide the child care; they support the child care centres being inclusive. That's the model you would want to be encouraging. It's not that we would create particular child care for children with disabilities; we would want to make sure that there are supports in place so that child care can be inclusive.

There are good practices in inclusive child care and early childhood education in many countries. In New Zealand, for example, there's an excellent inclusive child care program. There are some specific provincial-level or state-level initiatives that I think are interesting in different jurisdictions. In most countries, it ends up being at a community level and not at a national level, but there are a few that are quite exceptional.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I don't know if you're aware that our minister signed a framework with our provincial and territorial colleagues just this week on child care and early learning. One of the four or five points was inclusion.

[Connie Laurin-Bowie]

That's fantastic news. I did not know that.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

You had mentioned non-paid volunteer work, which actually happens here in Canada. I think people are often surprised that we have people such as Karina, whom you met in my riding, who was “working” in a daycare, but was volunteering. I recall this so vividly. I tell people that when you asked her why she wasn't paid, she said she wasn't capable, but you looked at her and you said, “They're just wrong.”

Right now, even within the federal government, I have an employee in my office who comes in one day a week and I'm paying him minimum wage—you know Steven. He also works as part of the provincial workshops where he's paid only $5 a day, and it is work that's being done with the federal government. Do you think we could take a role, as the federal government, to ensure that anyone working within the federal government, regardless of what work they're doing, is paid at least minimum wage?

[Connie Laurin-Bowie]

I absolutely do. I'm not completely up to date, province by province, in terms of restrictions. I think a lot of that has to do with the interaction between the provincial supports that a person might receive. The $5-a-day employment is really not an employment; it has much more to do with the program. The way to restrict that would be to say a person should be paid minimum wage regardless of their disability or label. In order to make that happen, we have to actually work with the provinces in order for them to change their restrictions in terms of being able to give disability supports when a person is working.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Okay, thank you. That's helpful.

I have another question. We know that over half of the claims that go to the Human Rights Commission are by people living with disabilities. Do you see any ways we can improve that process here in Canada? I know you deal with it not just here but also around the world.

Oh, I see that that's my time.

[Connie Laurin-Bowie]

Are we running out of time? Are we getting the signal?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We can hear the answer for this one, and then we'll move on. I'll just give everybody an extra minute.

[Connie Laurin-Bowie]

I'll just finish with that.

Minister Qualtrough is here in New York as part of the discussions on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She's talking to her colleagues from other countries about the ways in which the disability act could be strengthened to protect people, and do more than just protect people, so that we don't end up with a system that is only grievance-based but one in which we are proactive in the way we support people with disabilities to be employed, to have the disability supports they need, and one in which we are looking at their income status.

There are steps that are already being undertaken by this government that could be strengthened, but I think Canada is on the right track in thinking about what we need to do to include people with disabilities in the community.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thanks, Connie.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Very good.

Now we'll go to my colleague, Ms. Vecchio, for seven minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

Jaime, I want to start with you today. I'm really grateful that somebody from the rural part of Nova Scotia is here. That's fantastic, because I think rural areas definitely need to be addressed when we're looking at so many different options for addressing women's concerns and the obstacles that families face.

You mentioned child care and rural communities. Can you give me an idea of what is in your communities and what you see as the best fit for some of our rural communities when it comes to child care?

[Jaime Smith]

In towns and centres, there are always opportunities for the YMCA and other kinds of organizations to offer child care. However, the times of day that it is offered are certainly limited, so the accessibility of child care is limited for nurses, or other people who might do shift work at Michelin or other organizations. It's not accessible to them.

You do see women in small communities offering child care services in their homes so that they might be able to stay home or provide some supplemental income for themselves. However, there are certainly limitations in that regard as well. There would be many more types, but another is the older women who might go into a home and offer that service for you at your home space so that you might have access to child care.

In a rural community, we also have the support of families. That is how many people can survive and be able to work, to have the support of parents and friends that really can wrap around them. It's quite varied, and the accessibility of each and every one of those depends on your own accessibility. Do you have access to transportation? Do you have all of these other supports that would allow you to have that child care option? Do you have an option of reporting payments for that child care? We know that sometimes that's not available in rural communities, sliding someone $20 every now and again just for helping you take care of your children so that you can support their family.

It's really quite wide and vast.

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

Thank you very much.

I have great respect for Minister Duclos, but one of my concerns always when we look at child care is that the needs are very different and need to be addressed very differently when you're looking at the urban-rural split.

I came from a community of 300 people. Child care would not have ever been an option, to be honest. In many farm families both parents are working, in the first place. I think it's really important, when we're looking at child care funding, to ask how it is going to address things outside of the larger centres.

You had mentioned the YMCA and YWCA being part of that equation, but not all communities have that. In some of the rural and more remote communities, I'm very concerned how this funding would be spent. I appreciate where the minister's heart is, because I know he has a wonderful heart, but at the same time, we need to make sure that our rural families are going to be actually looked at when we are dealing with these issues. It's really interesting you said that.

Looking at that as well, I know I've read a lot of studies on working with women entrepreneurs to create licensed day care centres, where they have four or five persons.

Samantha or Jaime, has there been any discussion on that within your own communities for some of the smaller rural communities, where you can discuss making it an actual job for women? I do know some people in my own community who have a day care with five children and they're doing very well from it. Do you see that happening? Is there something we can do to also interest men or women in creating day care spaces within their own home as entrepreneurs?

[Jaime Smith]

Maybe I'll begin.

I think that is part of a broader way to come at this issue, to look at those other options. What we also see in rural communities are grassroots organizations that connect women entrepreneurs. Through those connected networks of support, there could be some way of ensuring more universal child care and adequate safety and guidelines for what's happening in those homes. We know that everyone always has the best intentions. How do you support them to do that job really well?