Status of Women Committee on Feb. 27th, 2020

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

That's excellent.

I hate to cut you off, but you're quite a bit over six minutes—

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

—and I saw that you were going on to another phrase. When the pen starts twirling, that means you have 10 seconds, okay.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

The twirling pen.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

When you start seeing this green thing, 10 seconds. Okay?

Thank you.

Sorry about that, Andréanne.

We're going to move it over to Lindsay for six minutes.

I remind everybody about the pen at 10 seconds.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Oh, watch the spinning pen.

Thank you, Minister and your departmental colleagues, for being here today. I appreciate it.

You talked about violence, harassment, what women face. I agree with you that it cannot be tolerated. I see a lot of it within the workplace. There are reports that one in two women has experienced sexual harassment in the workplace.

I know that Canada was key in putting forward the convention, C190, to the International Labour Organization, but we haven't moved forward on that. We have not ratified it. I understand that working with the provinces and territories is key. I want to know, as Canada needs to continue being a major player on that, what you are doing to work with the provinces and territories to ensure we can ratify that. We're not the first, but we should be one of the first countries to ratify that convention.

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

That number, one in two, sent shock waves across the country. One in two women experiences harassment or gender-based violence at work here in Canada. In the last Parliament, the House of Commons, unanimously passed Bill C-65. That was a significant step. The international community applauded Canada for its leadership in putting forward the first plan of its kind to address and prevent gender-based and all forms of harassment in the workplace. That initiative is now being implemented. It includes training, awareness and accountability measures, and there's an opportunity with this Parliament to review its progress.

As for relationships with our federal, provincial and territorial partners, the first FPT meeting that occurred following the 2019 election was the status of women gathering. We have really positive relationships with our provincial and territorial counterparts. For the first time in the 37th or 38th year of this gathering, we came up with a three-year strategic plan based on a common set of priorities and indicators to measure our progress. All forms of gender-based violence is our number one priority with this initiative.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Specifically, in terms of the work you're doing and the actual meetings you're having with those provinces to get this forward, what are you doing?

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

We have to get our own house in order, first. Some provinces and territories are way ahead of the federal government with their efforts in advancing gender equality.

When we took the patchwork of policies that existed federally and put them all into one plan with Bill C-65, we said we would bring into force this law within two years of royal assent. This is the year that it will be brought into force. This committee as well as all of Parliament has an opportunity to monitor its progress.

It's important for us to have our own house in order before we join efforts with others, because that often becomes a barrier to partnerships. If you haven't stepped up to the plate like others have, they're less likely to want to join the initiative.

I can assure you that this is a priority for our government. As I said before, we cannot afford for women to be unsafe in the workplace. We cannot afford to lose a single drop of talent.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

You talked about your national action plan to end violence against women. How much of a part of these convention policies is moving forward in that action plan?

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

We are in the process of actually doing just that. We've taken the hundreds of recommendations that have come forward from various reports, conventions and recommendations on the issue of gender-based violence. My team at Women and Gender Equality have put it all in one beautiful, very large document.

Whether it's gender-based violence at home, in the workplace, at school or online, these are all aspects of the current work we're doing, but they will definitely inform the work we're doing with the national action plan. We are in early stages for the national action plan in terms of developing it and figuring out who our partners are and how we're going to move forward.

Again, Madam Chair, I welcome any recommendations from this group, as I have before, to help ensure that the plan is the best possible plan it can be. It will be an evergreen plan, so we'll continue to improve it, because societies change and so does the nature of gender-based violence.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I will just squeeze one more question in.

We're seeing NAFTA go through our Parliament and the acceptance of that. We had done a lot on and there was a promise from the minister at the time to create a gender chapter within NAFTA. However, what we heard quite often from experts was that it's not just about one chapter. I mean, for women and indigenous people, you couldn't just limit it to one chapter; you had to, in much the same say that you—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Spinning pen.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

All right.

In much the same way that you had to put a gender-based lens on all legislation, you would do this for international agreements, as well. What are you doing to move forward on that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have 10 seconds to respond. We're way over time.

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Gender, environment and labour are among the considerations we've taken with NAFTA, and there are agreements that have a specific gender chapter while they take all of that into account.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

We are starting our second round. This is now a five-minute round.

The floor goes to Alice Wong.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond Centre, BC]

Thank you very much, Minister, for coming.

My first question is a little bit time-sensitive. We're almost in March now, and of course very soon we'll be celebrating International Women's Day. The theme for 2020, #BecauseOfYou, was only just launched a few days ago. Why was it delayed? Also, unfortunately, there have been so many delays with the government getting committees struck to get work done in Parliament.

We have been celebrating International Women's Day for so many decades, and I just wanted to know why there was a delay in launching this year's theme. It's a bit rushed, because we don't have time to really celebrate or get it done.

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you for your question, and thank you for your work as a minister. You've moved significant pieces of work forward.

We will be celebrating it on March 8. Because this is a very special year for women's rights and equality as a whole, the theme, #BecauseOfYou, is the theme for the entire year.

Whether it's International Women's Day, Gender Equality Week, which our colleague pushed forward with Bill C-309, Women's History Month in October, or the 16 Days of Activism that happened throughout until the middle of December, the theme for the entire year is #BecauseOfYou.

We believe there is some time still to plan and move forward. If there are movers and shakers in your community, as there are in every community, who you want honoured through social media or through other means, the community should be encouraged to nominate and to recognize them using that hashtag.

There are opportunities throughout the entire year. As you can appreciate, an election year means there are some things that need to be rebuilt so that we can move forward, but the entire year is going to be a big year of celebrations and honouring those whose hard work and sacrifice allow women such as ourselves to enjoy the opportunities that we do.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond Centre, BC]

Yes, and in response to our colleagues, regarding women in the workforce, you did mention that.

Close to my heart are the women who are paid or unpaid family caregivers. They might be looking after their parents, or their grandparents now, because we all live longer. That directly affects the productivity of the women who are in the workforce. They have to choose between working full time or part time, and so on and so forth. I wonder if the government is doing anything, or if that's still a gap that we should work on.

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

That is most definitely a gap that we should all still work on.

Unpaid work more often than not is caregiving work. More often than not, it's provided by women. It's one of those areas of work that is highly undervalued, yet our economies and our communities would not be able to survive or thrive without it.

In working to bring in pay equity for federally regulated workplaces, we are working to do our part within our jurisdiction. We've also introduced leave for those who are caring for a severely sick loved one in their household, in their family. There is new leave that allows them to have some compensation.

My mom works in this sector, too. As our population ages, dementia is something that caregivers and leaders have asked us to take some federal leadership on. There's a new dementia strategy that my colleague Minister Schulte is working on. As of budget 2019, it has $50 million attached to it so that those who provide some of the most complex forms of care can be reassured that the federal government has a plan to address some of the challenges they face.

The new horizons for seniors program, which I know you are very well informed about, is to ensure that those loved ones we care for, especially our elders, have opportunities to share their gifts and build relationships and partnerships in their communities.

I have a few more things to say, but I see the green pen.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much. That was your five minutes.

We're now going to move over to Gudie, for five minutes

[Gudie Hutchings, Liberal, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Thank you, Madam Chair. We're going to have get you a bigger pen.

Minister, it's always a pleasure to have you and your officials here. The work that you and your team have done for the last five years, going from Status of Women to now a full-blown department, Women and Gender Equality Canada, or WAGE, as well as the increase in the budgets and the work that's being done on the ground, I know is felt in my riding.

As you've heard me say many times, and many of my colleagues have heard me say, I have a very large rural riding. It has a land mass bigger than Switzerland, with lots of tiny, beautiful communities. I have four small status of women's groups in rural areas, in Port aux Basques, Stephenville, Corner Brook and Port Saunders. There you have people with one or two paid positions and the rest are volunteers doing great work on the ground.

I want to bring up the rural aspect, because you are also the minister responsible for rural economic development.

I'd like your comments on how the two interact: women and women in rural areas. I know our government has a huge commitment on broadband and the initiatives there. How do you see them interacting with women and rural women?