Evidence of meeting #3 for Status of Women in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was work.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
One moment.
The motion is going to be reread, and so the motion will come out.
Once I address you, then turn on your microphone. The only person who will address you to start talking is me.
Go ahead, Raquel.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
The motion is:
That given that the minister confirms that her cabinet colleagues, including the Prime Minister, have all completed the gender-based analysis plus training, I move that the committee request that the Minister for Women and Gender Equality table the gender-based analysis plus completion certificates of all of her cabinet colleagues with the committee.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Is there any discussion on this motion?
Sonia, you have the floor.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Gudie Hutchings Liberal Long Range Mountains, NL
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'd like to adjourn the debate. We're not quite sure whether the department is legally allowed to disclose that information, so I'd like to move that the debate be adjourned.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
The question is on the motion that the debate be adjourned.
(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
The motion carries, so debate will be adjourned on the motion. We will thus not continue with it.
We have now taken up the time of all the questioning and such things.
I'm looking at the time and at where we are.
Salma, you have the floor for five minutes. Then we'll go to Andréanne for two and a half, then to Lindsay for two and a half. Then I have one final question as the chair.
Please go ahead.
February 27th, 2020 / 11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for coming before the committee. I want to take this opportunity to thank you for all the work you have done in the last many years on behalf of my constituents. I wanted to pass this on, because we feel the difference in our riding.
You talked in your opening remarks about the national housing strategy. This is one issue I always hear about from my constituents. Access to affordable housing is a big issue in my riding.
Minister, one of the great things this government has done is address the housing crisis in a sustained way, which no other government has done in at least half a century. Thanks to the national housing strategy, the federal government is reinvesting in housing and establishing itself as a partner on housing for most of the next decade.
I want to ask you a couple of questions on that subject as it relates to women.
First, one of the strategy's goals is to make sure that at least 25% of national housing strategy investments go to projects specifically for women, girls and their families.
Do you know where the government is in working to achieve this goal of 25%?
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Maryam Monsef Liberal Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
Thank you.
I'm grateful for your leadership, too. It's nice to have you back around this table. I saw that you had been elected as chair of the citizenship committee. I wish you all the best on that important work.
In terms of the housing strategies, our commitment was to carve out 25% for women and their children. CMHC is now at about 29%. Their target is 33%. That strategy also includes legislating—and I was happy to speak to it in the House of Commons—that access to affordable housing is a human right. In addition to that, we are in the process of working to ensure that there is a housing advocate who is working to monitor and ensure that every Parliament is accountable and is meeting those targets.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
Another question on the same topic relates to the historic legislation the government signed into law last June in the 42nd Parliament, when we recognized that every Canadian has the right to access safe, affordable housing. Could you please explain more to us about how this will help marginalized communities, especially women and young girls?
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Maryam Monsef Liberal Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
The housing strategy allowed us to get our house in order, much like other federal strategies that we put forward. Legislating housing as a human right was our way of responding to what advocates had been asking for. Minister Duclos, the minister who did the outreach across the country on this, and Adam Vaughan as his parliamentary secretary came back and said, “This is what we've heard. We need to address affordability. We need to address supply, and then we need to make sure that it's not just the federal government in 2015 until whenever that is working to uphold this. We need to make sure that every Parliament recognizes access, and the dignity that comes with a safe roof over one's head, as a human right.”
Legislating that and also doing the back end work of having a strategy in place, building and repairing existing affordable units, focusing on women, on seniors, on veterans and on persons with disabilities are all things we did on the back end to get to legislating it as a human right.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
Thank you.
I represent a riding where there are a lot of organizations that are helping to advance gender equality, especially for new immigrant women of colour. What efforts have been made to do the capacity building of those organizations so that they can continue doing the important work that they are doing?
Noon
Liberal
Maryam Monsef Liberal Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
I'm a product of those organizations doing the good work that they do. I've benefited from those services and I know we all have loved ones who have directly benefited from those services. I spoke in my opening remarks about the backlash there is to our progress to advance equality. That backlash can be contained and can be faced best by investing in those local organizations on the ground that know the communities, know the solutions, know the shortcuts and are able to enhance the ability of every dollar, and we've done that.
Noon
Conservative
Noon
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
I feel we had a productive discussion, Minister. However, given that you've passed legislation about GBA+, given that it's in your mandate letter from the Prime Minister, given that the Prime Minister himself has talked about this at the national level, and given that it's one of the four main pillars of your own mandate, I do feel that it is very disappointing for Canadians that you cannot put forward which members of cabinet have done GBA+. It's just very disappointing.
Noon
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Raquel, we need to know if this is a point of order or an opinion.
Noon
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
I want to understand the situation. This was a point of order because it was not her turn to speak.
Noon
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Points of order supersede everything else.
In a situation in committee, if a point of order is brought forward, the committee stops, and it goes on to the point of order at that time. The decision on whether it is debate, an opinion, or something to do with procedure is the discussion that would come. When it comes to what the decision of the chair would be, it was not going into debate. It was a stated opinion but did not go into procedure, and she finished her statement.
I'm looking at the time, we still have a couple more minutes.
Andréanne, you have two and a half minutes.
Noon
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Minister, earlier, my colleague brought up the issue of family caregivers and the assistance they need.
I talked about the issue of motherhood. Afterwards, women spend a lot of time in their family. Men also do it. So some time is provided. There is also a lot of volunteer work.
I come from the community environment, and I have studied the issues of women and poverty. I have worked with family caregivers. Women also volunteer a lot in those environments.
What steps is the department planning to take to properly assess all those invisible hours of work?
What measures are you considering to be able to achieve concrete social programs, provide credits or help all those people in their invisible work?
We believe that a question should be put back into the long-form census. What would you focus on in order to be able to consider all that invisible work?
Noon
Liberal
Maryam Monsef Liberal Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
On the census, we brought back the long-form census. It was actually our first act as a cabinet. The new census will be rolling out in 2021.
One thing my department has worked on very closely with Minister Bains' department and Stats Canada is creating a portal based on diversity and inclusion data so that we can get those different stories and the intersecting identities. This is new. Once you start collecting the data, then you can measure it. Unless you measure it, it won't count. We cannot measure progress on addressing the unpaid care work and the invisible work. That's been step one.
Step two has been to recognize that, for so many people, to care for their loved ones is an honour. To support them in their ability to do that, a new EI caregiver benefit has allowed for that additional support to be provided. As well, it has encouraged men to take leave, fathers to take leave, so that we start to change social norms as well. There are many in my community who are thrilled that they can take up to five weeks to be with their newborns.
There's so much work to be done on this particular area of care work and unpaid care work. We will be doing more research and more work on it. Again, I invite and welcome any guidance from this committee to support that work.
Noon
Conservative
