Status of Women Committee on Feb. 27th, 2020

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

I'm currently working through this myself. It's very informative.

Just to continue—

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

The number is 150,000.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

That's 150,000 people. Does that number include all of your cabinet colleagues?

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

Parliamentarians and parliamentary staff have completed the GBA+—

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

—and your cabinet colleagues, correct?

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

Correct.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Correct, okay.

What do you feel your cabinet colleagues would have thought, through their gender-based analysis training, about energy resource projects like Teck Frontier? Do you feel they would have thought it was important to have this project and other energy sector projects which your government hasn't approved go forward? I think there are 11 now that have been postponed or thrown out.

Do you feel your government is doing a good enough job to see the impact of those decisions on women in the sector, considering 200,000 people are unemployed?

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

Absolutely, we do.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

How do you...?

Are we almost done?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You're almost done, yes. You're at 10 seconds left.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Right. It sure goes fast, doesn't it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

It sure does.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

I'll just conclude, Minister.

I hope that you can commit that the next time you come to committee you will have a bit more substantial information for us regarding the impact on women that your government's decisions on Teck Frontier and other energy projects have had.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Excellent. Thank you very much.

We're now going to move over to Sonia.

Sonia, you have the floor. I recognize you will share time with Anju, so go ahead.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I am sharing my time with Anju.

Thank you, Minister and officials, for coming today, and thank you, Minister, for your leadership in the last term. You are doing an amazing job.

My riding is Brampton South. A new study conducted by Family Services of Peel noted that the region of Peel has an alarming rate of human trafficking. Sixty-two per cent of police-reported cases in Canada originated from police in the Peel area.

I would like to ask you about the national strategy to combat human trafficking that was announced by the former minister of public safety shortly before the last election. Could you tell us more about how the new strategy has enabled a whole-of-government approach to addressing human trafficking?

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

Thank you for your question. I'm glad to see you around this table again.

The majority of human trafficking crimes, about two-thirds of them, are reported from Ontario. Like many others in Ontario, this past Saturday we observed a day to learn more about human trafficking and empower those who are on the front lines, including survivors, to address and prevent this heinous crime.

The national human trafficking strategy was announced by my honourable colleague, former public safety minister Ralph Goodale, last summer. It is a comprehensive strategy. It is based on four pillars: prevention, partnerships, prosecution, protection. Then, it has an additional pillar, which makes it, I believe, one of the best plans internationally. That is the empowerment pillar.

I've heard from colleagues around this table, as we've heard from Canadians across the country, that once those who have been able to get themselves out of the system and are ready to get their lives back together to piece back what's been broken, significant wrap-around supports are needed. That empowerment pillar is part of what we are trying to do as a federal government to provide those supports and services.

The strategy invests significant dollars—it's fully funded—to empower victims and survivors to regain self-confidence and self-control, to prevent more of these crimes from happening, to better protect those who are vulnerable to trafficking, to prosecute traffickers and to embrace partnerships with provinces and territories and other organizations to maximize our impact.

Also, as of a few months ago, we appointed a new special adviser on human trafficking who is a retired RCMP officer. She is working to provide ongoing advice and recommendations to the federal government to bring awareness to human trafficking here in Canada but also internationally as well.

One of the questions I asked one of the front-line service providers was what it is that makes our daughters—overwhelmingly, it's girls and overwhelmingly it's indigenous women and girls—so vulnerable to human trafficking. What are they seeing in terms of trends?

She said that often for these girls, the first time they hear kind words such as, “I am proud of you”, or the first time someone shows interest in them, it comes from their trafficker. I have little girls in my life, as I'm sure many of you have, and hearing that sent chills down my spine.

All this is to say that it is preventable. It is complex. Canada has a plan. We are working with our domestic and international partners.

I welcome any work by this committee. I know that several members have expressed interest in helping to enhance our existing initiatives around human trafficking.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Thank you for being here, minister.

My question is regarding Bill C-5. Being a lawyer myself and having worked in the criminal justice system, I'm very happy that our government is reviving and reintroducing this bill to provide training to judges. Can you tell us a little more about the bill and what it will achieve?

I also want to know whether, as part of the training sensitizing the judges, we will have victims or victims' organizations sitting with the judges during the training so that they can bring a better understanding, with their experiences navigating the criminal justice system themselves. This should—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have 45 seconds to respond.

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

I'm happy that we were able to support Rona Ambrose's bill. As you heard during your travels on coming up with this strategy to prevent and address gender-based violence, a responsive legal and justice system is a key pillar of our work.

This bill ensures that survivors of sexual assault have greater confidence in the system. The training that will be provided to aspiring judges will be developed in collaboration with survivors and experts in this work.

Did I do okay there? Yes?

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

We're now going to turn the floor over to Andréanne.

You have six minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Good morning.

You said in your presentation that one of your priorities was women's economic situation. You talked about ways to improve it. Can you elaborate on that?

What would your government have in mind to improve women's economic situation?

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

Thank you so much for that excellent question.

Women's economic well-being is a key determinant—not the only one—to their vulnerabilities to other hardships, including violence. It's the right thing to do to put women who choose to be out there, as Raquel mentioned, in STEM fields, but also in traditional fields. If you want to work, we should do everything we can to remove barriers from that work. It's the right thing to do, and it's fair. Also, given the shortage in labour that our country is experiencing, like so many other countries, with declining birth rates and aging populations, it is smart to get as many women into the workforce as possible. One of the ways we're doing that is with the Canada child benefit. It provides families with a guaranteed income every month. It's means tested and its purpose is to help families decide how they want to spend that money, whether it's on child care or other responsibilities.

Another is investing directly in child care spaces. We set aside $7.5 billion for our child care framework to create some 40,000 spaces. Each province and territory then came to the table and we signed bilateral agreements as to how many more child care spaces they would add on. More than 20,000 of those spaces have already been created.

That's one of the ways we're doing that work.

We are working to support more women to enter those non-traditional fields because they are high-wage jobs and because it's one of the fastest ways to lift women out of poverty. Initiatives like pilot projects that we brought in—my colleague Navdeep Bains is working to encourage more girls and young people to code, for example—are one way to do that. We have a women entrepreneurship strategy too. Right now, only 16.5% of businesses in Canada are women owned or majority owed by women. Surely we can do better than that. We have a strategy to do better to start up and scale up those women's businesses.

Then there's pay equity. This group includes members who worked hard on advocating for pay equity. We introduced pay equity legislation. One of the significant barriers is the way that we value women's work. By paying women equally for work of equal value, we help to address some of the wage gap that has been so persistent.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Okay.

There is something else. First, the motherhood penalty is often discussed. Of course, there are benefits, but too many women who make that choice still experience negative economic impacts because of it.

Second, why do feminine products cost more than equivalent products for men?

In addition, we have already discussed the issue of non-traditional occupations, which are often paid more, but there are many other injustices in terms of finances. You talked about the need to further encourage women's leadership and to help women create their own business model. Are those other tools your government is considering?

Yesterday, I met with a housing group for women. Does your strategy on domestic violence focus on providing more assistance to centres that help women who are victims of domestic violence. The needs are there. Funding is provided for buildings, for walls, but paid staff is also needed to support those women. That reality must also be taken into account, so that women can go to housing centres, come out of the cycle of violence and then re-enter the workforce.

I would like to hear your thoughts on that, as well.

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

You're absolutely right. Violence is a significant barrier to women achieving their full potential in this country. We've been able to invest in close to 7,000 shelter spaces so far, recognizing that there's still much more work to be done. Our housing strategy support has a pillar specifically devoted to building more housing for women, as my colleague Adam Vaughan says.

Women are often the first to lose affordable housing and the last to gain it. The cost of housing affects their spending every month, but if you're in an abusive relationship, you're going to have to make a choice between whether to stay under that roof with an abusive partner or be in the streets or couch surfing. That's a difficult choice that no woman should have to make and we're working to make sure that she has more choices.

Also, in response to your point about the motherhood penalty, motherhood is hard. I see the mothers in my life and what they do, and it's significant work. I'm sure it's a joy too. I see the joy, but it's a lot of work. We've heard from fathers and from parents too that taking parental leave is something we ought to take into consideration seriously, so we've introduced a new parental leave. Then fathers or adoptive parents or same-sex parents can take time in the early days of their newborn's life to spend some time together.

One of the things that does that —