Status of Women Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2021

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

You're actually out of time.

Ms. Larouche, you have six minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

My sincere thanks to the two witnesses for coming here today.

Ms. Zimmerman and Mr. Maddox, you confirm that the crisis has aggravated the problems of poverty among women. That confirms to me that the economic recovery must be feminist, in the sense that measures will have to be specifically targeted to women in order to get them out of the precarious financial situation in which the pandemic has placed them.

Internet access is the subject of debate at a number of committees here at the moment, such as the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. You both raised the issue.

I'd first like to hear from Mr. Maddox and then from Ms. Zimmerman, if she has anything to add. Have either of you heard any mention of the value that would be added to the economy if the Internet was accessible in every part of the country? Have you estimated that?

What disparity does it create? Do you have any figures about it? What does it represent in economic value?

[Peter Maddox]

I do not have that information. Unfortunately, it's very hard to calculate. I would suspect, for our industry, it's in the hundreds of millions of dollars in terms of revenue, if not more. It is difficult to get that information.

What I would say, and I will reiterate my point from before, is that this needs to be seen as an investment, not an expense. It's infrastructure, the same as roads and airports and schools and hospitals are infrastructure and they're investments. I think broadband Internet needs to be seen in that same way.

[Debbie Zimmerman]

I'm sorry; I didn't get the full translation, but I appreciate the response that....

I had a sense that it was on the economics. My apologies for that.

Again, this broadband network for a country of our size is going to be challenging, but, quite frankly, it's necessary to keep pace with the rest of the world.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Okay.

Ms. Zimmerman, you seem to have broken through a kind of glass ceiling in your field as CEO of your organization. What does that mean for you?

You also talked a lot about the challenges that women in high-level positions are faced with, such as having more tasks to perform with a greater mental burden.

What could you say about that?

[Debbie Zimmerman]

Thank you for the question.

I have a lot of bumps on my head. When you're bumping up against the next rung, it's always a bit of a challenge to get to the next one.

It's probably taken me twice as long as any male to get to where I had to go. It's not that I mind that; I would probably just have had this career a lot earlier. However, it's not without sacrifices, for both family and many of the people in your world. You're doing dual duty quite often.

I don't regret. I don't look back. I just want to see change in the future, because we have this wonderful generation we need to set an example for. What disappoints me is that we have not made the progress that we should have made.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

The Secretary-General of the United Nations has deplored the fact that the pandemic could wipe out a number of gains, a number of years of improvement in terms of equality between men and women. So it is something we must focus on.

To wrap up—we could perhaps talk about this again a little later—I imagine that, in remote regions, the opportunities to get into business are a little less common. It is probably more difficult for people to establish themselves, especially because of the problems with the Internet and with transportation in the regions, which can be tougher.

My question is for both of you. Are some business models more appropriate for women? Do they allow them to develop their female entrepreneurial side a little more?

[Peter Maddox]

Was that question for me?

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

The question goes to you and to Ms. Zimmerman, if she has something to add.

[Peter Maddox]

Absolutely.

The genesis of our industry is supporting women, going back a hundred years, at least, in selling makeup and those sorts of things. It has developed around the fact that typically this is not somebody's primary household income. It's something they do on the side. They make a little bit of extra money, whether that's to pay for a vacation or something small like that. A small amount of women do it full time, but it's largely part time.

The great thing about it is that it teaches transferrable skills. By being a direct seller and learning how to overcome some of the challenges it throws out, you're learning how to network, learning how to do accounts and learning how to take and submit orders. Those skills are transferrable to so many other professions and jobs out there. For instance, Karen Vecchio, who was previously on this committee, was a direct seller for PartyLite. I hope she won't mind me saying this, but she suggested that it was a really great step for her in getting her the confidence that led to her being in Parliament. I think that's an example of the power of our industry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That's your time.

Ms. Mathyssen, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

Mr. Maddox, of course we have talked about the significant impact that rural broadband has on women in your industry. I know that the movement to social media is key, especially now, but it is overall. While full coverage has been promised by 2030 by this government, it actually can happen much sooner than that. If we could do that in two or three years, which the industry has actually said they can do with the proper push from the federal government, how important would that be to your industry?

I would also like you to address another issue. Your members had campaigned for the inclusion under CERB to be able to earn the $1,000-a-month minimum. You talked about how a lot of your members are supplementing their income through direct selling. However, there's a lot of talk right now about a universal basic income and how important that could be as a baseline. How would that also support a lot of your members going forward as we come into hard times or just overall?

[Peter Maddox]

On the first point, I like to think that broadband Internet should be a huge priority for the government, because it's not just about broadband Internet. It integrates with every part of the economy. It creates opportunities for learning. It creates opportunities for economic activity. I look at best practices from around the world on how it can be scaled up and scaled out very quickly, and there's no silver bullet. Some of it will be done by government, some of it will be done by commercial interests, some of it will be done by satellite and some of it will be done by hard lines. It's all those sorts of things. There's no one answer. The answers are out there, though, if you look at some other countries that have been quite successful at rolling out broadband Internet.

Your second question was around universal basic income. I think if people can be supported in education and just getting to a basic level of living, then it adds so much to their life. It's the same with CERB. There needs to be some sort of scale so that as you earn, perhaps what you get goes down. With CERB it was just one size fits all. Initially, it punished those who.... Even if you were earning $100, you couldn't get the $2,000. Fortunately, that change was made.

Subsequently, whether it's EI or CERB or some sort of sign-up CERB, I think there needs to be a scalable part of it whereby people aren't discouraged from earning. That's the last thing you want to do. You want to encourage economic activity. Whether that's universal basic income or some other mechanism, I think that's very important.

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

For a lot of studies on universal basic income, of course, they lead to this ability to be freer, to take on that education, to take the time to expand what they do in the future and maybe change away from traditional workplaces to things they want to do to grow. I agree with you on that.

Ms. Zimmerman, you spoke a lot about what we need to do in terms of our recovery in the future. Of course, child care is key, as are things like the universal basic income and affordable housing. You talked a lot, too, about the disparity in the gender gap, the pay equity gap.

Could you talk more about how those programs are needed and the affordability, the accessibility and the universality of those across the board required to actually recover, not just for women but for everyone in our study, but specifically, of course, for women and rural women?

[Debbie Zimmerman]

I would say that starting with some of the basic tools that you need to climb out of poverty are those tools of assistance. A basic income is something that I know has been talked about for a long time, and I'm sure we'll have a lot of conversations on that in the future, but access to child care is critical. That's an important role that we can't undermine for parents, but it gives them that good child care. We see what happens when we don't have well-operated long-term care facilities for our seniors. You can see that if we don't.... That has been so evident through this pandemic, where there's been a failure to apply the same basic rules to the publicly run facilities and the privately run.

Those are just some of the things that you need, access to those tools, and if it's part of a broader plan, I think everybody would welcome that.

Change is necessary.

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

Yes. If there were something provided by the federal government, such as a child care act much like the Canada Health Act, with absolute accessibility and affordability, would that help?

[Debbie Zimmerman]

Well, you pointed to other countries. Look to the Scandinavian countries and how they deal with child care. There's no distinguishing factor between what you earn and your access to child care because you pay for it on your income tax. There are a lot of examples out there.

You have to take action. Like I said at the beginning, the end of my comments was going to be that I don't want to be here for another Groundhog Day, because we want to see change, right?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That's very good. That's your time.

I think we have the time to do four minutes with the CPC and four minutes with the Liberals.

We'll go to Ms. Sahota for four minutes.

[Jag Sahota, Conservative, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Zimmerman, you were going to comment on the gender gap and Canada's digital divide and you were cut off—apologies for that—so I'm wondering if you would like to continue on with your answer.

[Debbie Zimmerman]

Thank you.

I know that the digital divide for women has been focused on today, but what I said earlier is that you can see the disparity when women don't have access to the tools they need. It's disturbing, because it's not just at the level where there's the pay inequity as well, at every level, and it's unfortunate that we don't take.... For jobs like yours, as MPs, you're all paid equally unless you have a different role within Parliament.

Why can't we apply some of those very basic fundamentals to other jobs that we have across the country? I think the tools are there. It's just that we need to start implementing it, and I really believe it is the federal government's responsibility as the central government to set those standards.

[Jag Sahota, Conservative, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Thank you.

If we have any time left, I'm going to let MP Shin ask the next question.

[Nelly Shin, Conservative, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you.

It's a quick question. I'll direct it to you, Mr. Maddox.

It was a pleasure to speak with you last week. Regarding the direct sellers, are there any business expenses that have been added on or have complicated things in terms of things that these women would need for their sales, things that have been truncated, maybe even things like the supply chain not being able to reach them with the products in rural areas? Are there any complications on the business end of things?

[Peter Maddox]

Supply chain has definitely been an issue, but that's been an issue for basically everybody in Canada, I think. A lot of our member companies are from the U.S. Some of them ship from within Canada but some ship from the U.S., so that creates difficulties.

On the flip side, I would say for our industry, because people are looking to support their friends and family in business, because people can't go to brick-and-mortar retail, and because people are looking for ways to look after their health—a lot of our members sell nutritional supplements and those sorts of things—it has been a reasonably positive time from the aspect of sales by our business during the pandemic.

A lot of companies say we should move to digital, when they've been kicking the ground about it for years. They've been forced into it and so have other people. That's left a few people behind, but in the main, it's actually been—I hate to say a positive experience when talking about COVID but—a positive experience for a lot of our companies and members in that it has kind of forced them into the future a little bit.

[Nelly Shin, Conservative, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Where are some places for sellers who aren't really Internet savvy to look to for training on that?

[Peter Maddox]

There are some private online trainers, but you have to pay for training like that.

As I mentioned, some of our member companies do their own digital training. In some provinces there are online programs through which people can access some level of digital training, but it's fairly generic.

As I mentioned earlier, it's a little bit of a mishmash and that's where I think the federal government can have a role in consolidating even a web page of links to places to go to get training. That would be an excellent start.