Status of Women Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2021

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Welcome to the 13th meeting of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

Thank you for joining us on our study of impacts on women who live in rural communities.

This is just a reminder that before speaking, I will recognize you by name. You can click on the microphone icon to activate your mike. All comments should be addressed through the chair. When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly for the translators. When you're not speaking, your mike should be on mute.

Today we have with us, from the Direct Sellers Association of Canada, Peter Maddox, president. From the Grape Growers of Ontario, we have Debbie Zimmerman, chief executive officer.

They'll each have five minutes to bring opening remarks and then we'll go into rounds of questions.

Mr. Maddox, we'll start with you for five minutes.

[Peter Maddox, President, Direct Sellers Association of Canada]

Thank you to the chair and the committee for giving me this opportunity to speak today.

My name is Peter Maddox and I'm the president of the Direct Sellers Association of Canada. The DSA is a national association which was founded in 1954. We have over 70 company and supplier members across Canada. Our members include well-known and respected brands such as Mary Kay cosmetics, Pampered Chef cookware, PartyLite candles, Avon cosmetics, USANA Health Sciences and Cutco knives.

In Canada the direct selling sales channel annually accounts for an estimated $3.5 billion in retail sales, creates $1.31 billion in tax contributions and contributes $1.21 billion in personal revenue to the over one million Canadians who participate as independent sales consultants. Women make up 82% of independent sales consultants and 31% live in rural areas, compared to around 19% of the overall Canadian population.

Direct selling has deep roots in rural Canada. Just last week I was speaking with the general manager of Mary Kay Canada, who spoke proudly about how many of her consultants in rural Newfoundland have seen sales growth and earned vital income during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The success of our member companies and their independent sales consultants in rural Canada over many decades has been due in part to the ways that direct selling helps women overcome challenges created by living outside of large urban centres. These challenges have been often intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic and include, first, a lack of access to traditional bricks and mortar retail. When large retailers are not present in communities, direct sellers provide quick access to a wide range of products, as well as high levels of personal and local customer service.

Second, there is lack of employment and earning opportunities for women. While direct selling doesn't replace larger employers, it can provide vital additional income to assist in economic stability for individuals and families. This has been particularly relevant as the pandemic has created new challenges, such as home schooling.

Finally, women can face difficulties in maintaining strong networks due to geographic and social isolation. Products and services sold through the direct sales channel often require some level of personal demonstration, traditionally via sales party events, but more recently through virtual group events on Facebook Live and other digital platforms. This continues to connect people and proves healthy for mental and social well-being.

Due to the challenges faced by women in rural Canada and the opportunity that the direct selling channel presents, DSA Canada submits the following recommendations.

First is around broadband Internet access and digital literacy. The lack of reliable, affordable Internet has been on full display for many communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, many people have been thrust into a world reliant on being digitally savvy for the first time. Without universal access to high-speed communication technology and the requisite skills to make use of it, the direct selling businesses of thousands of independent sales consultants are negatively impacted. This in turn impacts the general economic well-being of rural communities.

The time for action is now. While the government has introduced a rapid response stream under the universal broadband fund, more dollars are needed now to rapidly connect Canadians and provide greater economic opportunities for those in underserved communities. The federal government should also explore new opportunities to provide digital literacy programs to ensure that Canadians, including those in rural and older populations, are able to actively participate in the digital revolution.

Second, we ask that the government continue to consider non-traditional employment relationships and earnings opportunities when developing policies and programs. During the initial rollout of the CERB, it quickly became obvious that it was developed with traditional employer-employee relationships in mind, without considering people like freelancers, seasonal workers and our own independent sales consultants. These roles are often filled by women and those in rural Canada. To the government's credit, after conversations with numerous groups, including ours, the CERB program was modified to overcome some of its early limitations.

We hope that in future, the development of support programs can be viewed through a lens that considers all Canadians and employment types, particularly those in non-traditional roles. DSA Canada has significant knowledge that can assist in understanding the full spectrum of Canadian workers.

The direct selling industry plays an important, but often unsung, role in the growth of the Canadian economy. We look forward to continuing to work with the federal government to ensure that this mutually beneficial relationship continues.

Thank you, and I welcome your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you.

We'll go to Ms. Zimmerman for five minutes.

[Debbie Zimmerman, Chief Executive Officer, Grape Growers of Ontario]

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I'm delighted to be here today.

I want to start out by saying that this subject often feels like Groundhog Day. I hope the irony is not lost on anyone, recognizing today is just that, with the groundhog actually seeing its shadow. It feels like the same conversation with little change.

There's long been a wage and employment gap between men and women in Canada. I draw your attention to a recent article in the Globe and Mail. It's a wonderful story on the power gap. It was well researched over two years. I urge you to read it.

The Niagara region is no exception, where women have fewer employment opportunities, because, oddly enough, the retail sector, which is the top employer in the Niagara region, employs more women who are paid less for the same work than their male counterparts.

The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has served to really exacerbate these gaps, particularly in Niagara. As Canada looks forward to an economic recovery after a broad-based vaccination for the public, the federal government must consider these inequities and realize that women are already being left behind.

I'd like you to consider some of these very basic facts. Before the pandemic, women in Niagara were already paid drastically less than their male counterparts across most sectors of the economy. In 2015, the most recent year, this kind of data is available. We can see the pay gap in action and the source is StatsCan, for your review.

In sales, for example, the median income for men was $57,000 and $28,000 for women. In trades and transportation it was $54,000 for men and $37,000 for women. In business and finance, men earned $56,000, while women earned $45,000. The trend is the same in education, government, social services and health care. The average salary in Niagara is $38,000 for men and $27,000 for women.

This is not just a fairness issue, although it is one, and not just an issue of gender bias. This is a critical social issue, where the gender gap plays an important role in poverty, and the pandemic has obviously highlighted this for many women.

In the part of Niagara where I live, which is semi-rural—I'll call it west Niagara—women make up a full 57% of those living on or below the income cut-off for families of four. This data is using what I'll say is an example of west Niagara or west Lincoln. In addition, women face the change and challenge of access to broadband Internet. That was mentioned as a huge concern. The other problem we have, obviously, being in rural Ontario, is transit and social supports.

For context, for a family of four, the low-income cut-off in this region is $30,000 and $16,000 for a single person. Keep in mind, the context of women being paid less than men. Even at these meagre wage levels, women are more likely than men to head the household of a single-parent home, and more than likely to be the primary caregiver for children and elderly parents alike. Contextually, this means there's a large number of women living on or below the poverty line who have to care for children, grandchildren and parents.

What has the COVID-19 pandemic done to the situation? It has made that gap wider and the situation of women worse. If you look at Niagara back in February 2020, in the early days of the pandemic, according to StatsCan, the employment rate was 56% for men and 54.5% for women. As the pandemic rolled on and the economic crisis deepened, the gap grew even wider. In March the rate was 54% for men and 50% for women. In April it was 51% for men and 46% for women. In May it was 49% for men and only 43% for women.

The economic rebound happened slightly over the summer, but mostly for men. In June and July the employment rate was 50.5% and 53.3% for men, respectively, but remained at 43% for women.

By September the rate for men had climbed to 55%, but for women it was only 49%. In other words, as jobs are coming back, they are coming back in fewer numbers for women and rather more for men. These trends have been—

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'm sorry. You're out of time. We'll have to cover the rest in our questions.

[Debbie Zimmerman]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We're going into our first round of questions. Each person will have six minutes. To help you stay on track, when there is one minute left you will get this card.

We will start with Ms. Sahota for six minutes.

[Jag Sahota, Conservative, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Witnesses, thank you to both of you for your time and your presentations. You both touched on broadband access today. My questions will be in regard to that.

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology noted in its April 2018 report on broadband connectivity in rural Canada that broadband service is significantly less available in rural areas than in urban areas. The committee suggested that this digital divide prevents Canadians in rural and remote areas from participating in the digital economy and exacerbates the challenges those areas already face.

This question is for both of you. How does the digital divide exclude individuals living in rural areas from the digital economy?

[Peter Maddox]

I'm happy to go first, if that's okay.

Historically, the direct selling industry was people either going door to door selling things or selling things via home parties, those sorts of things. Over the last 10 to 20 years it's definitely evolved into more of a digital business. That obviously has sped up very quickly due to COVID-19. Basically, for all of our member companies now, doing home parties is not a thing. They're doing all their selling...whether it's apps or desktops. They're taking and sending orders, doing customer service, tracking orders. If they don't have access to good and affordable Internet, then that basically takes away that opportunity from most people.

I live in Toronto and I have enough trouble with Internet on a lot of days. I can only imagine what it's like if you're still on dial-up or on a lower level of Internet. I was speaking to a rep from Avon earlier this week. She works in a lot of indigenous communities in B.C. She said it's basically impossible to do business there both from an order-taking perspective but also in terms of payments because they do all of them now through digital banking, and even that becomes very hard. It's definitely a challenge, and much more so in rural areas and for people in the community who are older and still want to make some income through something like direct selling but do not have the requisite digital skills to be able to do that.

I think there's a huge opportunity in terms of economic activity being lost. It needs to be seen as an investment rather than a cost.

[Debbie Zimmerman]

I think it's fundamental. If you look at rural Canada and the access to a broadband network, you see it's not available in most communities. I think it's changing. Add the complexity of the pandemic on top of this, where single-parent families are usually headed by women. They're trying to now manage their children for home-schooling as well.

I think what's important is that it's an economic opportunity through retraining. Those opportunities can lift women from where they are, seen as being at an impoverished level, and moving them up to getting some further education. It's a huge opportunity if we take it as a country, not as an individual province. I think it needs that broader direction from a federal strategy rather than a provincial strategy, because it's quite piecemeal right now across the province of Ontario for access to broadband.

In particular, I would say it's not an issue just for women; it's a family issue, especially as you have children who are schooled at home right now.

[Jag Sahota, Conservative, Calgary Skyview, AB]

To build on that, Ms. Zimmerman, perhaps you could provide some thoughts on my next question.

How, if at all, does the digital divide affect progress towards gender equality in Canada and in rural areas in particular?

[Debbie Zimmerman]

I touched on it. It's that access to education. When you can't do the traditional type of education by being in a classroom, the opportunity is there to do that working around other things. In particular, if you're having to work and then come home, you're less likely to be going back out to school. I think that type of education is no longer going to be the norm. There will be more online learning. I think that dynamic will change women's lives forever, if they get that opportunity to access good, basic education.

[Jag Sahota, Conservative, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Is there a gender gap in the digital divide? You both hinted at that. Women run these businesses from home, so there seems to be. I'm wondering if you can build on that a bit.

[Peter Maddox]

For us, definitely. As I mentioned, our sellers are 82% women, and that's largely who we deal with in the market we're working with. In Canada, the weight of home responsibilities overwhelmingly falls on women. They have all these other things that need to happen during the day, whether that's home teaching, household chores, or other jobs they're doing. They may be doing two or three jobs to make ends meet. Direct selling might be part of that. To find time to access digital literacy training or to research broadband Internet and the best way for them to connect is just incredibly complicated.

There are some programs by province right now for digital literacy, and I think they're very important, but it's very scattergun. It's hard to go online and find one in your region that teaches. I suspect we would like the federal government to develop a portal where someone can find what's in their region. I don't think there's a need for the federal—

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'm sorry, but that's your time.

[Peter Maddox]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Now we're going to Ms. Zahid for six minutes.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to both the witnesses for appearing before the committee today. My first question will be for Mr. Maddox.

As you know, our government has made investing in rural broadband a key priority, launching a $1.75-billion universal broadband fund with the goal of connecting 98% of Canadians to high-speed Internet by 2026, and all Canadians by 2030. We have certainly seen during our virtual Parliament how challenging it can be for our rural and remote colleagues to participate.

Could you please discuss how important reliable broadband access is to the direct sellers you represent, many of whom are women, and how it's crucial to enabling women to gain this independent income source?

[Peter Maddox]

It's basically their business. If they can't access the Internet, then their businesses decline significantly because that is how they do their business.

I want to point out that our member companies themselves do a lot of this training with their consultants. When someone signs up as a direct selling consultant, it's a very low investment for them, but the company still wants them to succeed, so they do a lot of digital training that's very specific to direct selling. They teach them how to use social media to promote themselves and to promote their products, and how to do things like Facebook Live. But once again, that's very difficult without access to the tools to be able to do that. As we've seen, even for an institution as grand as the Parliament of Canada, there are sometimes issues in how we all connect. You can only imagine if you're in the Northwest Territories and you're trying to connect with people over quite a large region, and they have all sorts of different Internet connectivities. It creates difficulties. As I mentioned before, it takes away an economic opportunity that should be for all.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Yes. Now the advertisement will be done mostly through social media campaigns. I think that will also be very crucial in what and how they can sell, so that's important.

Ms. Zimmerman, how important is broadband access to your growers when it comes to production, marketing, selling and other aspects of their business? Can you comment on that also?

[Debbie Zimmerman]

It's a critical component of what we do because much of our work is done in a very technical way. We collect data for our production, for our growers, so it's very important. We don't have access. We're just starting to get high-speed Internet in Niagara, believe it or not, but it's spotty at best, and we're trying to rectify that for a number of reasons. We need to, as a regional government, just because of the way we operate. Our regional government and our communities need to be doing that.

I want to touch on something that hasn't been mentioned. Why I specifically focused on the gender gap, particularly for women, is that the access to services is so critical. It can and has to be other things besides broadband network. There have to be the social supports, which is child care. Women need to have access to that to be able to take that next step. We don't have a good strategy yet. I don't believe there is a national strategy for child care that has been well implemented over time, and it's something we should be looking at for the future, as well.

I'm not saying the federal government should be responsible for everything, but it should have an integrated partnership with the provincial government to ensure that women have that chance to move up the ladder when they have an opportunity, but a lot of these things are holding them back.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Zimmerman. I know we have gender gaps in many industries.

I have a question for both of you.

Are either of you able to speak to the numbers of visible minority women in your industry? Do you encourage their participation, and are they facing any unique or distinct challenges compared to their peers?

We can maybe start with Mr. Maddox and then go to Ms. Zimmerman.

[Peter Maddox]

I'd be happy to answer that.

With our industry, obviously from a purely commercial sense, the more consumers we have and the more sellers we have, the more the industry succeeds. Our member companies, particularly I would say over the last 10 years, have made a very great effort to be inclusive, to encourage people from various immigrant communities or visible minorities to join in with their sales plans.

Sometimes, for cosmetics company, for example, that's as simple as adding some cosmetics that suit different ethnicities. That's very important for them. Particularly, for some of our companies in B.C., they do a lot of work in the Chinese community in Cantonese and Mandarin to appeal to that community.

It's definitely been, as I mentioned, from a commercial perspective, something that's very important, and that's reflected in the companies themselves—the home offices. Traditionally with a lot of our companies, even though they marketed to women, they were run by men. We see more and more that now they're mostly run by women. I visit those companies, and I also see that they're very diverse.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I'm running out of time, so maybe Ms. Zimmerman can also comment.

[Peter Maddox]

I apologize.