Status of Women Committee on Nov. 19th, 2020

[Maya Roy]

It's been very challenging. At the beginning of the pandemic, there was an increase in women choosing to leave their relationships, as the witness from St. John's, Newfoundland, also talked about. What we're seeing with the second wave, as we start to go into lockdown again and courts start to close down, is it's very difficult to get protection orders for women. Also, many abusers are actually using the access to visitation centres, because those are also closed as well during lockdown, as an opportunity to further harass women.

With courts being closed and public transportation being shut down or not available at all in a community, it is getting harder and harder for a woman to safely plan and leave. What we're worried about is that many women are having to make the unfortunate choice of not being able to leave at all, because of how the very necessary pandemic public health restrictions are actually stopping women from being able to move on to that next step.

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

Thank you so much.

Do I have time for one more question?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

No, we're off to Ms. Zahid for six minutes.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, everyone. Thanks, Madam Chair, and thanks to all the witnesses for joining us today.

My first question is for Ms. David.

Ms. David, we know that one of the most effective ways to grow our economy is to ensure that everyone is part of it and everyone is able to participate in it. That's why our government announced the first-ever women entrepreneurship strategy, which was a $2-billion program that sought to double the number of women-owned businesses by 2025. We cannot allow this pandemic to roll back the progress that has been made.

What recommendations for action do you have for this committee so that we can reduce barriers for women entrepreneurs and women-led small businesses in the economic recovery? We all know that economic recovery will not be possible without the she-recovery.

[Cindy David]

Thank you, MP Zahid.

It's an excellent question. I would say that we fully support the government's strategy of a growth-led economy or recovery versus increasing taxation. We always say the two most stressful things in life are death and taxes. They're both equally important, I would say, but I will focus on the taxation side, the reason I am here.

I looked at the women's entrepreneurship strategy and it's fantastic. There's a lot of information on there. Everything about it was good. The only shortcoming, I would say, is that it's finished. It's done. The last dollar was given in 2019. There's a big section of the website.... Every part of that section of the website says, “We are no longer accepting applications.” There were some great businesses that were supported throughout that initiative, and I would say we need more of that.

It's help for female business owners, support with their income tax, streamlining income tax. We have a lot of people concerned about just making payroll. If you're a female business owner, you're worried about overhead. I spent $20,000 getting computer systems set up and supporting my staff. Not many people can afford that. What are we doing to support getting more dollars in their pockets so that their businesses can thrive, so they can continue to employ staff? As well, what happens in an emergency? Everybody stops learning. How can we encourage female advisers to continue their education path, and even support team members to continue their education throughout this uncertainty?

We also have a lot of barriers in legislation on transfer of wealth, on transfer of ownership of businesses, that actually make it.... We're incented to sell a business to a third party versus a family member. This is an unintentional consequence of tax legislation, and we need to look at things like that which were meant to do one thing but are actually doing another and discourage women in business.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

My next question is for Ms. Roy or Ms. Sultana, whoever can take it.

I understand the YWCA is conducting a three-year national study to identify practices to build social resilience and labour market access for the most vulnerable women. Can you speak a bit more in detail about this project and what you are hoping to learn from it? Are you applying an intersectional lens to look at challenges for newcomer and minority women? How important is this sort of research work to allowing policy-makers to make fact-based decisions?

[Maya Roy]

I'll take the question. Unfortunately my colleague's headset mike is not working.

The research you describe has been led by newcomer and racialized women. One of the key themes that emerged from that research, which I'm sure will not be a surprise to anybody on this call, is that a lack of affordable and accessible child care is one of the key barriers to labour market access for newcomer, racialized and Black-identified women.

We've been looking very closely, as a result, at recommendations from a Quebec economist, Pierre Fortin. When he looked at investment in Quebec, for example, after 10 or 15 years he found that for every $100 the Quebec government invested in universal affordable child care, not only did tax revenue increase, but both the federal and provincial governments received over $140 back in taxes. They also saw workforce participation rates increase.

What we're hearing from our service users on the ground is that we need different models for supporting affordable child care right across the country. Many newcomer women work in the child care sector, but because of the way the subsidies are structured, the pay for early childhood educators is so low that many newcomer and racialized women who work as early childhood educators are actually leaving the sector altogether. The pay is not worth it, and the health and safety risks with COVID are simply not worth it.

YWCA recently did a survey—

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'm sorry, but that's you time. The good news is the technician has said we've fixed Ms. Sultana's mike, so I'm going to give her two minutes.

[Anjum Sultana, National Director, Public Policy and Strategic Communications, YWCA Canada]

Thank you so much.

As Maya has talked about, the folks most impacted in this crisis are folks who are already marginalized, such as minority women, newcomer women, immigrant women and women with disabilities.

What this crisis has shown us is that the old way of approaching things is no longer viable and is simply not enough. We need a new playbook to address the pandemic and its social and economic consequences. YWCA's work on a feminist economic recovery plan does just that. We launched it at the end of July. It offers a starting point and a road map for action for a better, more resilient economy that works for us all. There are several recommendations, but the one key piece of it I want to highlight today is child care.

In addition to the research that Maya pointed to, we saw in the U.K. that when you invest any amount of money in care, it creates 2.7 times more jobs compared with an equivalent investment in construction. This would translate into 6.3 times more jobs for women and 10% more jobs for men. When we're talking about the lack of adequate pay, as Maya did, investing in care and investing in decent work for care workers will actually help us all.

In the U.K., a 2.5% investment in the country's GDP could result in 1.5 million jobs. I know the government has talked about creating one million jobs. This is a small investment. What the research is telling us is that investment in care goes farther for families, for communities, for gender equality and, yes, for Canada's economic recovery.

The last thing I'll say is that often in times of crisis what gets us through is care and community. In terms of gender equality, we should invest in community-based organizations that make gender equality possible. What we'd like to see, from the YWCA's perspective, is investments in care and community. This would not only address the short-term impact of COVID-19, the gendered impacts, but also would set us up for success for decades and generations to come.

Those are my remarks, and I'm happy to continue the conversation in questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you.

We'll move on to the next round of questions.

Ms. Larouche, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I want to thank all the witnesses this morning. We can see many connections between their organizations, given the different ways in which the pandemic is affecting women.

I'll turn first to Ms. Williston. I want to hear more about the specific realities of women in the regions.

How is COVID-19 disproportionately affecting women in rural areas compared to women in urban areas?

[Sharon Williston]

For rural women, access to community services is going to be one of the biggest obstacles they face. Let me give you an example from here, locally.

Many of the volunteers in our community are seniors, and they're the most vulnerable in the COVID-19 pandemic. Many seniors take care of our local food bank. When the middle of March came about, it had to close its doors for six weeks until another organization took over taking care of the availability of food. You're looking at very vulnerable people who don't have access to a food bank for over six weeks.

Then it changed to a drive-through method. As I talked about earlier, not everyone has access to a vehicle here. Friends and family members could not drive seniors, so they were walking there. It was March—well at this point it was April, but here the winters last quite a period of time. Now we're going back into winter. We worked with other local organizations to provide a service where we received incoming calls and then organized volunteers to pick up food hampers and deliver them to doorsteps.

That's just one example of some of the things they're facing.

In regard to the mental health aspect of it, we are doing everything we can to increase capacity within our communities. I'm working with the Canadian Mental Health Association, and we're going to be delivering safeTALK to over 50 individuals within the community in the next little while. That's all about suicide intervention. We're also going to be delivering two ASIST training sessions within the next 60 days. I'm working a lot with the Eastern Door Feather Carriers, which is a life promotion group looking through an indigenous lens to help people overcome some of the challenges they're facing with their mental health.

The impact on rural women is in access, but we're trying to find creative ways, while working together as different organizations, to overcome challenges.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you. That's very interesting.

I'll now turn to Ms. David.

Ms. David, you spoke a great deal about a feminist economic recovery. How will COVID-19 create specific tax and financial challenges for women?

How can we overcome these challenges?

Lastly, what might a tax policy for a feminist economic recovery look like?

[Cindy David]

With regard to recovery, we're looking to focus on resolving gender-based issues, by lenders in particular, that affect women's ability to fund their businesses. I've experienced, on both sides of the gender spectrum, issues with bank loans. When there's so much uncertainty, this becomes quite an issue.

Going back to taxes, let's improve the tax regime affecting small business. We know small business is the backbone of our economy and has been particularly affected by the pandemic.

A very specific example is form T2200, which requires thousands of pages to be filled out by everybody across the country, not just one person, versus a check box. Let's streamline compliance, because every time we go to do something, it takes us time to leap over hurdles, as opposed to doing our jobs.

Let's allow capital expenditures, as I mentioned, and the setting up of home offices. There's now a dynamic approach to business in how everybody has had to shift, and we need to support that from a tax perspective, allowing deductions for expenses. Let's also encourage the continuation of business so that people can sell their businesses as opposed to just winding them up.

We're looking specifically at things like the capital gains exemption for small business, or even a new tax, like a tax on split income. We've spent a lot of time since 2018 talking about that extremely complicated piece of legislation. Let's streamline that to make it easier for people to understand how they can live by the rules and spend more time on their businesses being productive.

I mentioned already the disincentive we have for family businesses to continue selling from generation one to generation two and so on. It is a serious issue that is really catching people.

Before the pandemic, reducing red tape and streamlining compliance were, we think, key issues, and they will be post-pandemic especially.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Excellent.

Now we'll go to Ms. Mathyssen for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

To the YWCA members, Ms. Roy and Ms. Sultana, I really loved the title “Born to be Bold”. I really latch on to the idea that, of course, the status quo isn't working and that we need to challenge that. We need to change things. Bold, courageous ideas will take us beyond this, much as we saw during World War II with the creation of pension systems, EI systems and so on.

I'd like to talk more about the need for universal, affordable, accessible child care. I've certainly looked into the idea of the government introducing a piece of legislation that would ensure this across the board, much as the Canada Health Act does, for example, and ensure that we have equality.

Quebec certainly gets to enjoy that. What would that mean for the rest of Canada?

[Maya Roy]

I think the last eight months have been a very interesting moment because, as you know, we've been talking about universal child care since the Royal Commission on the Status of Women, in 1970. I was at a meeting with the Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce. Every single chamber of commerce, including the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, has talked about the importance of universal child care.

This is one of those golden opportunities for us as a country and as a society, because business, small business, labour and non-profits all agree on it. That's what my colleague, Ms. Sultana, was talking about. Investing in care work is the foundation of a proper restart for our economy. Many businesses are now also losing good staff because women are excluding themselves, so it's also a talent pipeline issue.

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

Yes, and certainly we've seen this in how we view care work in health care, long-term care, social work and child care. I believe because it's female-dominated, there is lower pay and a lack of respect. There is both racial and gender discrimination within those fields as well. That's certainly been clear. I've heard from child care workers specifically who have addressed that directly. They have a desperate need to hold on to their workforces.

I want to talk about a couple of different programs. A lot of provinces have domestic violence leave. How do we ensure that across the board, nationwide, there is paid domestic violence leave and how would that help?

You talked about education, training and moving the workforce forward with investments in education. How would a guaranteed basic income or annual income help achieve those goals for women?

[Maya Roy]

Having federal legislation for paid domestic leave would be a huge step forward. As many of you on this committee know, the impact of gender-based violence on the economy results in a loss of billions of dollars to, for example, many of the businesses that Madam David works with.

With respect to a guaranteed minimum income, it's certainly something the YWCA is exploring. We've been watching the research and data coming out of certain pilot projects in Canada, for example, in northern Ontario and B.C., but also in other countries, such as Iceland and Denmark, to look at the impact.

We also know that this recession is increasing job losses. It will only accelerate job losses due to automation, so I think, again, as policy—

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I have a point of order.

There isn't any interpretation.

[The Clerk]

We have lost interpretation.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Can we check interpretation with the technicians?

Also, Ms. Mathyssen, could you raise your mike a bit?

Ms. Roy, go ahead.

[Maya Roy]

Thank you.

As we have seen, this recession has only accelerated job losses due to automation, and this will disproportionately impact women, people—

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Chair, I'm told that the sound quality isn't good enough for the interpretation.