Status of Women Committee on Nov. 19th, 2020

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number five of the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of September 23, 2020. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. The webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee.

With regard to the speaking list, the committee clerk and I will do our best to maintain a consolidated order of speaking for all the members, whether they're attending virtually or in person.

Today the committee is meeting to study the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on women.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name, and when you're ready to speak, click on the microphone icon to activate your mike. All comments should be addressed through the chair.

Interpretation in this video conference works very much like it does in a regular committee meeting. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen to pick English, French or floor, which is for whatever is being spoken. When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly for the interpreters. When you're not speaking, your mike should be on mute.

I'd like to welcome the witnesses who have come for our first panel.

We have, from the Bay St. George Status of Women Council, Sharon Williston, who is the executive director; from the Conference for Advanced Life Underwriting, Cindy David, who is the board chair; and from YWCA Canada, Maya Roy, who is the chief executive officer, and Anjum Sultana, who is the national director of public policy and strategic communications.

Each group will have five minutes for opening comments, and I will be gentle when I cut you off after five minutes. Then we'll go into rounds of questions. I will try to be sensitive, but each member will have six minutes for the first round. You'll hear me say, “That's your time”, and that's how you'll know we're moving on to someone else.

With that, we'll begin—

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Madam Chair, I have a point of order.

Sorry, but I'm getting some garbling when you speak into the microphone. I want to know if other members are getting the same.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Yes, it's the same for me.

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

It's the same here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'm open to suggestions from the IT folks. Maybe it's a volume thing.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Stephanie Bond]

Could we suspend, please?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Sure. We'll suspend briefly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Let's resume.

We'll start our panel discussions with Sharon Williston, for five minutes.

[Sharon Williston, Executive Director, Bay St. George Status of Women Council]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

As you announced earlier, I work with the Bay St. George Status of Women Council as their executive director. I've been in the role since January of this year. It was certainly a baptism by fire come mid-March when a lot of things changed here in Newfoundland and Labrador.

I want to describe a bit of the geography in our area so you can have a full understanding of what women are facing before and during COVID.

As an example, I'll use transportation. There's no such thing as a city bus service within our area. Folks have either their own vehicles or depend upon taxis or the generosity of friends and family to help transport them to where they need to go.

The area is quite large. Out on the Port au Port Peninsula, for someone to come into our area to access services, they're looking at a little over an hour's drive. With the more remote areas as well the access to reliable cellphone service and Internet service leaves much to be desired. There are many areas where there is no service whatsoever for these two ways to connect. When you're looking at isolation, you see it escalates things even more. These things, of course, have a huge impact on being able to access community supports since COVID-19. We have done our best to be able to continue to provide programming through Zoom and other Internet platforms. We have also gone out to a community on a few occasions to offer in-person workshops, but at a reduced rate, needless to say.

What we're seeing and hearing from the women is that the impact of the isolation has been one of the hardest things. For women who live alone, the inability to connect with community services and to socialize in groups has had a profound impact on the anxiety and stress levels they've been experiencing. Where possible, we have been able to partner with other organizations in providing cellphones, tablets and the like, so they're able to connect through the Internet or through cell service. Once again, going back to those women who are living in areas without those services being available, the isolation is profound.

Many women found themselves in the situation where they were at home and, all of a sudden, overnight, became a teacher to their children. The stress levels went through the roof for many women because they were working from home, educating their children from home, and trying to make sure of the level of cleanliness that was required with COVID-19 for anyone going in and out of the home. They had to wear so many different hats that they felt they weren't able to do justice to any of them.

Once again, looking at that stress level and that anxiety level, we're seeing an increase in the number of referrals that we're doing to various supports such as CHANNAL, the Canadian Mental Health Association, mental health and addictions services, and so on.

When we look at domestic violence, we see that the RCMP and RNC within our province have reported that there was an actual decrease in numbers. That doesn't mean there was a decrease in cases. Oftentimes it was not safe to report. Being in isolation with your abuser it's very difficult to be able to make those phone calls. Also, with having little to no access to affordable housing, many landlords were not renting to new tenants during the first few months of COVID, and that escalated things even more.

What we have seen here through our sector is a lot of women moving in with friends and family members, so those numbers are hidden in regard to how many are actually leaving those long-term relationships. We've noticed a spike in the number of women who have been leaving long-term relationships, 15 years or longer, and starting over. We're seeing these numbers through the number of requests that we have received for home-starter kits, for accessing furniture through us, and other referrals through Newfoundland and Labrador housing, our housing support worker with Community Education Network, and so on. We know that the numbers are there and they are indeed increasing.

In regard to food insecurity, Food First NL had reported earlier this fall that the costs of food in our province had increased by approximately 22%—

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Madam, Chair, I have a point of order.

I'm sorry for interrupting, but the sound has a lot of noise and we can't really hear properly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Yes, the technicians are working on it.

Do you want to continue or do you want to suspend for a few minutes while they work on it?

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

There's a lot of disturbance.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Yes, I think we should suspend again.

Just hang tight while the technicians get on it, because it's important that we hear the testimony.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Yes, Madam Chair, I think that is good idea.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Good. Let's suspend. Hang tight.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

It's fixed, so let's proceed with Ms. David, for five minutes.

[Cindy David, Chair of the Board, Conference for Advanced Life Underwriting]

Good morning and thank you, Madam Chair, vice-chairs and committee members.

I'd like to begin by acknowledging that the land I'm speaking from is the unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, including the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh.

I am the chair of the Conference for Advanced Life Underwriting. You might wonder what that means. We basically represent a big section of the financial services industry. We're the only professional association dedicated to leadership and advanced planning solutions and advocacy to promote the financial health of Canadians. Our more than 600 members represent the top tier of insurance and financial advisers, as well as accounting, tax, legal and actuarial experts.

Ours has traditionally been a male-dominated industry, but this is changing. We've seen an increase in the number of female advisers, up to about 18% from 11% to 13% eight years ago, depending on which section of the industry you look at. While we have some way to go, women clearly are on a fast track for leadership in our industry. My appointment this year as the third female chair of our organization in almost 30 years provides some additional encouragement for this, as do the other three female directors on our board.

We are concerned about the advancement of women in financial services overall. You'll hear a lot of evidence about the outsized impacts of the pandemic on women, but it's the many women, whether they're clients or people trying to get into the financial services industry, who start in retail, hospitality and health care who have been most affected.

Because of the sections of industry that women tend to work in, this means they've had to continue to work amid health risks for themselves and their families so that the rest of us can have access to essential services. Added to the reality is that women take on the lion's share of child care, home-schooling and elder care needs, all of which have obviously soared during the pandemic.

There's no question that women have been the hardest hit, especially those who have precarious employment and/or are low-income earners. They have the least ability to cushion the impacts and make adjustments to ride out the pandemic.

At the same time, it's important to recognize the impact that COVID-19 is having on the advancement of women across the economy. A recent study we conducted with CALU found that our female members have had a significantly greater impact on their businesses than our male members. These women are among the most senior and successful advisers in Canada, yet they too are affected by a gender imbalance that sees child care, home-schooling and elder care fall disproportionately on their shoulders. That's true for people in our industry as well as for our female clients.

We're a big proponent of educating women on investing and on the creation of successful businesses. We would like to see a lot more women create new successful businesses that allow them to fulfill their potential to create, innovate and drive economic growth. That's also true for our youth. We want to make sure that we not only take care of women as we try to survive this pandemic and succeed through it, but also remember that we have a second generation of female youth we would like to train, grow and nurture so they can be a big part of the business economy.

Everybody is noticing the cost of child care. It's a key hindrance to enabling a woman's advancement. The same is true for elder care. A national seniors strategy is something that has been on our agenda for quite some time. We feel that addressing elder care would free a big section of the female economy to be able to work and contribute.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Very good. That's your time.

Now we're going to Ms. Roy for five minutes.

[Maya Roy, Chief Executive Officer, YWCA Canada]

Thank you, Madam Chair, vice-chairs and committee members.

My name is Maya Roy and I'm the CEO of YWCA Canada.

We are the largest and oldest gender equity organization in Canada. We work with 300 communities across nine provinces and two territories, with 34 shelters on the ground and 2,000 units of affordable housing.

Regarding the impact of the pandemic, the previous witnesses spoke very well to the lack of transportation and lack of Internet access.

In our shelters we have seen demand increase anywhere between 20% to 40% across the country. We have also seen an increase in human trafficking and cases of sexual exploitation in communities such as Niagara, St. Catharines and Halifax. We've also seen a very troubling turn in rural, remote and northern communities. For example, with the lack of Internet access, we have seen abusers refuse access to data or phone to women and gender-diverse people in the pandemic. As previous witnesses have stated, being in lockdown with your abuser can potentially be a death sentence.

Another issue we've seen sometimes is the conflicting public health measures and messaging. For example, women fleeing violence in the Northwest Territories are asked to check with public health first before leaving an abusive relationship and they're asked to call a phone number. When our front-line staff connected with this particular phone number, the lack of trauma-informed response, the lack of training, meant that government officials didn't necessarily have the assessment skills to assist a woman to make a safety plan. We were quite concerned.

It's very important to have a gendered trauma-informed approach to public health messaging, especially as gender-based violence is on the rise across the country. The United Nations refers to this as a shadow pandemic.

It's also given us an opportunity as a feminist organization to start to innovate and test new solutions. For example, tech companies such as Uber stepped in to provide in-kind rides for essential workers as well as women leaving abusive relationships to get to the shelters. It's very important if we're not investing in public transportation across the country.

We also partnered with the humanitarian aid organization, GlobalMedic, and worked with them to use FedEx to send hand sanitizer to shelters in the Arctic. How can we possibly ask community members to physically distance or wash their hands regularly if over 60% of reserves do not have access to running water or potable water? We have seen Canadians step up and they're interested in working with us on solutions.

We also partnered with the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto to start to develop a framework around a feminist economic recovery.

I'd like to now turn it over to my colleague, Anjum Sultana. She is the co-author of “A Feminist Economic Recovery Plan for Canada”.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Ms. Sultana, you're on mute.

[The Clerk]

Ms. Sultana, could you verify if you have a button that perhaps is muted on the cord? There's a little button on the cord of the microphone often that could be muted.

We can't hear you, so we will have a technician reach out to you.

Unfortunately, we'll have to move to the next witness, but we will reach out to you via phone.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We will go to our first round of questions for six minutes.

We'll start with the wonderful Nelly Shin.

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

Thank you so much to all the panellists today. I feel the weight of the impact of COVID and the psychological strain on the overall well-being, the wellness, of women. I just want to thank particularly the women with the YWCA. In my travels I've stayed at different hotels and I've seen the programs that go on in those spaces. I'm very blessed to know that is happening. Thank you very much.

What I'm hearing from all of you consistently is on the repercussions of isolation. It has a very strong impact on relational strain and so my focus right now is, from what you've all shared, on that stage of transition and recovery coming out of those mental health-related issues and the safety as well.

My first question has to do with the actual mental health aspect. I know some workplaces provide counselling services and whatnot, but if you're working at home and taking care of children and you don't have a place of employment that provides that special service, how are these women accessing mental health care? What programs are out there that are working for them and what can we do better?

That's open to anyone. Thank you.

[Maya Roy]

Thank you very much for that very important question and for the shout-out to YWCA Canada.

Yes, we have certainly seen, not just as the service provider but also as an employer, the pressure of that triple burden of care for women when it comes to looking after children and the elderly as caregivers. One of the things we have been able to do, like many women service providers, is work with, for example, the Telus Foundation and try to shift all of our services online.

It's very challenging though for many charities to do that work because many of us are actually, under government funding, not allowed to upgrade our computers. I have colleagues across the country some of whom are literally on Windows 95, which our cybersecurity firm assures me is unhackable. That being said, it doesn't necessarily get at the mental health supports that women need. We are creating spaces online but I think, if possible, this committee should work with the bureaucracy and federal government to continue to invest in IT infrastructure supports across the country. As we know, this is our new normal. With the social isolation, women not only need access to Internet, but they also need access to data and technology to even get that mental health support.

Also, we're working with workspaces, for example, some credit unions, across this country to start to develop child care co-ops to look at ways whereby we not only can provide child care in women's workspaces and homes but also at how they can also get some community supports as well.

I absolutely agree with the committee that this is a critical issue and additional investments are needed.

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

Thank you.

The other question is similar to that. It is related to women in domestic violence relationships. The exit strategy is becoming more complicated. Where are agencies like yours in terms of providing a better exit strategy in this context of the pandemic?