Status of Women Committee on Dec. 1st, 2020

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That's very good.

Now we will go to Ms. Hutchings for six minutes.

[Gudie Hutchings, Liberal, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Welcome to all of you three powerful women today, bringing your stories from different parts of rural Canada and your examples. Thank you. You've all touched a different part of us.

Dr. Timmons, first of all, congratulations to you on being the first woman appointed president of Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, my home province. Well done.

Dr. Timmons, as you know and as my colleagues have heard me say many times, I represent a large area, a land mass bigger than Switzerland, with literally hundreds of tiny communities, many of which you've seen.

One thing I do love about Memorial University is your many remote campuses throughout the province. As you mentioned in your speaking notes, there are 13 campuses.

If you can, I want you to expand a little on the importance of that and how we now have women attending classes in their own communities so that child care is not such a huge issue. They can still raise their children at home. Adult children who are helping in the family business or the local fish plant can still take classes nearby to upgrade their skills and get a new skill set.

Can you share how important these small outlying campuses are?

[Dr. Vianne Timmons]

They're critically important, and they'll be even more important as we look at the need for microcrendentialling and retraining in careers.

When I travelled the province—and I travelled your beautiful part of the province—I went into many of those small communities. I listened to the concerns of the town councils and the concerns of our alumni who run the small businesses in those communities. Everywhere I went, people talked about access: access to training, access to education.

I mentioned my mother and six of us children growing up in Labrador. She did finish high school, but when she was pregnant with her sixth child in eight years, she decided she had to do something. She did distance education. At that time it was all through the mail. She got a degree doing it at home, cooking and helping the family with all her children. That was the only way we could end up all going to university. It was because she had access to distance education.

I mentioned earlier that the Internet is critical. In some communities there is not even cellphone service. Imagine the vulnerability without cellphone service, but the lack of access is the biggest challenge in education for working women, young mothers or women in mid-career who need to pivot and change.

It's critically important, and I'm glad you brought it up, absolutely. Thank you, Ms. Hutchings.

[Gudie Hutchings, Liberal, Long Range Mountains, NL]

We listened and we heard on the connectivity issue. Connectivity was an issue long before COVID-19, but COVID certainly brought it to the forefront. I'm delighted with our government's new universal broadband fund and the rapid response stream. I think that's where we're really going to see the differences in rural Canada.

Angèle, I have a quick question for you.

The work you're doing with your Femmes Fortes is amazing. Of all the courses you're doing, what is the most popular and why do you think that is the case during this time?

[Angèle McCaie]

We've done over 100 sessions at this point. We measure success in various forms. There are some sessions that do not have a lot of participants, but the participants who are there very much appreciate it. I think of a session that we had for LGBTQ rights, where there was just one participant. It was a mother whose son had just came out to her as a homosexual, and she was able to ask all these questions in an open and safe environment. I can just imagine the difference that one person made in her family and in the community and then so on and so forth.

As for the success that we've had with sessions like those, we've had varying participation, but the women who do participate find a lot of value in them. The ones that are very popular that we have waiting lists for are anything about manual labour, construction, mechanics, how to change a tire if you're stranded on the side of the road and anything that they feel that they maybe missed out on learning earlier in their lives and might be dependent on someone else in their lives to accomplish. We've seen that widows particularly appreciate these sessions.

[Gudie Hutchings, Liberal, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Thank you.

Ms. Martin, you'll be delighted to know that we have made changes in the judicial training bill. It was passed unanimously in the House. We call it Bill C-3. It was brought to the floor by the Honourable Rona Ambrose, who did some phenomenal work on this issue. You'll be pleased to know that it's now in the Senate and progressing.

Ms. Martin, you spoke about connectivity, and we all agree that's such an issue. Can you just tell us how important connectivity is in rural communities, especially with women looking to escape violence at home?

[Fern Martin]

It means total safety for them that they can connect with who can help them. What did I say about connectivity?

[Gudie Hutchings, Liberal, Long Range Mountains, NL]

You said how important it was.

My issue with connectivity for women in need in these really rural communities is whether they are going to be able to access it. How important would you think it is for them to have a safe spot in a community in a town hall, in a church basement or in a Lions Club where they could go and access secure and safe a Internet connection without having their abuser watch everything they're doing?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'm sorry, but we're going to have to wait for that answer, because that's your time.

[Fern Martin]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We're going to go now to Madam Larouche for six minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much to all the witnesses.

You have been absolutely extraordinary this morning. Your testimony was very moving.

I would like to continue to talk about high-speed Internet connectivity. We feel that this issue reinforces the differences between men and women, particularly in rural areas. Women don't have enough access. There has been talk about making high-speed Internet available throughout the regions. Where I live in Shefford, this is not the case, but next door, in Brome—Missisquoi, it has been shown that the plan for broadband Internet will not be able to cover all the needs.

I would like to hear what Ms. Timmons has to say on the issue. A good Internet connection is already considered an essential service.

What would it take to be successful in helping women have access? What more can be done?

[Dr. Vianne Timmons]

I can begin with that.

It goes back to what Ms. Hutchings said. Until we get high-speed Internet in all the communities, we need to find Internet nodes for people. I think exactly what was said was that it could be in local libraries or in a Lions Club, but every small community's church hall should be able to have a place, a node. We're looking at that to be able to provide retraining.

I'll give you an example. Down on the southern peninsula, there are a lot of people who work in the fisheries, and they need training, ongoing training. Many have to travel quite a ways to get it, but if we could have nodes in those communities with desks, computers and access, I think it would be wonderful for women who are seeking support in the community and women who experience violence in the community. For women who are looking at upgrading a microcredential, that's wonderful for them.

I think it is critical in today's world that we have those Internet nodes in every small community in Canada as we move towards the high-speed Internet.

[Fern Martin]

In Almonte, the local library has computers for people and people to help with using the computer.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Ms. Timmons, you talked at length about education.

How serious is the gap between urban and more remote areas? How does it affect the women's education level in terms of graduation, and consequently in terms of the quality of jobs?

Do we really see differences in literacy? Is this what you mean when you talk about the importance of working towards the same access to education for both rural and urban areas?

[Dr. Vianne Timmons]

There's a huge impact in many of our rural communities and northern communities. This is for both male and female students. They cannot access the courses that get them into the different academic streams in university. I met high school students in Labrador who had to go online and access high school courses online to be able to get the proper courses to be able to get into university.

In terms of gender, there is a real challenge. Many in the north and in some of those communities.... Where I grew up, my brothers got jobs in the mines in the summer. They were able to make money to help pay for their university. I didn't. I wasn't able to get the jobs in the mines, so my jobs always paid way less, had long hours and were very tough. I was planting trees, babysitting, doing everything I could to make money.

There's inequity in job access in rural and northern communities. There's inequity in pay in rural and northern communities. There's inequity in access, even at the secondary level, in these communities. That inequity for high schools affects both the young men and the young women. I want to be clear on that.

Then when we look at our indigenous women in this country, we all know what they face. Many times we have let them down as a country. One of the most shameful public policy failures in our country is our support for our sisters in those indigenous communities.

I'll stop there.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Ms. McCaie, you talked about LGBTQ2+ communities.

How is it that these communities are even greater victims of prejudice in rural areas? What makes their situation a little more acute?

[Angèle McCaie]

Traditionally, a lot of LGBTQ2+ people in rural areas, as soon as they graduated from high school, moved to the larger urban centres to find a community. Inclusivity is certainly a challenge in rural areas.

There is no public awareness when it comes to this type of thing. It is not common. It is certainly better now than it was before. Every year, there are improvements, but there is a lot of work to do in terms of education in the regions.

LGBTQ2+ people don't always want to move to urban centres. It's nice to have the option to stay in one's community and feel accepted. I think these are special needs, but they are improving over the years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Very good.

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

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I too want to extend my appreciation to all the witnesses today for some really important testimony.

Dr. Timmons, you told a story very similar to one I grew up with. My grandmother couldn't go past grade 8. She had to work on the family farm and other farms to contribute to the income of the family, to feed the family, which made it so important for my mother, seeing that inability of my grandmother to access education, to strive and to work so hard to ensure that this wouldn't happen—and certainly, as her daughter, for me as well.

In terms of access for education, I'd like to build on that. There are numerous studies pointing to the importance of early access to education and what that early learning and child care mean. Certainly, for women and people who are in a lower income, access to early education increases lifelong prospects of earning capacity, increased productivity, reduced use of health and social services, reduced criminal justice costs and improved social determinants of health.

With regard to that extension of education, how do you see it impacting the students who are going into higher learning? We've talked a lot, especially over this pandemic, about the cost of tuition and the impacts on students who, as you said, aren't able to earn as much money to afford that education. I would like you to comment on the importance of not only addressing what we are trying to talk about here in the House of Commons—about eliminating interest that students pay on those extreme student loans—but also the importance of addressing the cost of tuition, the loans themselves, and the ability for students to not have to worry about such a debt sentence when they're trying to achieve something like higher education.

[Dr. Vianne Timmons]

My background is as an educational psychologist, so I will be the first to say that early childhood education, early childhood intervention, is critically important in this country. It's not only for the children; it's also for the mothers, who then are able to go ahead and look for meaningful work or for education.

I will mention that my son was looking for child care and wasn't able to get child care. When he did, it was $1,000 a month. For a young family, that is atrocious and very challenging. In rural communities, it's not just access to it; it's to ensure that it's quality child care and that the people running the child care centres have the qualifications and the training to make sure it's very successful for the children involved.

I think you hit the nail on the head. It's one of the most important things. I think in the closing comments of my opening speech, I mentioned child care as critical, as an equalizer in our country for women.

With regard to the cost of tuition, well, I'm in a province where the tuition is $2,500 for a full year. I think a $20,000 investment in a university degree is a great investment, but I also spoke to, as I told you, the father in St. Anthony who has three children going to university. With the travel to the St. John's campus and the cost of accommodations, the cost was much more than tuition. I think when we talk about the cost of post-secondary education, we have to look holistically and beyond the tuition.

I think it's critical that we look at bursaries for students in financial need, non-repayable bursaries. I think the federal government has done a fabulous job on that. I hope they continue to do so. There should be no student in this country who cannot go to university because of finances. We always have to make sure that university is accessible to all of our youth. I think what you said is critically important.

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

Some things have taken place during COVID. In terms of the government getting involved, I believe those temporary solutions need to become permanent, absolutely, so we'll continue to push for that.

In much the same vein as ensuring that education, no matter who you are or how much you have or how much your family has, is not based on how much you can pay, it's the same with child care: No matter where you are, child care should be universally accessible. Would you agree that the government, in order to achieve this, could move forward on legislation for both education and child care that would be much like the Canada Health Act, which is supposed to provide to anyone, no matter where they are, equal access to health services?

That is for anybody to answer.

[Dr. Vianne Timmons]

I'll let one of my colleagues answer that.

[Fern Martin]

It's obvious.

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

Okay, that's clear.

Do I have time?