Thank you for inviting me to be a part of today's discussion. I'm pleased to appear on behalf of the more than three million workers who are part of the Canadian Labour Congress and working across the country in every sector of the economy.
I'm very happy that the committee has decided to further study women's unpaid work, an ongoing systemic challenge that has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic in ways that were well described by the previous witness.
The brutal reality is that our economy—our society—cannot function without the unpaid labour of women. There's an unstated assumption that women and caregivers will just be there when things need to get done, and this has been aptly illustrated this year.
Gender stereotypes and gender roles are deeply ingrained, and they're systemic. It's not just about individual families and who does the cooking, garbage or laundry; the impact of this unequal burden is also reflected in wage rates, labour market participation, lifetime earnings and career progression.
It's difficult to really tackle the question of the unequal distribution of unpaid work, particularly unpaid care work, without meaningfully considering the issue of paid care work—who does it and what their wages and working conditions are—as well as the question of how the care is delivered and who has access to that care.
That's why the labour movement has called for the establishment of a care economy commission, with a mandate to study, design and implement a care strategy for Canada that would create a broad and inclusive labour market strategy to achieve high-quality, equitable care jobs; examine paid and unpaid care work and develop a road map to meet the increasing demands for care; and reduce and redistribute women's unpaid care work by improving access to public care services for children, the elderly and people living with disabilities.
In 2018, the International Labour Organization released an excellent study on “care work and care jobs”. It said, “No substantive progress can be [achieved] in achieving gender equality in the labour force until [inequities] in unpaid care work are tackled through the effective recognition, reduction and redistribution of unpaid care work between women and men, as well as between families and the state.”
The ILO report sets out a “5R Framework for Decent Care Work” calling for policies to “recognize, reduce and redistribute unpaid care work; reward paid care work, by promoting more and decent work for care workers; and guarantee care workers' representation, social dialogue and collective bargaining”.
Each part of this framework includes a set of policy recommendations. A care economy commission could examine how the 5R framework could be implemented in a Canadian context.
While it's tempting to focus on the unequal distribution of care responsibilities within households, it's not enough to look for ways to encourage men to take on more responsibility. We also need to examine ways to reduce families' overall care burden and ensure the state takes on its fair share of responsibility. Quality public services are essential to the reduction and redistribution of care.
This requires a shift in thinking, with human rights at the core of a new approach. Care is a collective concern, not simply a private family matter. People who need care—children, the elderly, people with disabilities—should have the right to the care they need to support them, and care services should be seen as essential social infrastructure.
We need to act now. The need for care will only increase as our population ages. COVID-19 made this looming crisis even more obvious, revealing all of the gaps and the cracks in our fragmented and precarious system. For too long, austerity-driven fiscal policies have portrayed care as a drain on the fiscal pocketbook rather than as social infrastructure needed to sustain strong communities, reduce inequality and support labour market participation.
Canada's market-based approach to care and the off-loading of many care services to for-profit companies has driven down wages and working conditions for a workforce that is primarily women, many of whom are racialized. This has a direct impact on the quality of care overall, something that was demonstrated in long-term care throughout this pandemic with tragic results. For those who cannot find or afford services, the burden falls often to women caregivers.
Our collective challenge is to find ways to relieve the short-term pressures of the pandemic while ushering in long-term integrated shifts that will build robust care systems to help us weather future crises. While it's tricky to walk and chew gum at the same time, I'm confident we can do it.
Let's make the right care a reality in Canada starting with a care economy commission to develop our 5R road map.
Thank you.