Status of Women Committee on June 12th, 2023

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

To the witnesses, I'd like to thank you for coming today to address this issue, which is still very taboo and which we're trying to "untaboo", if I may use that term. Before talking about solutions, I'd like to come back to some of the observations you've made.

Ms. Hill, like Ms. Hirtz who said she had seen girls abroad using rather risky or somewhat less safe means, you spoke in your opening remarks of unsafe methods of managing menstruation. Could you tell us a little more about what exactly were these unsafe methods?

[Nicola Hill]

Thank you for the question.

Through our surveys and our data, because we want to rely on people's experiences, we have been told that many issues face people who don't have the access and ability to change their products regularly. Their leaving products in too long is one problem. We know there are guidelines in terms of how long you use a tampon or a pad or another product. If you don't have access to many, you will just use the one that you have longer, which is a health concern. In addition we hear quite a bit that people just don't use what we would consider regular menstrual products. They're using rags or paper towels that they've taken—things that don't actually allow for what we would all assess as basic hygiene needs for people.

I think, in many cases, we see that people lack the ability to access things where they have a choice, so it does mean that we've heard stories of people just going to work and bleeding through their pants, for example. We've heard those stories particularly from people who work in places that are heavily dominated by male workers. They might be one of the only women workers. We are continuing to see where there's a lack of access to both products and wash facilities for people to be able to be clean. That puts them in unsafe health situations.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much for your answer.

Ms. Siemens, in your opening remarks, you mentioned Scotland and the legislation it has passed. Are there any other countries in the world that the committee could learn from?

[Suzanne Siemens]

I'm not operating at the international level to the extent that my colleague Leisa Hirtz is, so I might defer to her to respond to that one.

[Leisa Hirtz]

Thank you.

That's a wonderful question. I do a fair bit of work in Kenya with partners—the Kenya Girl Guides Association—as well as some policy-makers. Kenya is the first country to have a stand-alone menstrual health management policy. With that, the intention was to provide menstrual products to all schoolgirls in the country.

The policy is in place. It's a complex issue, and this is where sustainable products come in, because the challenges they're having with single-use products are distribution and stock out challenges, as well as female-friendly sanitation facilities.

Kenya is advanced. It was the first country to eliminate single-use plastics.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

All right.

Now I'd like to talk about solutions with all the witnesses. I'd like to hear your views on the pink tax, the tax on menstrual products. I'd already tried to get the committee to study the fact that a pink-coloured product or one specifically designed for women costs more, a cost that is added to that of additional daily hygiene products which women, who for many reasons are already financially disadvantaged, also have to buy. I wish the committee had done that study. Would it be important to broaden the current discussion to include the infamous pink tax, which really means that the cost of a product varies depending on its colour?

[Suzanne Siemens]

Thank you.

I would say that women and non-gendered and non-conforming folks are always exposed to increased prices, just because the marketplace is going to attempt to increase those prices. However, we're speaking specifically as experts around menstrual products. We know that at least the GST was removed in 2016 from menstrual products, so that certainly helps a lot.

However, inflation overall, costs and taxes are always going to increase the cost of having a period. That's why this program of providing a menstrual equity fund is really amazing, and having employers provide products for their staff, as well, is always going to improve the process.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

All right.

Would anyone else like to add something about the pink tax in the 30 seconds I have left? I'll save my other question for later.

[Leisa Hirtz]

It is, definitely. Getting a haircut as a woman is more expensive than for a man. That is something that I think is broader than this issue and that we definitely have to be working on, just like communicating on menstrual equity, talking about it more and really bringing it to the floor.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

We're now going to move online. Bonita is online.

Bonita, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses who have come out today to talk about this important product and to raise the visibility of this issue across Canada.

My first question is going to be for Ms. Siemens. You spoke a lot about sustainability and diverse product choices. I'm wondering about education on diverse products and choices. How can the government assist in that, not only for adults but for children?

[Suzanne Siemens]

There are lots of organizations that have produced amazing educational materials, and there are people in the educational system who provide them. Ensuring that those individuals are well supported and well funded so that they can continue to convey that message and supporting the organizations that are developing those materials....

We work with a lot of those organizations and collaborate with them to produce those educational materials, which ultimately helps reduce that stigma the individuals are facing around their period. It's about more support and funding to these groups that are developing the materials and ensuring that they get distributed in the school systems and in the education system.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Great. Thank you.

I'm going to go to Ms. Hill, also on education.

I want to thank you for all of your work. I remember back in 2016 and 2017, when local city halls were doing tampon Tuesdays. That was just an amazing eye-opening opportunity for women and transgender folks at work to be able to talk to their colleagues about the lack of access.

Would you mind sharing your experience of how education has grown? Do you have any thoughts on how we could do better on education for children? I'm specifically thinking about children in schools. How can we raise the education there?

[Nicola Hill]

Through our period poverty task force work, we have engaged a number of educators in our hearings in the past few months. One of the things we have been very surprised to find is how much the level of education on menstrual health has decreased. This was particularly over the pandemic period, when schools were making decisions about what they were teaching to children online or within the class system. I think that's very important. Even if we think there is a base level of menstrual health education in schools, we understand very clearly that it has gone down.

For example, we have many jurisdictions now that are providing menstrual products in schools to kids. B.C. was the first to do that back in 2019, and others have followed. There isn't a pathway there to help children through that process as their bodies change, and they start to deal with their own menstruation. It also increases the stigma. I think that a lot of the work that advocates do normalizes the conversation.

Thank you for the shout-out to our previous work with tampon Tuesdays, before it evolved to United Way Period Promise. A lot of that is about educating the community and people that we should talk about these issues. When we are not talking about them, people are suffering in silence, because there's so much stigma surrounding them.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Absolutely. Thank you for that.

I think about kids at home who don't have access and don't have money to buy their own, and their parents can't.

I'm going to go to Ms. Hirtz.

I want to speak a bit about the lack of access to water, and the need for sanitary services outside of the home in Canada. I've spoken to many school-aged people who menstruate. They said that having no access to bathrooms, when they're using transit, is a barrier for them to actually use transit. It makes me think about the fact that we need to have access to running water.

Ms. Hirtz, would you mind sharing how the lack of access to sanitary services is difficult? You did make some comments about Bfree Cups not necessarily needing that access, but I think privacy is still something that's needed. Could you also speak to that a bit?

[Leisa Hirtz]

Yes. The development of the Bfree Cup was very specific to the lack of clean water in slums and refugee settlements.

It's easy for us to turn on our tap, have a pot and whatnot. We don't know the situations that Canadian women and girls have at home. It is assumed, because the issue of water comes up quite frequently with regard to the dignity of being able to have female-friendly washrooms. It's definitely an important issue. It is fundamentally something that women and girls face much more than men.

I hope that answers your question adequately.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you.

I'm going to go to Ms. Biggs.

Madam Chair, how much time do I have?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have 20 seconds. You have a very short question and answer.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Very quickly, I'm talking about sustainable innovation. You talked about a resolution.

What would that resolution look like, Ms. Biggs, from this committee, or going forward?

[Linda Biggs]

An important ask for us today is to really include sustainability when it comes to the procurement process for this fund. Oftentimes, that's overlooked, but we can clearly see the impact that menstrual products have across Canada. We would like to add that to the guidelines.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

We're now going to go to our five-minute rounds.

I'm going to Anna Roberts, for five minutes.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses for being here.

My first question is for Ms. Johnston.

How many companies have signed on to the program?

[Jillian Johnston]

That's a good question. Thank you very much.

We launched the period-positive workplace campaign on the menstrual health day, which was May 28, so there hasn't been a lot of time. To my knowledge, so far we have five or possibly six. There are companies we are approaching. We have hired, through Canada summer jobs, two students so far, who are helping us with the campaign. We are starting to offer our virtual sessions of “How to become a” sessions. The word is spreading. We have 15 people signed up for our first session, which is tomorrow. Hopefully, by tomorrow, there will be another 15 companies signed up.

It's growing. We're hoping it will grow very quickly as we get rolling.

Thank you for the question.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

No problem.

Maybe you can elaborate on it.

What are these companies supplying? Are they supplying to the schools? How does that work in conjunction with the funding from the government? I don't understand how the program works. Could you explain that to me?

[Jillian Johnston]

The funding from the government that we have right now is for the students who are from the Canada summer jobs program. Other than that, we are not working with funding from the government at this point.

What we are doing is offering an opportunity for companies, big and small. It might be your doctor's office or the kitchen shop downtown—any place people go where they might start their period and need to have a product, but particularly organizations where employers can offer free products for their employees in the workplace. It's a program that will gain momentum. It will also gain identity, because we're developing it as a Canadian campaign.

There will be differences from the main campaign. The main campaign link is available in my notes. It is periodpositiveworkplace.org. You'll find more answers there, I hope.