Status of Women Committee on Feb. 6th, 2024

[Jamie McMillan]

Yes. You know, when you go out and work with somebody in the first place, I think sometimes there's a pride factor in the skilled trades, right? Men don't want to admit to their wives that women can do the same job and not come home sore and tired and ask for a foot rub.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Jamie McMillan]

Once you get past those barriers and you prove that you're all there, the work site goes so easily. Women and men both bring a different aspect to the trades. It's awesome when you can work in a culture together. When we can work together and use our creativity and different body mechanics, production goes up. Attitudes are better. The banter is a lot more fun. It makes you go home feeling a lot happier. You're not going home walking on eggshells.

We really do love our career. That's what we excel in. Sometimes it's just the toxic work environment that really discourages us.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

It's the toxic work environment. There's nothing in the trades anymore that physically limits women from participating, is there? We have all the technology and all the equipment. There's no physical reason that women can't do just as well as men on the work site. In fact, I've heard from LiUNA and some of the other trainers of women that women are actually better at some skills. Would you agree?

[Jamie McMillan]

That is absolutely true. I will use an analogy. I like to use this with students and people who come to my presentations.

It's like building an Ikea cabinet. Women go to Ikea, take all the instructions and lay everything out on the floor to put it together. Men don't do that. Men jump right in and want to prove themselves. They are eager to get the job done. By the time they get to the end, the last piece that was supposed to go in first is still sitting on the floor.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

That's an excellent analogy.

You mentioned that we need more investment in co-ops and apprenticeships. Our government has invested and put more money into these programs.

What more do you think we need to do?

[Jamie McMillan]

I think we need to focus more on early childhood education.

For example, bring skilled trades into early childhood education in schools. Let kids know at an earlier age that these are career pathways. Let them understand the infrastructure around them and see what a crucial role being part of that building and construction sector is on the earth. As long as humans are on this earth, we are going to need skilled trades professionals to build and maintain it.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Would you say it's a good career for women in terms of being flexible and in terms of income and other things like that?

[Jamie McMillan]

Absolutely. It is a fantastic career. It is sustainable. It's great in terms of finances. It offers you independence, and the greatest thing about the skilled trades is that they're not just in one place. You can work anywhere in the world.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Awesome. Thank you so much.

We're now going to move it over to Andréanne Larouche.

You have six minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Ms. McMillan, Ms. Morrison and Ms. Campbell, for joining us today for this study. I understand more and more why it's so useful and necessary, for so many reasons.

Each of you said something that struck a chord with me. I want to ask you all about a specific issue that affected me, both as a woman in politics and as the young mother of a little girl who will be two years old in a few days and for whom I want the best possible future. I hope that she follows her heart and that she helps to break glass ceilings.

Ms. Campbell, you spoke of a strategy that ends in 2024. Can you elaborate on this topic? What has this strategy achieved, and what will happen when it ends in 2024?

[Karen Campbell]

What I was referring to is a program we've been running at the Canadian Women's Foundation since 2019. It's our investment readiness program. We are one of a number of investment readiness programs across Canada funded by Employment and Social Development Canada. The point of the investment readiness program is to support, in our case, women and gender-diverse folks entering the social innovation ecosystem. They are running social-purpose enterprises. The idea is to support them in being ready to access investment through the federal government's social finance fund.

Since 2019, we've worked with 90 of these social enterprises. They're amazing and are doing incredible things. They are focused on social good and gender equity outcomes as a way of building a more inclusive economy. They are breaking down the sorts of barriers we see to entrepreneurship, access to financing and all the things that keep women and gender-diverse people out of building, sustaining and growing their businesses. We're supporting them in taking their place in the social innovation ecosystem.

It's been a highly effective program. We've been supporting them in developing their business plans and marketing strategies and in knowing how to access financing. That can be very difficult, especially for Black, indigenous and racialized entrepreneurs.

This program is very successful. As I said, the funding for this is coming to an end. That means we will no longer be able to support these social enterprises. We're hoping the investment readiness program via ESDC will be renewed. We're not certain that will happen. The implication of this is that we won't be able to offer those supports to those organizations anymore.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Women traditionally take fewer risks in business. Financing is a challenge for women entrepreneurs in particular.

[Karen Campbell]

Yes, I think so. It's very interesting to see how women and gender-diverse people experience barriers to labour market access. They go into the workforce and experience hostile work environments. They experience discrimination, violence and harassment in the workplace. Many of them turn to entrepreneurship and self-employment as a way—as my co-panellist mentioned—to make their own way and to create different standards in the businesses they will run.

There is a tendency to see businesses that are run by women and gender-diverse entrepreneurs having this social good at the heart of what they're doing. This is not because women are very altruistic and kind-hearted in ways that men are not. It's not as essentialized as that. It's really a matter of having had these experiences and not wanting to replicate them in the businesses they create. They are worth supporting. They are worth incubating. They are deserving of the kinds of programming that organizations like ours can provide. We hope we can continue it.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Campbell.

I see that I have one minute left, Madam Chair.

My next question is for you, Ms. McMillan. What you said particularly affects women in non‑traditional jobs or skilled trades.

In Quebec, we have a great campaign that made me aware, as a young woman, of other job prospects. It's a contest called “Hats Off to You!” This contest has greatly benefitted women by encouraging them to opt for non‑traditional jobs or skilled trades.

Obviously, this question falls more within the realm of education, a provincial matter. That said, how could the federal government raise awareness among women and encourage them to embrace jobs that sometimes fall outside the traditional employment model for women?

[Jamie McMillan]

I feel that normalizing gender equality in the trades is very important, just normalizing that women are here and under-represented groups are here. In doing that, what we need to focus on is having kids see real role models going into schools, having credible role models talking to students and giving them tangible experiences with hands-on education and stories and telling their own stories of successful careers. I think that kids ultimately can be what they see, but they need to see it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Absolutely. Thank you so much.

We're now going to pass it over to Leah Gazan.

Leah, you have six minutes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much, Chair.

My first question is for Karen Campbell.

You spoke a lot about women and gender-diverse people. We're seeing a movement certainly in the country right now that's particularly targeting the trans community. Yesterday I was in the House, and there was a petition floored that was limiting the use of shared washroom space—public spaces—gender-neutral spaces for trans folks, in the name of protecting bodily autonomy.

You spoke about the importance of inclusive workplaces. I'm wondering how these kinds of new policies and the legislation that's brewing in Canada—and certainly is being discussed now at the federal level—may further impact realizing inclusive work environments.

[Karen Campbell]

It's certainly worrying. One of our colleagues on the panel talked about this with an example of washrooms and access to those kinds of spaces equitably in trades. Those things are already difficult to come by for women and gender-diverse folks. The kind of toxic backlash towards trans communities is certainly not going to be helping in creating more inclusive workspaces.

I can draw an example from some of the work we've done on entrepreneurship. There's a report. I think it's from WEC. I'll look for the direct source for you. It talks about entrepreneurs who are queer, who are 2SLGBTQ+ folks, who actually have decided to hide their identities because of the discrimination they face in their communities. That has an impact on their client base, their bottom line and the revenues they can generate, because people don't want to shop at their stores or frequent their businesses.

This is a very alarming and worrying concern, this kind of homophobia and transphobia that is in the broader environment. It really speaks to the link between economic empowerment and gender justice in general in Canada and how we need to have our attention on all of these things together at once.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much.

I agree with you a hundred per cent, and I will state on record that I firmly support trans rights as human rights.

I just want to move over to you, Caitlin Morrison. You spoke about child care. One of the things I brought up in the House yesterday, in terms of really being able to fully implement a robust child care strategy, is to support and ensure that the government, in terms of transfers, ensures livable wages, benefits and pensions for early childhood educators. I was an early childhood educator, and I decided that I didn't want to live on minimum wage for the rest of my life, so I left my job and became a teacher, so that I could get benefits and holidays, even though I really loved the little ones.

Would you agree with me that one of the critical issues impacting the ability to get $10-per-day child care off the ground is a failure to provide, I guess, incentives that would enable ECEs to live in dignity?

[Caitlin Morrison]

I think that's a very big issue, certainly.

There are a lot of issues, I think, that are impacting child care at the moment, but that's a huge one. You know, I'm a mother myself. I want the best for my children. I want the early childhood educators of my daughter, who is of day care age, to be insightful and intelligent and to build her with the knowledge and skills that she needs to do well in school.

Not only do I think it would be important, as a way to draw more people to the early childhood career, to ensure that they are properly compensated for the work that they're doing. I also think it would draw the best of the best. I don't think there is a single parent in this country who doesn't want their early childhood educator to be the best of the best.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much. I totally agree with your assessment.

Jamie McMillan, thank you so much for your testimony. Like you, I kind of waffled through school and became a professor. School was a trip for me. Good on you for everything you're doing today.

I was a teacher and an early childhood educator. You spoke about starting young and normalizing it as viable, a career in the trades. One of the things we have in Manitoba is that students are able to choose vocational training during high school, whereby they can get what they need to pursue an academic path or a vocational path. Do you think that we need to support more programs like that?

[Jamie McMillan]

Yes, I believe we do. We also need more awareness. We need to speak to educators more about talking about these pathways to students. We also need to talk to parents and educate parents that these are very good pathways as well.

I just want to touch on what you were talking about earlier with regard to early childhood education. I believe that early childhood education and people in the homeless community are building people. I get paid a lot of money to build structures, and it really upsets me to see that people who are building people don't have that same funding and support.