Status of Women Committee on Feb. 6th, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Would you like to respond?

[Catherine Miller]

If the question for me is on having men participate in the walk or as allies, yes. In order to make sure we're inclusive, even of people who are not able to walk in high heels—because it's legitimately a challenge—you can carry them, you can ride a bike with them and you can put them over your shoulder, but we do have men that come out and they do certainly donate. Then they hear the conversations we're having and they become allies one way or the other, whether they walk with us or whether they provide financial support. Allies are important.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much.

I know that I've seen a lot of men with size 15 feet walking around in red heels, so I really do appreciate that. Size 15 feet with heels on is awesome.

Leah, we'll pass it over to you for six minutes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much.

My first question is for Peter Maddox.

In terms of the leadership, because we're talking a lot about leadership, I'm wondering if you can let me know how many folks in senior leadership—like your level of leadership—are women and, out of those, how many are Black, indigenous, people of colour or from the 2SLGBTQ+ community.

[Peter Maddox]

That's a great question.

Certainly, in terms of our membership in Canada for the company, just to give you a sense of the company—

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I'm sorry, but just because I have limited time, I mean in terms of upper management. I'm not talking about independent business owners. I'm talking about—

[Peter Maddox]

With regard to upper management in Canada, I would say that of our members, about 80% are led by women. It's to the point that we are actually consciously trying to get some men onto our board, because it's female-dominated.

As for the breakdown in terms of different ethnic backgrounds, I don't have that information. I can tell you that it's fairly limited. I think we've made one great step in terms of the women being strong on the board. The next step, obviously, is to try to spread that diversity into various aspects of our community.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Would you be able to send that in to the committee?

[Peter Maddox]

Absolutely.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

That's perfect. Thanks so much.

I want to direct my next questions to Mayor Miller.

When you did your introduction, I felt like I was listening to a sci-fi novel describing a utopian world. One of the things you said that struck me—and I agree with you because it's something that I struggle with as an elected official—was that you spoke about leading by example.

You know, I have taken it upon myself in the House of Commons as of late to call out toxic masculinity, particularly because I feel it contributes to the normalization of violence against women, particularly against me as an indigenous woman. I feel that I have a moral obligation to stop violence and certainly the normalization of violence towards indigenous women.

I'm wondering if you could share your thoughts on that. You said that you see a lot of things even federally that would discourage women from entering politics. Can you expand on that?

[Catherine Miller]

I think it's my experience.... I need to be clear, again, that I'm a mayor of a very small municipality with no aspirations to move beyond municipal politics into provincial or federal politics. It's all a very new world to me. I think that my focus, and that of a lot of women who might enter into municipal politics, is policy and the administration of policy that supports our communities. We want to do the work. What gets in the way of work is a toxic environment in which, if you stand for something on a municipal level, you get attacked personally for it. They're not attacking your policy or your position but you personally. That is broadly what I mean by that. It feels very much that way to me in a very small municipality. I have to focus on policy and procedure. I can't give my attention to personal attacks. It's very challenging.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much.

You spoke a lot about care work in terms of how we want to support economic empowerment. It's more than money. It's about providing child care. It's about assisting individuals who are in the sandwich generation—I was, at one time, in the sandwich generation—caring for aging parents, for example.

What can the federal government do better to lift up and dignify care work, including unpaid care work?

[Catherine Miller]

Speaking with a rural mindset and with regard to the fact that our rural municipality doesn't have access to public or private day care options or to public or private senior care options, I would say that there needs to be some recognition of the fact that there is a separation, perhaps, between what is supported in cities and what is supported for municipalities with rural or isolated designations. I would say, particularly, that funding those public programs becomes more standardized and not with a cost share, that they become fully funded in rural situations—day care or senior care work—and that those positions are actually funded through the networks that would support rural communities—that they be afforded positions to support those communities.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

One of the things that I put forward in this Parliament is Bill C-223 to implement a guaranteed livable basic income. I'll give you a couple of examples why.

Many seniors are women who worked in unpaid care work for their lives. Their kids grew up, and these senior women have no pension to benefit from. A guaranteed livable basic income.... We know that the current GIS system is not livable for seniors in this country.

Would a guaranteed livable basic income assist, particularly in rural and remote areas, in offsetting the issues around child care and other care?

[Catherine Miller]

It is my perception that it would.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much.

We're now going on to our second round. We will begin with five minutes for Michelle Ferreri.

Go ahead, Michelle.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

I want to loop back, because I think this is the committee at which we might be able to fix some stuff. I think what we want to talk about here is that we're studying the economic empowerment of women.

Ms. Hannen, you have talked about female entrepreneurs in child care and the critical role they play. You have said on record that you weren't talking about big-box child care; you were talking about the woman who said there must be a better way to care for her child, that there must be something else. That is every entrepreneur's story, isn't it? It is that they had to solve a problem.

We're not asking for a purely private system, which is sometimes the narrative from a Conservative perspective. We're asking for equity, so that these women in particular have equal opportunity to what the not-for-profits have.

We know that the government said and even the Senate is on record as saying that the focus should be on providing funding to create a high-quality public system, so they have intentionally left out these women entrepreneurs.

What could have been done differently to make the national child care program work better for women, both as parents and as operators and entrepreneurs?

[Andrea Hannen]

I guess the first thing would have been to approach it with a spirit of humility and an understanding that most of the subject matter expertise wasn't going to reside in government. It wasn't going to reside with academics or economists. It was going to reside with the child care entrepreneurs who had actually built the infrastructure and were delivering the services. It would also reside with parents, because, obviously, we needed more consultation to understand what parents need, what kinds of child care they were using.

Had the federal government tapped into that expertise, we could have worked on the important things such as increasing the number of qualified educators and making sure the child care system we had was running at full capacity first. Then we could have helped more women get back into the workforce after the pandemic.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Ms. Hannen, you have brought up something today that I think is really vital. I'm going to ask you your thoughts on this. Then I'm going to put it to the committee as something we could possibly have a friendly agreement on.

Do you think it would be valuable for this committee to hear from the chair of the national council? It has been in operation now for two years. You said there wasn't enough consultation, but I would assume it would be beneficial for us to hear directly from the council about the meetings they have had and what's happening.

These are the articles from just 12 hours about parents who cannot access child care. We are the status of women committee. Women are struggling. They are stressed out of their minds according to the emails and the messages I have.

I think there's a real opportunity here for us to hear and to put concrete solutions on the table of consultation to bridge this gap and ensure that the economic empowerment of women is secure.

Do you think it would be beneficial to hear from the national chair?

[Andrea Hannen]

Part of the challenge is the lack of transparency in this program. There's a lack of transparency federally. There's a lack of transparency at some of the provincial levels with respect to how things are rolling out and what's intended versus what's happening.

If you think that would add some clarity, then of course it would.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

I can put forward a formal motion, but in the spirit of agreement of the committee, would you guys be open to that?

I have spoken with my NDP colleagues in other committees about this. It would be to bring forth the minister and the chair so we could hear more. This is obviously something we could look at extending into a motion.

I can put forward a formal motion. I just thought we could get the agreement of the committee on this, as it ties in very well with what we're studying.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I'm going to pause—

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

I have never done it this way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I'm going to pause the clock for a second, because what I hear Michelle asking is for the opportunity to have the director. Is that what you said?