Status of Women Committee on Feb. 29th, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Welcome to meeting number 99 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

Today’s meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

Since all of our witnesses are here virtually, I will just remind you to ensure that you are muted if you are not speaking and to raise your hand if you have a question during that time. If there is no interpretation, just interrupt so that we can hear you.

I'll remind everybody in the room to make sure that your earphones aren't too close to your mic. We want to ensure that there are no issues for the interpreters.

With regard to the speaking list, the committee clerk and I will do the best we can to maintain a consolidated order of speaking for all members.

On a little note, as a reminder today, we also did the human trafficking report. That was tabled today at 10 o'clock, so it's available. I wanted to make a little note. It's not a big deal, but there was a little typo. We believe that it's from formatting. That is something that's already being addressed. If there are any complications, we'll get back to you to let you know, but it's something that was not seen in all of the official documents, and it's something we now see online. It's already being addressed, and we'll get that handled.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, September 21, 2023, the committee will resume its study of women’s economic empowerment.

Today we have three witnesses online. As an individual, we have Emily Whetung-MacInnes, who is chief emerita. From Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada, we have Rosemary Cooper, who is the executive director. From YES Employment and Entrepreneurship, we have Kathy Slotsve, director of communications and stakeholder engagement, and Meltem Kilicaslan, project manager for ELLEvate.

What we're going to do is begin with five minutes for each of you for your opening comments. I will interrupt about 15 seconds into your last moments so that you know that time is winding up so you can conclude.

I am going to begin by passing it over to Emily for the first five minutes.

[Emily Whetung-MacInnes, Chief Emerita, As an Individual]

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for having me here today. This is my first time submitting as a witness to a committee. I'm really grateful for that opportunity.

I'm going to introduce myself in Anishinaabemowin. I think that's a very important thing for me to do.

[Witness spoke in Anishinaabemowin]

[English]

As I was introduced, I am the former chief of Curve Lake First Nation here in Ontario, a mother of two little boys and the director of indigenous partnerships for business development at Ontario Power Generation.

I have been invited to share my experience as a woman in the energy sector in leadership. I was a lawyer before that, just to share some of my background with you.

Some of the issues that I think are important to discuss are experiences that I've had in starting and raising a family from the very early days of deciding to be a lawyer and start a family and not really knowing what that meant or being prepared for the career issues that come as a result of that.

When I had my children as a lawyer, we were completely reliant on external funding to cover the gap during maternity leave. The legal world continues to march on when you step out of it, just as many careers do. Re-entering the workforce after having children is a significant issue that I think many women have to deal with. Certainly, I have many friends and I have spoken to many women who end up changing careers after those 12 to 18 months off because re-entering the workforce is incredibly difficult. Additional supports for that would be phenomenal.

Moving through my career and my time as an indigenous mother living on an Indian reserve, in regard to being able to take care of my children—and I've spoken about this before—bathing your children in a community where they can't put their face in the bath water because it may be harmful to them is an incredible struggle. I know we've made progress in recent years on getting access to clean drinking water in communities in first nations across Canada, and I'm very proud to have been a part of that. Just keep in mind that those are the issues that indigenous women face.

Then moving through my career, I have now participated in the electrification and energy transition panel in Ontario. I'm on the Canada electricity advisory council federally. Finding scheduling conflicts and the need to balance not just work and additional participation but also being an indigenous mother of indigenous children and scheduling around school times and being able to support a family are incredibly difficult things to juggle. They are things that need to take a lot of time and care. Making sure that there's understanding in scheduling for the priority of being a mother to indigenous children in an education system that hasn't always been supportive of our own choice is a really big issue that I face on a regular basis. So there's making sure that there are opportunities to support women through those transition processes.

In recent years, with the pandemic, I think some of the positive things that I've seen involve the ability to work from home. This has made a significant impact in my life in being able to balance the most important role that I have as a mother and my career. The ability to be there during the day when my kids need me and still maintain a career, being able to juggle that and having a partner who is incredibly supportive but also has the ability to juggle some days in the office and some days at home so that we're there to see our children at the end of the school day is a significant factor that's incredibly important. The more I see opportunities to find that work-life balance and be able to be a mother, the more hopeful I am that I can continue to advance in my career and support the energy transition, which is incredibly important to me personally because of things like climate change.

I don't know that I've taken up the full amount of time that we had, but that's my submission today. I'm sure we'll get into more issues as we address the questions that the committee will have.

Meegwetch.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much, Emily. You know, it was almost exactly five minutes, just a few seconds short of that. Thank you.

We're now going to pass it over to Rosemary.

Rosemary, you will have the floor for five minutes.

[Rosemary Cooper, Executive Director, Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada]

Unnusakkut, Madam Chair, committee members, guests and staff.

My name is Rosemary Cooper. I am from Iqaluit, Nunavut, and I am the executive director of Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada.

Pauktuutit is a national voice for Inuit women, girls and gender-diverse Inuit wherever they live in Canada. We just celebrated our 40th anniversary gala in Ottawa with Her Excellency Mary Simon and members of Parliament. For the past 40 years, we have advocated for Inuit women, helping them escape the harsh cycle of poverty by increasing their economic independence.

Inuit values are the foundation of any economic development and what we advocate for. Our role is to ensure that the needs of Inuit women are met, from remote, fly-in communities to urban centres. We work to identify and address barriers to economic empowerment.

Today, I would like to highlight three of these barriers. They are access to employment, safe and affordable housing, and sustainable resource extraction.

In Canada, we consistently experience lower levels of economic participation in comparison to non-Inuit. In recent years, the national average unemployment rate was approximately 7.3%. For Inuit, the average unemployment rate was more than double, at 16%. Due to the lack of access to employment, Inuit women often need to create their own entrepreneurial opportunities. To address this, we have several initiatives to support Inuit women. One way we do this is with our Pauktuutit Inuit women in business network. This is a national initiative that provides workshops and resources to support Inuit women's economic empowerment.

Another barrier is access to safe and affordable housing. This is key to the health and well-being of Inuit women and our families. Recent statistics indicate that Inuit face the most overcrowded living conditions in Canada. This has a direct negative impact on several health concerns, such as tuberculosis, family violence and the wellness of our communities. As the committee heard from previous witnesses, access to safe and adequate housing is key to addressing gender-based violence, a major barrier to economic empowerment. If we want better economic equity for all women in Canada, access to safe and affordable housing for Inuit women cannot be forgotten.

Pauktuutit continues to advocate for increased and safe participation of Inuit women in the resource extraction industry. As further investments and jobs are created in our communities, they must be rooted in our Inuit values and principles. Otherwise, we risk unsustainable practices in resource extraction and employment. This industry must be developed in a way that ensures equitable access and safe employment. This is done through research, community consultations and valuing lived experience. We underscore the need for consultations to be done in a meaningful way, which is why our appearance before this committee is deeply appreciated.

In closing, I wish to thank the committee for the invitation. We value our partnership with the Government of Canada and appreciate being engaged in your study.

Nakurmiik.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much, Rosemary.

We are now going to pass online to both Kathy and Meltem.

I'll let you two figure out your timing. You have five minutes.

[Kathy Slotsve, Director, Communications and Stakeholder Engagement, YES Employment and Entrepreneurship]

Thanks so much.

My name is Kathy Slotsve, and I'm the director of communications at Youth Employment Services Foundation, also known as YES Employment and Entrepreneurship.

YES is a charity organization based in Montreal that provides English-language employment and entrepreneurship services across Quebec. Our offices are located in Tiohtià:ke, the traditional territory of the Kanienkehaka people.

Our organization has been active since 1995, supporting more than 60,000 job seekers, entrepreneurs and artists in finding sustainable economic success within Quebec. We do this primarily through one-on-one coaching, mentorship, skills-building workshops and networking events, in addition to niche programming developed to support populations experiencing multiple barriers to success. Our services, which are funded through a variety of streams, including by the Government of Canada, are free or low-cost and are offered in person or online.

The full participation of diverse groups in Canadian society is a core value from both an economic and a social cohesion perspective.

The English-speaking community of Quebec is the largest linguistic minority in Canada and represents almost 16% of Quebec's labour force. However, the 2021 census confirmed that the community continues to lag behind their French counterparts economically, with both a higher unemployment rate and a lower median income, and these gaps are growing.

It's important to note that the English-speaking community in Quebec is also incredibly diverse, and that's represented in our clients. Last year, this included 67% who self-identified as women and 3% as non-binary. In addition, 34% of our clients self-identified as a member of a visible minority. The diversity of our community dictates that we must view economic outcomes with an intersectional lens, as many members of our community experience multiple barriers to success.

The lasting impacts of the pandemic have had a disproportionately negative impact on women-led businesses. The impact of the gender equity gap was further emphasized for women entrepreneurs who identify with other minority groups. Further, scaling and growing a business is more challenging for women entrepreneurs. While improvements have been made regarding seed funding, women continue to comprise only 15% of overall financing.

To better support women's economic success within Quebec, and with the support of government funding, we began offering niche programming tailored to women in 2012. Some highlights include several programs to support the retention and advancement of women in STEM through supports like networking, mentorship, and the development and recommendation of inclusive corporate solutions. That program ran from 2012 to 2020.

In 2019, we introduced the ELLEvate women entrepreneurs program with the support of the women entrepreneurship strategy's ecosystem fund. This program created systemic supports to enable gender equity and entrepreneurship in Quebec. The women's employment readiness Quebec pilot program, funded by ESDC, ran from 2022 to 2023, focusing on creating systemic change for gender inclusivity in employment.

Our employment program is popular and successful, averaging an 80% success rate; however, further support is needed to continue to integrate more women into the economy, with an additional focus on those facing multiple barriers to employment. Funding to support the development and execution of long-term niche programming is needed. While pilot programs have been overwhelmingly successful, financing has not been sustainable to build and to grow these programs long-term.

Finally, wraparound program supports, such as wardrobe allowances and technology allocations, go a long way toward ensuring inclusion and access.

I'd now like to introduce my colleague, Meltem Kilicaslan, who led our ELLEvate women entrepreneurs program for three years and who will speak to some of the additional opportunities for support.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Meltem, you're going to have about one minute and 20 seconds.

[Meltem Kilicaslan, Project Manager, ELLEvate, YES Employment and Entrepreneurship]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My name is Meltem, and I'm honoured to have led the ELLEvate program, supporting 600 diverse women entrepreneurs annually. At YES, we value our community's diversity. Each client has their own unique background, business sector and even personal definition of success.

Today, I would like to shed light on three important areas that are crucial for the continued success of our initiatives and for the empowerment of women entrepreneurs.

First, these programs are only available because of the available government funding, yet their success also relies on collaboration with corporate partners, community organizations and volunteers. Financial incentives and recognition of their commitment are vital in fostering successful, ongoing partnerships.

Second, two-thirds of supported women prioritize sustainability and social responsibility over scalability, yet funding often doesn't cater to these solopreneurs. Addressing this gap requires tailored funding mechanisms.

Lastly, the landscape of work is evolving, with freelance remote work emerging as a new norm. At YES, we proudly support freelancers, and I'm hoping that, through government programs, we can continue to provide communication platforms, documentation management systems and so on.

Thank you for your time and for your commitment to this cause.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

Thank you to everybody for being so good with your comments.

We're going to start with our six-minute round. Each party will have six minutes. I'm going to turn the floor over now to Michelle Ferreri.

Michelle, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you so much, Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here today at the status of women committee as we study the economic empowerment of women. A wealth of information has been brought forward by our witnesses.

I want to start with the witness from the riding I come from, Peterborough—Kawartha, from Curve Lake First Nation in particular. Emily Whetung is a star, and you just have to google this woman's name to see what she's achieved. I'm a big fangirl of what she's done for Canadians across the board and for her community.

I've had the opportunity to chat with her multiple times, and I thought that, with International Women's Day around the corner, this would be a great opportunity to revisit a conversation we've had before.

The three things I heard you say when you gave your opening statement, Emily, are child care, clean water and partnership. These were the things that jumped out in terms of helping women achieve their economic empowerment, so to speak.

I want to touch on the partner aspect, because you and I have had this conversation. As women have really found their stride and have been elevated in society and able to sit at the tables that they had not been invited to sit at, where do men fit into that? We've seen a lot of breakdown in families because sometimes the roles become confusing for some people. One thing I've always said about feminism is that it's really about women needing to know that they need men as much as men need to know they need women. We need each other fully.

What is your take on that in terms of the role of the partner and a message for the upcoming women's day and our roles together?

[Emily Whetung-MacInnes]

Thank you, Michelle.

I think this is something that I often breeze over, because it is such an integral part of the culture that I come from. In Anishinabe culture, men and women are equal but satisfy these roles in different ways. Without a partner who was at home supporting me in going out, making these changes and having this career, I certainly would not be able to take the time away from family to attend the things that I do attend. It's remembering that starting place of balance in our communities.

Curve Lake elected the first female chief in all of Canada in 1958 with Elsie Knott, and that's the community I come from, a community that empowers women and supports women. The men in our community consistently advocate for and support women in leadership and women in all roles. We opened the first child care facility in a first nation in Canada many years ago. My aunt was a big part of that. She is a role model of mine, and it allowed women in our community to start to have jobs in the community and to have somewhere safe to leave their children during the day in order to be able to go out and participate and have that independent economic opportunity. It's allowed our community to support many women going through this.

I think that's a really integral part, having a group of men, having men in our communities and in Canada know that supporting women is the way we're going to achieve better things, and building policies around that is going to be very important.

Thank you, Michelle.

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

I love that, and I think it's a powerful conversation, because nobody wants to be displaced. I think you can elevate women while empowering men and kids, especially the boys who are watching those relationships at home, which sets the future of the next generation. I've always said that our boys in our generation won't know any different. They won't know any different than a mom who is a leader, a mom who is out working, a mom who is sitting at the table. I think it's really interesting.

I would love you to share—and you've shared this with me before—your culture in terms of how it views the role of men and women and how they are so linked.

[Emily Whetung-MacInnes]

In our culture, men are typically responsible for the fire and the food, and women are responsible for the fruit and the water. If you lose one half of that equation, the world is not in balance and you're not feeding your family. If you don't have water, you don't have food. If you don't have shelter and fire and the care that women provide.... All of those things have to come together, and they lean equally on each other. That's the cultural understanding that we have and the approach to the world that I was raised in.

I come from a family of five girls. My dad was probably the best girl dad you could ever imagine. He always made us feel like we were important, empowered and an equal party in anything we did. He treated my mother that way, and that's a really refreshing cultural approach that I don't hear about in a lot of communities or a lot of families across Canada. Understanding that you can be partners and that you each have an equal role to play is the foundation for building better relationships and empowering women to participate in economy and industry roles.

Michelle, I know that you and I talk about this all the time. We are sitting at this table as mothers, and it is a really important place for the next generations to see us in.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have 40 seconds.

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

In my 40 seconds, I would just say thank you for being here. Thank you for what you do and for finding that balance. We were joking before and we had this back-and-forth saying, “Women get to have it all. Isn't that great?” Some days it's good, and some days it's bad.

Thank you so much, Emily. Thanks for being here today, and thanks for the work that you do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

That's wonderful. Thank you so much.

I'm now going to pass it over, for the next six minutes, to Sonia Sidhu.

Sonia, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for their insightful testimony.

You were talking about how you have four siblings. It's nice to see when there are girls in the family—I have twin girls—and you talked about equity.

Ms. Cooper, how do you think the federal government's child care agreement with the provinces, especially with Ontario and Nunavut, helped indigenous women in the workforce? What more can be done to better implement these agreements?

[Rosemary Cooper]

I think you're referring to the $10-a-day day care. Can I get clarification on that point? If that's the point, for Inuit Nunangat, our challenge is infrastructure—housing infrastructure, generally. If we don't have the infrastructure to provide day care, our limitations are real for Inuit women to participate in the economy. It's a real challenge for Inuit. We're still very dependent and reliant on home day care providers to ensure that Inuit women are participating in the workforce.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

My next question is for YES Employment and Entrepreneurship.

Your organization has also collaborated with the federal government on your ELLEvate program, particularly and interestingly on your e-learning platform. How are such digital resources useful to advancing the economic empowerment of women entrepreneurs, especially on that point?

[Kathy Slotsve]

Meltem, cut me off if you'd like to speak to this as our ELLEvate project manager.

E-learning is incredibly important, especially when dealing with women entrepreneurs. As much as we can make our programs and our content accessible—and that means available at different hours and different locations—it only helps build the success of the program. Our offices are open nine to five. We have a physical office that people can come into, but that's not always realistic for entrepreneurs in general and women entrepreneurs specifically, so e-learning platforms allow people to learn content and take their skills to the next level on their own schedule.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you.

My next question is for Ms. Whetung-MacInnes.

I know you did a lot of work in advancing the rights of indigenous communities, including those who face unique barriers on reserves. Could you elaborate on what the challenges look like for the economic empowerment of indigenous women on reserve, and how the federal government can work to remove those barriers and empower women on reserves, where they have unique barriers?

[Emily Whetung-MacInnes]

Absolutely.

There are a number of unique barriers to indigenous women, status Indian women, living on the Indian reserves across Canada. There is an inability to leverage the equity in our assets, like our homes, in order to get loans to participate in the economy. That's a huge barrier. We can't get a mortgage on Indian reserve land without permission from the Minister of Indigenous Services. It really limits our ability to explore options that other women in Canada have the opportunity to pursue. It limits our ability to invest capital in something that can give back. In terms of looking at systemic barriers to women participating in the economy, I think that's a very significant one.

However, we are facing a good benefit. We have an opportunity in child care that is available in our community to status women. Child care is at no cost, and we've seen the benefits of that no-cost child care in our community in allowing women to go out and participate in the economy. However, it's only as employees, not as entrepreneurs, as much as it would be beneficial to see that.

There are a number of issues that indigenous communities face under the Indian Act, and the more we see off-ramps without wholesale removal of the provisions that also protect our communities and our people, the more we're going to start moving in the right direction.

Hopefully that answers your question. Thank you.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Yes.

I want to go back to YES Employment and Entrepreneurship.

In your view, how does the 50-30 challenge help ensure that more women, gender-diverse people and other under-represented groups are in positions for leadership, and how can they get more help?

[Kathy Slotsve]

I think the challenge is great, because it encourages organizations to make a public commitment to diversity.

In terms of getting additional support, I think that if you can incentivize any program, it's always going to be more successful. Incentivization could be in the form of marketing or in the form of opportunities for partnership and networking within, but in general I think it's a great opportunity to boost the profile of including more diverse leadership.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have 10 seconds.