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Good afternoon, everyone. I am Coline Camier, Assistant Coordinator. With me is Marilyn Ouellet, who is responsible for equal access services. Thank you for inviting us to speak to you today. Let me start right away.
Action travail des femmes, or ATF, is an independent, not-for-profit organization working to support underprivileged women of all ages and of all origins in their desire to obtain decent employment, especially in non-traditional areas. Our expertise lies in helping women to enter the labour market with complete equality of rights and opportunities, not only between men and women, but also between all women. We can in fact see that all women are not equal in access to employment and that some are confronted with more obstacles. That is why we operate on two levels: we help individual women to obtain access to work and we seek to eliminate discrimination in the workplace.
For more than 30 years, ATF has been helping to establish equality programs in Quebec, the latest of which is the precedent-setting Gaz Métro case before the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal. Our remarks today will deal with improving economic prosperity for girls and women, because, as you know, those women are in the poorest segments of the population. They often find themselves in very difficult positions because of systemic discrimination, by which we mean a number of elements that accumulate in life and interact correspondingly.
Let us begin with education. We no longer have to make the case for the feminization of poverty today; it is the result of a number of factors, including the school dropout rate for girls. The statistics for boys may still be higher, but, in the light of the socio-economic inequalities that continue to be obstacles in girls' lives, it is important that we do not conceal the same phenomenon that affects them.
Let me give you some figures. In 2008, women without a high-school diploma earned an average of $16,414 per year, while men without a high-school diploma earned $24,434. The difference between men and women is clear. Complex dynamics in gender relationships continue to influence the lives of boys and girls and bring with them still more situations of inequality. The government must guarantee access to education.
To further illustrate our point, let us not forget the current tuition fee debate in Quebec. Today, we would like to stress the fact that tuition fees often have a more adverse effect on women. That is why the issue deserves even more detailed attention. For example, immigrant women, single mothers, women with disabilities and aboriginal women often experience this kind of situation to a significantly greater extent. Education remains the key that gives women access to interesting jobs in areas other than the service industry and the decent incomes and economic autonomy that will get them out of poverty.
Finally, I am going to talk about the gender divisions in labour. In the labour market, atypical jobs, that is, those that are temporary and have no job security, are largely taken by women, especially young women. Most of the people who are paid minimum wage are women. In Quebec, the figure is almost 60%. On May 1, the minimum wage in Quebec was increased to $9.90 from its previous level of $9.60. But it is still not enough to allow a life above the poverty line. Our recommendation is to raise it to $11.20, and we have already made the Quebec department of labour aware of that as part of the Front de défense des non-syndiqué-e-s, of which we are a member.
In terms of pay equity, women receive an average of 75% of the salary of men because the lowest salary levels in our society are mostly found in the employment sectors occupied by women. Traditionally female occupations are mostly in health care, education and services, where more than 80% are women. A brief analysis shows that, historically, all these occupations are an extension of domestic work. They are valued and paid at a lower level than traditionally male sectors.
To reach actual equality, it is important to give new value to womens' work as caregivers, which continues to form the basis of social, family and intergenerational ties.
The promotion of so-called non-traditional sectors remains a priority for us at Action travail des femmes, a response to the inequality between men and women in the workplace. Those predominantly male sectors represent an overlooked and undervalued opportunity for women.
Of the 520 occupations listed in the National Occupational Classification, 269 are those in which women are in a significant minority. Those jobs provide very favourable compensation situations and the rate of employment is high. So it is essential to promote more diverse educational and career paths for girls.
In that regard, Status of Women Canada has given us the responsibility for a pilot project in the Montreal region. The objective is to promote and facilitate women's access to training and employment in traditionally male sectors and other sectors in which they are underrepresented.
Hiring women in non-traditional sectors has a number of advantages. I am not sure if you are aware of this, but, as well as providing a better economic situation for women, it also helps to address the labour shortage that the major growth sectors in Quebec now have to deal with.
In workplace safety too, women are known to bring better conditions for all employees, men and women alike. The mix also creates dynamic teams. Businesses see productivity increasing and employee commitment becoming stronger.
Promoting equality implies a change in the organizational culture of these environments. Establishing a concerted strategy for the various players is essential. The Government of Canada's leadership and desire to see the Employment Equity Act enforced are crucial. This therefore implies federal contracting and access to employment programs in Quebec specifically.
For Action travail des femmes, defending rights is essential and it is critical to fight against all forms of discrimination against women in the workforce, especially in so-called non-traditional sectors, where psychological and discriminatory harassment based on gender is a huge obstacle to women becoming and staying employed.
I will now turn things over to my colleague Marilyn.
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I am now going to deal with the matter of the devalued skills of immigrant women. For us, the situation of immigrant women specifically is important to discuss.
These women represent a growing population; however, they are underrepresented in the labour market and their rate of employment is much lower. Salaries are also lower and work conditions are less stable compared to immigrant men or women born in Canada.
The practices, rules and behaviours of the major players—the state, businesses, professional associations and universities—create these dynamics of exclusion.
The systemic discrimination we mentioned at the outset also affects young women in racialized groups who come to Canada in large numbers. For us, it is important to pay particular attention not only to sexism, but also to racism. Too often, racism and sexism intertwine to create major employment access obstacles for immigrant and racialized women.
The last aspect, though not the least, is the balance of work and family life. Establishing and maintaining a balance between work and family life remains critical in providing and maintaining access to employment for women. At the Université de Sherbrooke for example, a study conducted by the Research Chair in Taxation and Public Finance estimates that, in 2008, the subsidized daycare program in Quebec made it possible for at least 69,700 mothers to enter the job market. That is a considerable number.
So the program helps women to enter the job market, specifically young mothers and single mothers. This also contributes to the economic growth of the province. It is the kind of initiative that could inspire others, thereby increasing the equality of opportunity in terms of access to employment for all Canadians.
To conclude, we would like to remind you of our recommendations, in eight specific points.
First, to guarantee access to education for all, from kindergarten to university.
Second, to recognize and value the work of women in female occupations, in cooperation with public and private sectors, in order to achieve a genuine wage parity between men and women.
Third, we recommend promoting non-traditional occupations, gender-diverse workplaces and expanding career choices for girls, through, for example, awareness campaigns in high schools.
Fourth, for all businesses, the government must establish programs providing equality of access in employment and in federal contracts.
It must also support the Human Rights Commission in its role of monitoring those measures and doing more promotion of that program with entrepreneurs and businesses.
Next, the qualifications and skills of immigrant women must be recognized.
The involvement of fathers in domestic activities must also be promoted as a way to achieve a work-life balance; women must have access to employment specifically as the result of subsidized and accessible daycare services.
Lastly, the government must support organizations that stand up for the rights of women.
Thank you for your attention.
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Good afternoon. thank you for having us here today to talk about this topic, which is really close to our hearts. I am Siham Chakrouni, provincial coordinator of the Ontario Movement for Francophone Immigrant Women (MOFIF).
Let me talk a little about MOFIF. It was officially founded on March 31, 2001, but it traces its origins to a 1996 meeting headed by the Table féministe francophone de concertation provinciale de l'Ontario. The meeting discussed the major issues surrounding the sponsorship of immigrant women.
At the beginning of this century, MOFIF continued to mobilize in order to work on specific matters of concern to the community of francophone women in Ontario with decision-making and community bodies. In 2004, MOFIF published a study on the impact of armed conflict on the integration of immigrant and refugee women in Ontario. It also developed an awareness and education package intended for those working with immigrant women.
In the years thereafter, MOFIF entered into more and more partnerships with community organizations, particularly those that advocate for women. For several years, MOFIF has also been investing in a popular education program in order to update its mission and to encourage the active participation of immigrant women in all spheres of society.
MOFIF is at the intersection of school and community life. The organization is unique to Ontario; its programs are tailored to and based on our knowledge of our environment. The women who work at MOFIF are immigrants themselves and are well aware of the challenges women face. Our offices are located in Toronto, but we have partnerships all over Ontario, such as in Ottawa, Windsor, Sudbury, London and elsewhere. Our staff, our members and our volunteers work on the ground and are ideally placed to know the concerns and the needs of women and girls.
We work together with organizations that provide direct services, such as the Oasis centre des femmes, the Centre ontarien de prévention des agressions, and Action ontarienne contre la violence faite aux femmes, as well as other partners and organizations. We organize workshops, we undertake studies to meet the needs of women and girls and, above all, to foster their economic development both directly and indirectly.
In the first years of its existence, MOFIF focused on women's welfare. For some years, we have turned our attention to the needs or challenges faced by girls because of the growing demand. After a community consultation and with the Trillium Foundation's financial support for MOFIF's strategic planning for 2011-2014, MOFIF has dedicated an entirely separate section of its mandate to girls.
Today, MOFIF's mandate is to work with the aim of improving the life conditions of francophone immigrant women and girls and to encourage their integration and active participation in all aspects of society.
Let me share with you some facts and figures. They come from a document called “Girls in Canada Today: National Opinion Poll and Report on the Status of Girls”. The poll was conducted in 2011 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day. The Girls Action Foundation made the report public in order to raise awareness of the struggles still facing girls today and to empower more Canadians to make a difference for the next generation.
So here are the facts and figures. In terms of leadership, men outnumber women four to one among Canada's elected representatives. Only 4% of CEOs in Canada's top 500 companies are women. Two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women. Young immigrant females are more likely to be unemployed than their older or Canadian-born counterparts.
In 2001, 14.9% of foreign-born female labour force participants aged 15 to 24 were unemployed. The experiences of young immigrant women vary, but can include culture shock, peer pressure, a lack of resources focusing on their needs, conflicts with their cultural background, discrimination, underemployment and racism.
Our project “Viser haut” received funding from Status of Women Canada. The aim of the project is to encourage women to get involved in decision-making positions such as boards of directors. The project was a real success. Women were given tools, through a comprehensive two-day training session on governance, including pre-training orientation and post-training placement.
We held a conference-debate day on March 31, 2012. We invited all the women who had participated in the projects. We heard their testimony and we had discussions afterwards. The women were grateful for being able to start getting involved in school boards and, for example, in organizations such as MOFIF. In fact, some of the women who took our training have already joined boards of directors.
I am going to name some of the projects MOFIF has done. In 2004, we did a project called “The impact of armed conflict on the integration of francophone immigrant women”. In 2008, a research action project was carried out, called “The analysis of francophone immigrant and refugee women living in Ontario away from their children”. There was also another research action project on adapting French-language services to combat domestic violence against women, members of francophone ethnocultural and racial minorities. The next project was called “Young francophone immigrant and refugee women in action” and the last one was on understanding the causes of domestic violence in ethnocultural and racial minority communities and some of the ensuing legal consequences.
Thank you for your attention.
I'd like to thank you for this opportunity to present today. My colleague Katie Arnup and l represent the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada. The CCAAC is dedicated to promoting publicly funded, inclusive, quality, public, and non-profit child care in Canada. Our organization is a non-profit, membership-based, and regionally representative organization. We have been advocating for better child care for the past 25 years.
I want to start on a personal note about my own experience as a parent and early childhood educator from working for over 20 years with toddlers and infants in a licensed non-profit child care centre here in the city of Ottawa. I have provided care and education to hundreds of young children, so I can speak first-hand about what is needed to ensure that they are given what they need to thrive and grow while their parents work or study.
Thirty-two years ago I was a young parent struggling, along with my partner, to provide for our young son. We, like many families living on modest incomes—and I can tell you that a child care worker's wage is very modest—struggled to find affordable child care that we could feel good about, that in using it we could feel we were being good parents and that our son was receiving the kind of care that would support him while we were working to put a roof over our heads and food on our table.
I also sat on the board of directors of my son's day care centre. I know how difficult it is for community-based child care centres to keep up their facilities, meet the daily needs of children, and recruit and retain a well-skilled and professional workforce, all on a shoestring budget. I have witnessed the desperation of countless parents needing access to affordable child care so they can work and provide for their children. I can tell you stories about parents dropping to their knees to implore the centre's director to give them a space so they can take an available job opportunity. l can tell you stories about young sole-support moms wanting to get off social assistance but being unable to find child care they could afford when they themselves worked for slightly above minimum wage.
These stories stretch back 30 years and continue to this day. This is wrong: Canadian children and families should not have to endure this in our country. The generation raising kids today is squeezed for time at home. They are squeezed for income because of the downward pressure on wages and the rising cost of housing and basic amenities. They are squeezed for services like early learning and child care that will help them to better balance raising children and earning a living.
Canadian women with young children have pursued higher education and joined the paid labour force in ever-increasing numbers over the past three decades. The majority of young families cannot survive on one income in today's economy. By 2009, the labour force participation rate of women with preschool children was 77%, a higher rate than in most European countries.
Canada's child care lags far behind not only western European countries but in some ways also Anglo-American countries. The most recent UNICEF report card, using 10 indicators of child care access and quality, ranked Canada at the bottom of the 25 wealthiest nations. While child care availability has crept up marginally over the decades, fundamentally the Canadian situation isn't any better than it was in the 1980s when a smaller proportion of women with young children were in the paid labour force.
What, you may ask, does this have to do with improving the economic prospects of girls? The reality is that the responsibility of bearing and caring for children continues to rest largely on women. Today's girls are tomorrow's mothers, and some of them will be tomorrow's child care providers.
If Canada is going to support a new generation of young girls and women to meet the new realities of the Canadian economy, one that requires their participation in the paid workforce, then Canada must make access to high-quality affordable child care a priority.
There is no turning back the clock. Women's contribution to family income is vital. Women's contribution to the Canadian economy is vital. Child care not only supports those women and families, but it makes good economic sense as well. We have seen the reports from Quebec that demonstrate that government investment in child care not only pays for itself, but brings in additional tax revenues by increasing women's labour-market participation.
I am here today to ask you to act in our interests and in our country's interest. It's time we took action on child care.
Thank you.
I am a second-generation child care advocate. I work for the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, Ontario's advocacy organization for policy and funding, with the aim to secure a universal, high-quality, not-for-profit early learning and child care system. I'm excited now to be one of the directors of the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada.
In the 1980s, before and after I was born, my parents were part of the young movement fighting for affordable, accessible child care. Access to quality child care allowed my parents to pursue higher education and employment. My mother completed her Ph.D. and moved on to a career as a university professor. Beyond that, access to child care gave me quality early learning opportunities, socialization, and exposure to the amazing diversity of downtown Toronto.
My parents were part of the strong movement that has grown over the last 30 years of advocacy organizations, building from the grassroots across the country, united with labour unions and social justice groups, with the CCAAC at the lead. We have known for decades that the economic prosperity of not only women but our country as a whole depends on the creation of a national child care system.
It has been 25 years since the director of the Royal Commission on Equality in Employment called child care “the ramp that provides equal access to the workforce for mothers”. We even have domestic proof of this ramp. In Quebec, 70,000 more mothers are in the paid workforce as a result of their universal, affordable child care system.
In Quebec, child care for all families is just $7 a day, compared with fees upwards of $40 to $60 a day in Ontario. Yet here I am today, starting my career and looking forward to my future, and Canada is ranked last among the OECD nations on accessibility to early learning programs. I am ashamed and afraid of what the future will bring for young women like me.
Many countries have decided to invest in high-quality child care and early learning, acknowledging that it is fundamental to women's equality, and the best start for kids. They have also benefited from the huge economic returns, both immediate and long-term, that are achieved from investing in the early years.
I, along with my friends and colleagues, am part of the generation bearing the brunt of years of government cutbacks and a recent recession that has decimated the job market. We struggle to find employment and are left with huge student debt. Yet how can we do either if we cannot find high-quality child care? How are we supposed to afford it?
My darling niece Charlotte is a year old and one of the four out of five Canadian children without access to a licensed child care space. I do not want her to be fighting for affordable child care when she's grown up and thinking about her future.
At work I talk to countless parents, and the stories are all the same. Child care is too expensive, there's not enough of it, and despite the hard work and training, the staff working in the field—mostly women—are often underpaid and undervalued.
Twenty-six years ago the task force from this very committee declared child care a fundamental support service. It is time for progress. The lack of support for and from Status of Women Canada for research and advocacy has made it difficult for organizations like the CCAAC to maintain strong networks, do the kind of extensive research necessary for good policy-making, and build capacity to give voice to the needs of parents.
This committee can and should play a leadership role in calling for a closer examination of the crisis in child care and its impact on Canadian women, children, and families.
My name is Linda Hasenfratz. I am CEO of Linamar Corporation, and I'm very pleased to have been given the opportunity to speak to the committee this afternoon.
For those of you who aren't familiar with it, we are a diverse manufacturing company. We do a lot of business in the automotive sector, in commercial vehicles, energy, access equipment, construction equipment, and the like. Our sales last year were $2.8 billion. We have about 16,000 employees around the world. About 9,000 of them are in Canada.
We are very focused on growing our business. If I look back over the last several years, we've more than doubled our employee base. We've added 8,000 people since 2009, and actually 1,500 since the end of last year. More than half of them are right here in Canada.
We're a company that is very much focused on prosperity and growth and finding opportunities. So I thought this was a great opportunity to talk a little bit about what I think is important to allow that to happen and particularly about how we try to create that kind of future for our young women and girls.
When I think about prosperity and what makes us prosperous, as a person or as a country or as a company, I think it is driven by three key areas. One is competitiveness. We need to be competitive to win business. Another is opportunity, so we need to have the opportunity to pursue. Finally, we need to have a strong culture that supports our growth as a company.
All of those things are equally true for people. We all need to be competitive, so we need to have the right skill set. We need to be given opportunities. And we need to live in a culture and a society that values us so that we can grow.
If I look at those different areas, at competitiveness, what's that all about? Really, it's all about innovation. It's about efficiency. It's about product innovation and process innovation and continuous improvement in both of those things: productivity and efficiency. All of that really is driven by having very skilled, capable people, particularly technically skilled people, to enable that growth.
Great innovation is driven by great scientists, great engineers, great tradespeople, and great technology. A recent study by the World Economic Forum noted that “[t]he most important determinant of a country’s competitiveness is its human talent – the skills, education and productivity of its workforce”.
Women represent half of our population. Engaging women in innovation by building their skills dramatically increases our talent pool and therefore our global competitiveness.
When I look at what we're doing here in Canada in terms of our education broadly, and more specifically, in terms of our education of women, I think there is more we could be doing. We need to be acting in a more collaborative way and a more coordinated way. We have a lot of great schools in this country, maybe too many in some areas. We have a lot of repetition. All of them are doing things individually. Some of them are doing some great things. I wonder what we can do to better coordinate their efforts. How can we challenge them to make us the best?
When I look specifically at women in these fields, I think that there are just not enough. There are not enough girls and young women engaged in the areas of science, engineering, trades, and technology from which, as I've just discussed, our competitiveness is driven.
I think we need to start very young in the primary years to build an interest in these areas for our young girls and our young women and then build on that in a secondary school system to encourage young women to choose those careers.
There are things we're doing here at Linamar to try to encourage that. Again, we're trying to start young. For instance, we hold a summer skills camp for young girls, aged 10, 11, or 12, to try to introduce them to the idea of skills and trades as a potential career.
Last year we held the first of a six-year commitment for those camps. We had a great turnout and the girls really enjoyed themselves.
So just trying to get some interest in it, to get young girls interested in these areas of science, trade, technology, and engineering, is really critical. We've also held several workshops, at which we bring together high school students with female tradespeople within our own company and in other companies to learn about these careers. We've had more than 300 young women attend these workshops. They get to learn about all kinds of different careers in skilled trades, science, and technology and hopefully get inspired to head that way in their education.
We're running a program here in Guelph. We're headquartered in Guelph and have a large percentage of our Canadian employment right here in town. We're working with local schools in terms of interactive programs, again reaching out with our own tradespeople, who teach them about careers in manufacturing. More than 1,000 young people have been reached through these programs.
Finally, we again are working with local school systems to sponsor female apprenticeships. We've committed to five female apprentices per year for the next five years. We have two signed up in our first year, so we're not at our goal, but we're close to halfway there. We're glad to see the interest starting to bud.
I think the key is trying to interest and encourage our young people to get into these fields, and particularly to encourage our young women to get into these fields, where there are great opportunities to build a career that can be so satisfying and so lucrative for them. You can take a skilled trade or take your engineering degree and end up as an entrepreneur building a business and creating something really fantastic.
So first you get the interest going. Then, I think, we need to really work with our education system and try to prioritize our education system in these fields. I would love to see us in Canada setting a goal to be the best in the world in terms of an education system that's going to create the smartest, the most innovative, and the most successful scientists and engineers in the world, with the highest percentage of female grads.
You see a lot of examples of making a commitment like that, of being bold and putting a statement out there that we want to be the best in the world in terms of generating tradespeople, scientists, and engineers, and also that we want to graduate the most females. Let's make that a goal. Let's challenge our schools to come up with programs and to find ways to work together to make that happen.
Let's own the scientific podium. We've seen the results when you do get a focus, make a commitment, and set a goal for yourself.
So that was a lot about competitiveness and trying to drive an education that can help us as a country, and about women in particular and how to be competitive and get the opportunities in terms of these types of jobs, but as I mentioned at the outset, opportunity is the second key element driving prosperity. I think the frustration here for a lot of people is that girls and young women still just aren't getting enough opportunities.
I think there's a real mixed bag out there. Some companies are great. They really do look with open eyes at all the candidates and pick based on skill, capability, enthusiasm, and work ethic. But others still don't look at male and female candidates equally.
I think a key difference in my own success is that I was always given the opportunity to try. I was always given the chance at that next job, the chance to show that I could do it and I could take it on. I had a huge champion in my own father, who encouraged me without ever undermining my authority.
So I had it easier, I think, because I had that champion. I had that mentor who wanted to make me a success and wanted to give me those opportunities, and then it was my own passion, excitement, and capability that let me step up, take on those responsibilities, and be successful at them.
My question would be, how can we get companies to give those opportunities to women? Shall we ask them to self-declare diversity goals? Are there regulations we should consider at the board level, for instance? Certainly we've seen that in other pockets in the world, where regulations have been set to enforce certain levels of diversity and female representation on boards.
But the first step is really—
There was a time when my organization had funding at both the federal and provincial levels. Through that we were able to connect directly with communities. We have that capacity. We work directly with centres and, therefore, we have staff and connections with parents.
Through that we were able to create networks across our province, and I know that other organizations were doing similar work. That's the only way we can have a really close connection with families, to know what their needs are and where the gaps are, and to go beyond just the people who have access. We know that 80% of families don't have access to a space. How do we start having those conversations and being able to be a voice for them?
We don't have federal or provincial funding any more. Our members invest in our organization because they are child care centres and they need that collective voice. If we lose capacity and we aren't able to speak on behalf of those centres, no one will be hearing about child cares closing.
In Ontario we're going through a child care crisis right now. We are seeing centres close. I got a call today about a very high-quality centre in Belleville that represents about 100 families and that will be closing. That would never end up in a paper unless a parent called me, and called my co-worker, and we started trying to build some capacity around that.
The other thing is that there is no support for those families when that child care closes. Unless there is support out there to build awareness about what happens when a centre closes, what happens to those staff, what happens to those families and that community when there is no longer that hub? I think without organizations to speak up and do the work, it's frightening what the future of women will be.
It's very difficult for us to get families out when we have media events and so on. Parents are working. Parents are running from job to job, from event to event with their kids. They can't constantly be demanding more child care. They need people to represent them.
So that's what I do. I speak to parents when they have the time.