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Results: 1 - 8 of 8
View Lindsay Mathyssen Profile
NDP (ON)
Yes, unfortunately, and it was mentioned, as well, that when those leaders come out and are racist, it gives permission almost. I've certainly heard that. My office has heard that, unfortunately. We are trying to report that as much as possible. I think it was stated by my leader that hate is like a fire. If you don't extinguish it quickly, it does spread far too quickly.
I want to expand on some of those pieces of legislation that we were talking about before and that you just mentioned. One of the things that we often hear about, too, is the Employment Equity Act. We know that women are still paid a great deal less, but it's even more so when you are a racialized woman. Could you talk about the strengthening of the federal Employment Equity Act and attaching equity measures to all federal investments and recovery programs that we're seeing coming out of COVID to ensure that racialized groups and other under-represented groups have that equality and access to employment, as well as to those resources?
Samya Hasan
View Samya Hasan Profile
Samya Hasan
2021-06-17 12:32
Thank you for that question, MP Mathyssen.
That is very much connected to the anti-racism efforts that we really need to step up on. On employment equity, as you know, during the pandemic we've seen racialized communities being disproportionately impacted by COVID, partly as a result of their being overrepresented in front-line precarious labour. CASSA did a study over the last three years on South Asian immigrants in Toronto and their trying to secure decent employment. One thing we found was that despite having amazing credentials, having a great education either from here or from back home, they're still struggling to secure decent employment. I'm talking about even something that is above minimum wage, so it's very difficult.
You are right about the gendered aspect of employment equity. Women face even more barriers, especially women who have language barriers, women who are not as fluent in English or who are at home for a long time to take care of household responsibilities and then want to go back into the workforce. There are not a lot of training opportunities for women who have scheduling conflicts. There are a lot of barriers that racialized women face. I think that should be an important part of the employment equity legislation, and there's also working with the province on employment equity legislation.
We know that at the federal level it will only cover a certain portion of the Canadian public. It won't cover all of the population. Work with the provinces as well to push for employment equity legislation on that front.
Traci Anderson
View Traci Anderson Profile
Traci Anderson
2021-04-27 11:55
Yes, for new immigrants, indigenous communities and women in those communities, I think it's very challenging. Again, I think back to the lack of opportunities and being defined in those traditional roles.
Aside from our platform around child care and Internet, I feel that there need to be better opportunities for those women, such as jobs, connections to culture and just opportunities to connect into communities. I think of a project that we're doing locally here where we're providing recreational activities for youth, children and their moms who identify as immigrants in Canada.
I don't know, Shealah, if you would want to touch on that.
Shealah Hart
View Shealah Hart Profile
Shealah Hart
2021-04-27 11:56
Sure, Traci.
I believe, of course, that we look at someone's identity and we start looking at the intersections, and that of course things like race and language present barriers for families. Whether they're indigenous folks or immigrants or they belong to a racialized population, we see even more struggles for those people than we do for the people who don't have those identities.
I think that in rural communities sometimes those people are further marginalized than they would be in urban centres. I think there's sometimes more wariness about new people coming into the community. Sometimes it's difficult to fit in or to be accepted when people seem so different from you. I think we definitely see more struggles when it comes to those populations, and we need to work hard to ensure that people who belong to those groups have the same opportunities that others in our rural communities have available to them.
As well, I think we need to pay special attention when we're considering the opportunities we're creating in our rural communities to make sure that they are fitting with the needs of unique families with unique circumstances and backgrounds, not only in recognizing their uniqueness as a wonderful thing, but in looking at those families and those individuals and saying, “Hey, we're going to help you, and what can you do to help us?” How can they both benefit so that they have a great learning exchange there, with everyone benefiting, growing and taking something incredible away from the opportunities that their partnerships are able to create?
View Sonia Sidhu Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for being here.
I know that Punjabi Community Health Services is providing important services to Bramptonians. Thank you for that.
I would like to direct my question to Ms. Dhillon.
Ms. Dhillon, we live in the same community. We see the impact of the pandemic every day in Brampton. We have heard in this committee how racialized communities have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. How can we ensure that they have access to health services and are supported as we recover economically?
Puneet Dhillon
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Puneet Dhillon
2021-04-27 12:46
Thank you, Ms. Sidhu. This is a very important and much-needed question at this time. I'll try to answer it to the best of my capacities.
First, what I see as the solution to the problem that we Torontonians are all facing is that one barrier to accessing the services could be a lack of awareness about the resources that are present.
Another important barrier is lack of knowledge of the language, because most South Asian women who are homebound and are working at home and do not have access to any of those language instruction classes have very big barriers. Being a South Asian woman myself, I have also met many others who do not even know how to navigate with a GPS, how to connect to these resources, or even how to make a phone call, so language has become a huge barrier.
A third barrier, which has come since COVID-19, is mobility, because when we come here as immigrants, the major problem is that there is always a barrier to mobility, both from a financial point of view and physically. Sometimes South Asian women, especially Punjabi women, who want to go from here to there have to depend on their male counterparts in the family. They have to wait for them to come home from work and then for them to take them somewhere. This is one of the problems. I think awareness and education about all the resources available are the key. More connection between the community service organizations and the communities and a more diverse touch to these types of services will help us remove at least some of these barriers. This is my belief.
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I thank the witnesses for being with us today to talk about the realities of women in our country, and specifically the experience of immigrant women and the different realities they face depending on whether they are settling in a rural or urban setting.
First, I would like to hear more about invisible work. As we know, invisible work is already disproportionately taken on by women. All three of you have addressed this issue in your own way.
Ms. Chouakri, can you tell us in what ways this reality manifests itself more for immigrant and racialized women?
Yasmina Chouakri
View Yasmina Chouakri Profile
Yasmina Chouakri
2021-04-27 12:54
As I said, they share the same problems as all women in terms of invisible work, that is, all of the domestic tasks, and child care or care for a dependent relative; however, all of the barriers they face increase this invisible work and the mental burden that comes with it. This is especially true for newcomers, women who have been in the country for less than five years. For them, there is also the obligation to understand the functioning of the host society, the labour market, the francization system or the education system, for example, if they want to return to school. They have to deal with all of this, while they have lost the traditional support network they had in their country of origin. Often the traditional networks are based on an extended family model or a larger family structure, where raising children is not the responsibility of one couple, but of the whole family. They have lost all that and have not had time to rebuild a new support network. They don't necessarily know the networks that are in place, either.
At the Réseau d'action pour l'égalité des femmes immigrées et racisées du Québec, the organization I work for, we conducted an investigation about the impact of the pandemic on immigrant women.
In the first instance, several immigrant women reported that they found it extremely difficult and burdensome to cope with the family overload of caring for children and schooling at home, especially during the total lockdown. These women were in great need of respite and support from the school system, child care, homework help, and so on. They were not necessarily prepared to live with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.
I would like to highlight another of the most important findings that came out of our survey. This was briefly discussed earlier. In fact, many immigrant women who are not fluent in the host country's language told the stakeholders we interviewed that they do not have access to information about resources available in their language. Thus, the only information they can get is from a family member, which does not guarantee access to the right information. Many of these women therefore made a joint request. Since these women often have not yet had the opportunity to learn the language of the host country, they would like to have access to information in languages other than French and English about the range of resources that are available to them, whether it is government assistance or resources that are available to them if they are ever abused, for example.
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