FEWO Committee Report

LIBERAL PARTY OF CANADA DISSENTING REPORT:

THE ECONOMIC LEADERSHIP AND PROSPERITY OF CANADIAN WOMEN

Kirsty Duncan, Member of Parliament for Etobicoke North

INTRODUCTION

Committee reports have changed since I first came to Parliament.

Committee members used to ask probing questions to draw out recommendations from witnesses, and reports used to provide real direction to the Government.

Committees have recently been delivering what I call “let’s consider” or “let’s think about” reports, which protect the status quo. No real direction is given to the Government.

With respect to this particular study, it became very clear that the Government was interested in implementing (1) a mentorship program, as in fact, three of eight recommendations (38 percent) deal with this issue; and (2) a “comply or explain” approach for increasing women’s representation on corporate boards.  A comply or explain approach is one where a government would establish diversity goals, with which listed companies should comply, or explain publicly why they have not complied.

Issues which interest the Government are found at the front of the report, while long-standing issues like child care (a subject matter that has been an issue for over four decades in our country), pay equity (a subject matter that has been an issue for 100 years in our country), and poverty are buried at the end of the report. For these core issues, there are no recommendations.

Despite this glaring omission, the Government’s own submission to the 20-year review on implementing the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action did recognize the outstanding challenges of pay equity, and the fact that poverty remains an issue among Aboriginal women, immigrant women, senior women, and women with disabilities.

REPORT’S RECOMMENDATIONS

Like other reports before it, this report uses words like “consider focusing on”, “consider developing”, “continue building”, and “promote” and “focus”. What specific action will come from recommendations that resort to such language?

Let me now address in turn the specifics of each of the eight recommendations:

Recommendation 1 is to “support evidence-based programming to promote women’s increased participation in the labour force”. I would hope all our programming is based on evidence, and I find it more than disappointing that a recommendation is limited in its effect to ‘promoting’ an increase rather than to directly ‘increasing’.

Recommendation 2:  Over and over, we heard that Canadian women entrepreneurs could not access capital, and that they were looking for real solutions to this problem. However, Recommendation 2 is for the Government to “consider focusing on programs to encourage female entrepreneurs to access capital”. They do not need to be encouraged; they need real programs to access real capital.

Recommendation 3 focuses on “comply or explain.” Yet, as of October 14, 2014, seven provinces and two territories had already signed onto new rules that will require listed companies to report annually on their approach to adding more women to their boards of directors and to senior management. This Recommendation seems more than redundant.

Recommendation 4 is to promote mentorship, Recommendation 5 is to “consider developing a national mentorship campaign”, and Recommendation 6 is to “focus on increasing mentorship support for women”. The questions that beg to be asked are how, by whom, and by when?

Recommendation 7 is to improve foreign and interprovincial credential recognition. This step is urgently needed, but no details are given with respect to goals, process, or timelines.

Recommendation 8 is to set timelines for the recognition of international and interprovincial credentials. Why not identify the challenges by sector, set goals, and take action, rather than set timelines?

WHAT WITNESSES ASKED FOR.

There is a real gap between what witnesses asked for, and what is found in the report’s recommendations.

Let me provide three specific examples of the gap between testimony and the lack of recommendations—namely, for childcare, pay equity, and unpaid work.

Childcare

Over ten witnesses talked about the need for affordable, quality childcare, and six pages of the report are devoted to childcare, yet there is not one recommendation to be found in the report.

This is particularly troubling. With 75 percent of Canadian mothers in the workforce, childcare is a necessity for countless families, many of whom are forced to spend close to $20,000.00 a year, and who are stretched to their maximum.

Moreover, the evidence clearly shows that the status quo is not working. In 2006, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) showed that Canada had the lowest share of public expenditure on early childhood education services (0.25 percent of GDP) among comparable countries. In 2008, the United Nations Children's Fund ranked Canada last out of 25 affluent countries on early childhood education and child care; our country achieved only one of 10 benchmarks for access, financing, and quality. In 2010 there were regulated child care spaces for only 21.8 percent of Canada's children under six years of age.

Early childhood development specialists, and economists recognize that access to quality child care is fundamental to Canada’s prosperity. They very much understand that investing in the early years is first and foremost about investing in our children’s emotional, intellectual, physical, and social well-being, but also about ensuring that Canada remains competitive with other modern economies. Only our government does not seem to understand this.

The Government might also consider flexible work hours and location, and collaborative workplaces. Telecommuting is also efficient for many people these days.

Pay Equity

Over ten witnesses talked about the need to close the gender pay gap, yet there is not one recommendation to be found in the report.

According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), Canada ranks 19th among 142 countries regarding the gender gap;  42nd in female parliamentary representation and a shocking 100th on health and survival.

According to the same WEF 2014 report, Canada scores 17th on economic participation and opportunity, 25th on labour force participation, and 27th on wage equality for similar work.

Women have been fighting for pay equity for one-hundred years in Canada, yet the gap in income between men and women in Canada still remains at 19 percent. A 2005 Royal Bank of Canada report estimated the lost income potential of women in Canada due to the wage gap at about $126 billion a year.

The reality is that the gender wage gap does have an impact on families at the micro level and the economy at the macro scale. Addressing the gap must be an economic imperative.

Unpaid Work

Three pages of testimony are devoted to unpaid work, yet there is not one recommendation to be found in the report.

A staggering two-thirds of the 25 billion hours of unpaid work Canadians perform every year is undertaken by women, and is estimated to be valued at up to $319 billion in the money economy or 41 percent of GDP.

In 2009, almost sixty percent of women, or over eight million women in Canada were employed in the labour market. After finishing work, both women and men face a “second shift” when they return home, undertaking such responsibilities as caring for children, cleaning, home maintenance/management, meal preparation, and unpaid help to other households.

But a 2011 study for the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development reported that Canadian women spend “a lot more hours working than women in other prosperous countries do, piling housework on top of paid work”; in fact, women in Canada spent 248 minutes per day in unpaid work, whereas men spent 146.

The lack of pay for much of women's work has a direct impact on their economic security, and even on their health. When women spend their time on unpaid work, they cannot undertake paid work, and as a result, their earning potential decreases considerably.

Moreover, women are often forced to fit in paid work around their responsibilities; the struggle leads to increasingly stressful lives. One Canadian study showed that almost forty percent of working mothers are severely time-stressed, averaging 74 hours of paid and unpaid work each week; single mothers are particularly impacted, as they do not have a partner who can contribute time..

I think it is important to point out that in the summer of 2010, the Government eliminated the mandatory census, and later replaced it with the voluntary National Household Survey (NHS). Question 33, which gathered data on the time spent on unpaid work, was cut from the NHS, despite Canada’s commitments at the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing.

How will we know how women are faring economically and socially, and how far they have come, or how far they have yet to go; and why we are paying more money to receive less information?

CONCLUSION

This Committee study had the potential to make a real difference to Canadian families, and to our economy in identifying obstacles to women’s economic prosperity and offering solutions.

Unfortunately, the Government largely focused on asking questions that would advance their less-than-hidden agenda of putting in place a mentorship program, and implementing the “comply or explain” approach for increasing women’s participation on corporate boards, both of which are admirable but will not address other more structural issues.  

What Canadian families need is the basics addressed: women must earn the same as men for equal work, they should have access to affordable, quality childcare, and women’s unpaid work should be tracked and recognized.