THUNDER BAY - The federal government is touting its 2018 budget as being based on gender equality, and one of the first women to be elected to parliament in the region said Northwestern Ontario is starting to move in that direction, but it’s not quite there yet.
Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour, Patty Hajdu, met with local female leaders on Tuesday to discuss the 2018 budget and how it will benefit women in the workplace.
“I want to hear from them about where they want us to go next,” Hajdu said. “We have an ambitious agenda for the next 20 months or so and I want to make sure I understand how this budget will help them or what they would like to see as next steps.”
During the meeting, Hajdu said she wanted to discuss issues relating to pay equity, parental leave, transparency at the federal budget level, and how to support women in business.
One of the issues Hajdu said she has heard numerous times is access to affordable child care. She said after the birth of a first child, the gender wage gap becomes more and more noticeable.
Thunder Bay City councilor and local business owner, Shelby Ch’ng, said it’s important for employees to have a good work/life balance, but that can be challenging for some who have little or no access to child care services.
“If they don’t meet the thresholds for subsided daycare, it’s actually cheaper for them to stay home,” Ch’ng said. “I’m worried I’m losing some of my good employees to child care. I understand it, and I get it, I am doing everything I can to make my workplace accessible for moms.”
Hajdu acknowledged that there is more work that needs to be done to ensure that all women have the support to be engaged in the workforce, including access to childcare.
“Even though we’ve dedicated $7 billion in budget 2017 to supporting provinces with the child care framework, I think people still bring up child care as a regular barrier for women’s full participation,” she said. “It gives us something to reflect on as we move forward. How can we double down on our efforts to make sure women have affordable childcare in terms of their own professional success?”
The issue of women in politics was also discussed, and Hajdu said Northern Ontario is starting to see movement toward gender equality.
“I would hesitate to say we are there yet,” she said. “If you look at municipal politics, we still only have three women around the table in terms of our municipal politicians. Provincially we still see quite a gap in terms of women’s representation. Politically you can see a sense of how far we have to go.”
Ch’ng, one of the three women sitting at the Thunder Bay city council table, agrees that more can be done because for far too long it has been male-dominated. She said she would like to see more women to put their name on the ballot to have more representation from all areas of the city.
“It can be very intimidating when you are trying to do things in our community,” she said. “You see faces that don’t necessarily represent who you are, it can be defeating. But if we have other women who put their name forward on the ballot and are successful on city council, I think it will make city council accessible to people and break down some of the barriers we’ve been facing in Thunder Bay.”
