44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 31, 2022 10:00AM
- May/31/22 10:40:23 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague.
Women are still under‑represented in academic communities. This discrimination reinforces biases that are deeply rooted but that can be mitigated using active measures.
Instead of strengthening measures that eliminate the systemic barriers that women face, why does the hon. member want to maintain those barriers?
54 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/31/22 10:40:56 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question and her effort to speak French. It is wonderful.
Perhaps I was not clear.
Whenever my students did not understand something I had said, I would never tell them that they had misunderstood. I would say that I had misspoken.
I never said that we need to maintain the barriers that women face when trying to teach or do research. On the contrary, I want to break down these barriers. Women make up half of Quebec's population. There should be no barriers to entry for students, regardless of the type of barrier.
I have three daughters, and I do everything I can to make sure that they do not put any barriers in their way to do what they want to do in life. I work very hard on that. I raise my children to know that there are no barriers to their ambition, and I would like to see that everywhere.
163 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/31/22 11:27:44 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, the difference between women who have earned their places and women being appointed to their places is paramount. Women I have spoken to take offence at the fact that they have to be appointed in order to make it to a position rather than earning their place as they should, and they do. The difference is that we are jumping a couple of steps on that.
Eliminating barriers allows women or anyone with an ethnic diversity to get through that barrier in order to earn their own place on the podium. However, we jump that and say we know there are barriers but we are just going to appoint someone anyhow. We eliminate the systemic problems that exist in the first place. UBC, which appointed 60 positions, put out a target ad, meaning it posted a job for women only to apply. The problem when that is done and a quota is filled is that the next ad would say that only people with disabilities could apply and women are excluded. We cannot exclude them in order to get others ahead.
What we need to do is break the barriers down, to your point, so we have more women who want to enter politics who can and are able to then do it on their own merit, because we know—
223 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/31/22 11:33:21 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I am not going to take a lot of lessons from this leader, considering how the last leader of the Green Party was treated.
Some hon. members: By you.
Mr. Ryan Williams: At the end of the day, we have to look at breaking barriers down—
49 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/31/22 12:30:11 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I cannot imagine that my hon. colleague opposes the idea that Canada's research chairs should reflect the diversity of our country. However, I did not hear him spend any time in his remarks talking about the many barriers that indigenous people, people of colour, people living with disabilities and all of these groups face in Canadian society.
I would like to give him the opportunity to elaborate on the many systemic barriers faced by those groups in institutions like our Canada research chairs.
86 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/31/22 12:57:33 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Rivière-des-Mille-Îles for his question this afternoon.
In society today, we must recognize that there are obstacles or systemic barriers for people in advancing and receiving opportunities. We must continue to break down the barriers that certain communities face in Canada. At the same time, we must encourage diversity within our Canada research chairs. There are ways of doing that. We have identified ways to continue to diversify them while we continue to break down the systemic barriers that exist for particular communities that are marginalized here in Canada.
101 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/31/22 12:59:22 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
I will say this about the motion the Bloc Québécois brought forward: I agree with denouncing all forms of discrimination. We all agree on all sides of the House that we must always confront, denounce and condemn all forms of discrimination, whether it is anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or others, and the systemic barriers that exist, for example, against Black Canadians in this country. With that, we must continue to put in place programs that reflect and look at the way Canadian society is and where we are today, ensuring that people have opportunities to succeed and have opportunities to do groundbreaking and innovative research.
117 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/31/22 1:24:54 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I am wondering if the member could provide me with his idea of what systemic racism looks like and how we could address those barriers without concrete measures like this. This is a measure that the university administrators took upon themselves in order to take a concrete step toward ensuring more diversity and inclusion. They are going to see how it works. We should give them the space to do that work as autonomous institutions.
What does your understanding of systemic racism look like, and how do we address it without measures such as these?
97 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/31/22 5:22:48 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I listened to the speech by the member for Berthier—Maskinongé, and although we do agree on a lot of things, that is not the case today.
Does my colleague understand that he and I, as white men, do not face certain systemic barriers? If so, does he agree that more needs to be done to remove these systemic barriers?
64 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/31/22 5:56:06 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, respectfully, the point I would make on this is a bit more subtle. It is to say that there are barriers that people face that are not necessarily the result of the intention of somebody to discriminate. There may be issues of unconscious bias or there may be structural issues that lead to an effect of discrimination without there being an intent to discriminate, but my point is also that the solution to that problem is not saying we should slap a band-aid on and have quotas. My solution to that problem is saying we should do everything we can to understand what the root causes of those barriers are and try to remedy them. That is important not only for those who would otherwise benefit from a quota, but for everybody society-wide, if we could try to understand and confront those root causes.
148 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/31/22 6:08:55 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I will ask my colleague what he thinks would be a good solution.
He called this a band-aid solution. My fear is that if we do not set some type of goal, we will never really get there. I am a little skeptical about the idea that without requirements or criteria in place, all provinces would improve their institutions and make sure that people do not have barriers, because we have seen for so long that institutions and corporations do not necessarily take that initiative unless there is some reason to do so. I think this could be a motivating factor for them to do so.
What does the member have to say?
116 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
