When the Coronavirus began hitting North America earlier this year, there was some talk of it being “the great equalizer,” since supposedly everyone was equally susceptible, regardless of factors like age, race, or socioeconomic status.

In the weeks that have followed, it’s become clear that’s simply not true. 

Maya Roy is the CEO of YWCA Canada, which operates 32 service centres across the country and has in many ways been on the frontlines of the pandemic, as an organization providing services like shelters and affordable housing. 

And as the head of a frontline service provider, Roy has an intimate perspective on how vulnerable communities are being impacted. “It’s the most marginalized community groups that are being hit the hardest,” she says, such as those experiencing homelessness or the disproportionate number of women and people of colour who work in frontline professions. 

When the Coronavirus began hitting North America earlier this year, there was some talk of it being “the great equalizer,” since supposedly everyone was equally susceptible, regardless of factors like age, race, or socioeconomic status. In the weeks that have followed, it’s become clear that’s simply not true. 

COVID-19 is bringing into sharper focus many of the gaps in support for these communities — whether that means gaps in who has access to short-term, emergency support or the more systemic inequities that existed long before the pandemic began. 

That’s why Roy and the YWCA are calling on all levels of Canadian government to implement an intersectional feminist response to COVID-19. Intersectional feminism recognizes systems that put some populations — people of colour, women, people with disabilities, for instance — at a disadvantage, socially or economically. Roy says that in order to rebuild our communities to be stronger, more inclusive, and more resilient after the crisis is over, policies must be designed with the people at the margins in mind. She says there are four key actions to make this response a reality. 

Collect race and socio-demographic data 

In the US, early research shows that Black Americans make up almost a third of all COVID-19 cases, though they make up just 13 percent of the population. Their higher representation in frontline work, and their higher rates of underlying medical conditions account for the disparity. 

Here in Canada, the City of Toronto recently announced it would begin collecting race-based data on Coronavirus cases, but the federal government has “no plans” to collect this kind of data, which could tell us definitively whether similar disparities exist here as in the US. No province has announced plans to do so either. 

Roy says even without this data, there are clear disparities. For instance, Roy says that YWCA community members who live in shelters, partially because of their lack of consistent access to affordable, healthy food, “tend to have preexisting conditions like asthma or diabetes that make them more susceptible to COVID.”

Collecting data that can show these kinds of gaps is “really, really urgent,” Roy continues. “It’s so simple, because we already do it for other diseases… we already do it here in Canada for HIV. We’re already seeing that people of colour are being disproportionately impacted, but we can’t manage what we don’t know, and we can’t manage what we can’t measure.” 

Roy added that race and socio-demographic data is important to collect regardless of the pandemic, in order to make healthcare more equitable and to better understand the social determinants of health throughout Canadian communities. YWCA Canada is part of a coalition of organizations calling on the Ontario government to begin collecting disaggregated data. 

YWCA Canada is part of a coalition of organizations calling on the Ontario government to begin collecting disaggregated data.

“In Ontario, key priority populations including Indigenous people, Black people, Francophone populations, 2S&LGBTQ+ communities, people living with disabilities and people who live in poverty do not have the same access as their counterparts to healthcare and resources that promote good health,” the letter reads. “Collecting race and socio-demographic data is an essential component of the work of eliminating inequalities in healthcare.”

Broaden social safety nets

Some Canadians are experiencing greater economic hardships than others, Roy says, and many are at higher risk of falling through social safety nets. Women represented 63 percent of jobs lost in the month of March, “and that’s because we know that women — particularly racialized women, newcomers, Indigenous women — were working temporary, part time jobs and jobs in retail, hospitality and food service,” she says. “They’ve been hit the hardest, as opposed to, say, IT or finance.” In some industries, including social services, women accounted for almost 100 percent of jobs lost. 

While the federal government has announced a suite of supports for those struggling financially due to shutdowns, some of the most vulnerable members of our communities won’t have access to them. 

For instance, Roy says, newcomer women who do sex work — who, like many others, put their health at risk if they continue to work and risk their livelihood if they don’t — won’t have access to any employment insurance or the CERB benefit to help them recover from the economic impacts of the crisis. To add to their vulnerability, many of these newcomer women who work in massage parlours and who are “perceived as Asian, they’re being assaulted and being told that they’re the cause of the virus.”

One encouraging development on the social safety net front, Roy says, is that in March, Ontario waived the three month waiting period for newcomers to access OHIP — a gap Roy had already been working to close pre-pandemic, and another way COVID-19 is proving what’s possible and needed for better supporting vulnerable populations. “Many of us had spent years working on the issue,” she says, “but somebody showed the Ontario government the right graph” and it suddenly became possible. 

Address housing insecurity 

Physical distancing is impossible for many Canadians who don’t have access to housing — disproportionately, newcomers, refugees and Indigenous people. Those who live on the street can’t take shelter and isolate themselves, and homeless shelters are often overcrowded to begin with. “Our service users have been amazing,” Roy says, “They’re helping my colleagues move cots to be two metres apart to physically distance, but if your shelter conditions are already overcrowded because of the affordable housing crisis, asking homeless community members to physically distance [is unrealistic].”

Before the pandemic hit, a big part of Roy’s work was travelling to the 32 YWCA service centres and speaking with community members — and affordable housing was the number one concern. “If there’s one thing that I hear in every single community, it doesn’t matter if I’m in Saint John, New Brunswick or Iqaluit, Nunavut or Vancouver — people just look at me and say: affordable housing,” she says. “We need to build more affordable housing and we need more cooperative housing. We need more multifamily housing units. And we can’t simply rely on the market to provide that for us.”

The lack of affordable housing was already a crisis pre-pandemic, Roy says, and the Coronavirus is a clear example of the risks people who are homeless face when they’re not given access to affordable housing. 

Value essential workers more highly 

Women are on the frontlines of the COVID-19 crisis. According to the YWCA, they represent 90 percent of nurses, 75 percent of respiratory therapists, 80 percent of those working in medical labs, and 90 percent of personal support workers — and many of these women are not protected from the virus because of shortages of personal protective equipment. Women also make up the majority of non-profit social service workers. “When the majority of non-profit workers are women and racialized, for them to not have personal protective equipment really severely impacts them,” Roy says. 

Women are on the frontlines of the COVID-19 crisis. According to the YWCA, they represent 90 percent of nurses, 75 percent of respiratory therapists, 80 percent of those working in medical labs, and 90 percent of personal support workers

The crisis has also brought to light which professions are essential to a functioning community: grocery store workers and delivery drivers are some of the most prominent examples proving essential and yet are underpaid. 

This is another problem that needs fixing regardless of the Coronavirus crisis, Roy says. “We need to give [essential workers] danger pay, hazard pay, but we also just need to raise their wages,” she  says. “If you’re working in a grocery store or in a long-term care home or a shelter, you shouldn’t be paid $12 an hour, but somehow as a society we’ve decided that these jobs are only worth this much. We’re trying to get more funding, and already many of the YWCAs across Canada have increased pay rates.”

Roy places the onus mostly on provincial governments to value care and essential work more highly, but calls on Canadian social impact organizations to think critically about how they’re handling the crisis as well: “If you’re a decision maker in a charity” or a non-profit organization, she says, “look at the women, look at the people of colour in your own workforce and look at your service users. Sometimes when we’re doing layoffs, for example, we don’t realize, but we tend to lay off the jobs that impact women and people of colour the most, or we stop the programs that impact women of colour the most.” 

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