It’s crystal clear by now that the pandemic and its economic shocks have not impacted all Canadians equally. Women, and in particular, women of colour have been on the frontlines of the crisis, representing 82 percent of healthcare workers. They’ve also experienced the most job losses, and will continue to feel the economic repercussions more intensely — in May, for instance, women’s employment in Canada grew at less than half the rate that men’s employment did.

Young women, too, are disproportionately impacted. Youth are experiencing a record-high unemployment rate (40.3 percent for returning students and 25.1 percent for non-student youth in May) due to COVID-19 shutdowns, and their prospects for career growth are deeply altered. Young women in particular are most likely to experience some of the most tragic societal side-effects of the virus, like increased rates of domestic violence. 

As the country begins to reopen and turn its sights toward recovery, we asked eight women leading social impact organizations for their bold visions — how might Canada’s pandemic recovery be the world’s most equitable recovery? 

Shingai Manjengwa

CEO, Fireside Analytics Inc. 

Manjengwa has spent the pandemic advocating for fair and ethical data collection, and says this approach must be part of any equitable recovery efforts, too. 

“The Canadian social impact sector can make pandemic recovery more equitable in two ways: be champions of data-driven policy and interventions, and set an example for the active inclusion of minority groups in data collection and decision-making during this unprecedented time.

Communities that were disadvantaged or marginalized before the COVID-19 pandemic are likely more adversely affected now, and as we look toward economic recovery. Gig work became gig work in lockdown and poor housing became poor housing in lockdown. Most evidence for this assertion has come out of the UK and the US where data on race and gender are well documented. Take race for example, in Michigan, African Americans are only 14 percent of the population but account for 40 percent of deaths from COVID-19. Canada, so far, has not reported on race data in relation to health outcomes and the economic impact of COVID-19. How can we improve on impact areas we are not measuring? 

In addition to being invisible in the reporting, members of communities in need still find themselves grossly underrepresented in decisions about their lives and livelihoods. A well-meaning homogenous group comprising one community can fulfill its social impact mission more equitably by forming meaningful partnerships with leaders and experts from the very communities where social impact is intended. And if you believe in statistical distributions, then yes, leaders and experts can be found in all communities, even the disadvantaged or marginalized ones. Canada will recover, [but] to do so equitably will require inclusive data measurement and equal representation at the table.”

Maya Roy

CEO, YWCA Canada 

Throughout the pandemic, Roy and the YWCA team have been working to call attention to the gendered impacts of the crisis — and to advocate for a feminist governmental response. 

“If we want to unlock prosperity and ensure an equitable recovery, we need to put women workers at the forefront. There are so many ways to do that, but one concrete step is making child care affordable, accessible and high quality. That means ensuring Canada implements the OECD benchmark of 1 percent of our country’s GDP directed towards early learning and child care. This is good for children, parents and workers. Child care is not only vital for re-starting the economy by enabling parents’ participation in the workforce but fosters good jobs and healthy childhoods. Not investing in child care in this hour of need threatens to shutter the child care sector permanently. It also risks reversing all the gains we’ve made towards gender equality over the last number of decades.”

Bailey Greenspon

Acting CEO, G(irls)20

G(irls)20 has been focused since March on helping women leaders navigate the crisis, including a webinar for women on boards on governing through times of crisis. Greenspon says that in order to ensure an equitable recovery, Canada needs more young women in positions of leadership.

“Thanks to the advocacy by feminists, policy-makers now understand the unique crisis of a she-cession. At G(irls)20, when we looked at early unemployment numbers, we learned that young women (16-24) took the greatest hit in the economic shutdown. Prior to the crisis, young women were overwhelmingly employed in retail and accommodations/food services – some of the jobs that will be the last to return to full employment. 

Without intervention, this trend could send Canada backwards on our push for gender equality in the economy. We need advocates for young women at decision-making tables to ensure that their unique experiences are not left off the table. As we strike economic recovery committees and working groups, let’s ensure young women are included as an equal partner, by holding non-token positions for women under 25, ensuring young women are not left behind.”

Pamela Uppal

Project Lead, A Decent Work Approach: Women’s work in the nonprofit sector, Ontario Nonprofit Network

The Ontario Nonprofit Network has been focused on capturing the hardships faced by charities and non-profits during the pandemic, and supporting these organizations with resources. Uppal says the most important way the sector can enable an equitable recovery is to prioritize decent work for its majority women — including women of colour and women with disabilities — workforce. 

“The non-profit sector is in a unique situation. 80 percent of its workforce across Ontario and Canada consists of women workers and many of these women workers are immigrants, Black, Indigenous or women with disabilities. These workers are caring for communities as care work makes up a large portion of our sector. We are now seeing that it is essential for the economy and communities to function. In the future of work, care work is the least likely to be automated or displaced by Artificial Intelligence and care jobs are the fastest growing. However, non-profit jobs are often not decent work jobs, with lower wages and less value.

Pandemic recovery planning is an opportunity to reimagine and build a path to the future of work where we are not reproducing the same sector inequities of the past. This is a time to raise the floor for workers to thrive. So, what does this look like? Living wages, benefits including pensions, paid sick days, the right to refuse unsafe work, stable employment opportunities, and adequate social safety nets (e.g., Employment Insurance), to name a few.

Centring decent work in recovery planning will ensure the sector can recruit and retain a workforce to better serve on the frontlines of the crisis, economic downturns, and beyond. Without this lens, the non-profit sector will lose a critical opportunity to reshape our sector’s workforce and fully support the communities that rely on us.”

Danielle Graham

Founder and Principal, Sandpiper Ventures 

Sandpiper Ventures launched in the midst of the pandemic, in late May, with a mission to invest in and support women entrepreneurs, and a focus on intersectionality. Graham says the social impact sector should also prioritize diversity and inclusion, and that there should be more oversight on this, too. 

“Invest in underrepresented founders. Be intentionally inclusive. Pave new pathways.

The government should develop benchmarks for greater accountability, to enable monitoring of social impact agencies and institutions for diversity and inclusion among their staff. The process of including methods and metrics to ensure inclusion could result in a balanced approach between influencing existing, broken practices and structures — and driving the more radical breakdown and creation of new, more effective, and more fair ones.”

Kayla Isabelle

Executive Director, Startup Canada

Startup Canada supports, as its name suggests, startups — which are some of the hardest hit organizations by the pandemic, so the organization has provided resources and tools for navigating the crisis. For an equitable recovery, Isabelle suggests funding targeted at those companies most impacted (including those run by marginalized people and women) and that are best positioned to contribute to recovery efforts. 

“It would be interesting to look at businesses according to their losses during the pandemic and their relative importance for the country’s economic recovery, with a core focus on social impact. Creating a system that prioritizes those that have been heavily impacted by COVID-19, including women and marginalized groups, and who can also play a key role in recovery, could be an important support mechanism to stabilize small businesses. 

Providing grants and long-term loans in alignment with this system [of prioritizing businesses run by marginalized groups that could also contribute to recovery efforts] could both stabilize organizations that have been severely impacted, and also incentivize those looking to make a more significant social impact. This could be assessed through a matrix of criteria, and implemented nationally (as opposed to a case by case basis that potentially favours particular groups). This would include a tiered system of implementation, with relative levels of financial support being issued at various tiers, aligning directly to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. By rewarding and recognizing these organizations, we can make a symbolic and tangible gesture of our collective support of equitable social impact being a priority as a nation.”

Paulette Senior 

President and CEO, Canadian Women’s Foundation 

The Canadian Women’s Foundation has zeroed in on mitigating some of the worst impacts of the pandemic on women, including by launching a campaign to reach those experiencing domestic violence through video calls. Senior says recovery efforts should resist a return to ‘normal,’ and focus on policies that will enable true, intersectional gender equity. 

“We need to approach the recovery with an intersectional gendered lens and push for decision-makers to do the same. We have to address how the pandemic impacts people differently and prioritize gender equity moving forward.   

For example, in our recent survey, only 27 percent of women, trans, Two Spirit, and non-binary respondents reported being paid equally to their peers. That number goes down to only 16 per cent for respondents with a physical disability, and 23 per cent for those with another type of disability. In this pandemic context with even worsened social inequalities, our concern is that measures will get even worse and progress toward a gender equal Canada will stall.

We have the opportunity to not go “back to normal” — normal wasn’t working for everyone. We need to invest in a new normal of living wages and equal pay, of affordable child care and housing, of safety and freedom from violence and discrimination. This is not a one-size-fits-all recovery approach. It’s really a commitment to a gender equal future, because when women thrive, everyone thrives.”

Holly McLellan

Executive Director, Youth and Philanthropy Initiative

In response to COVID-19, Youth and Philanthropy Initiative digitized much of its programming and implemented more flexible funding for grantees. McLellan has a strong message for the philanthropic and social impact world: let Black and Indigenous perspectives guide recovery.

“Canada’s social impact sector must listen to and act on, and in accordance with, the many existing calls to action and demands for equity and justice from BIPOC leaders and organizations (e.g. #REJPFS, TRC Calls to Action). These include centring, funding, and working in loud, active solidarity with the movements for Black liberation and Indigenous sovereignty – as a prerequisite to social impact work. 

Alongside this, the settler-created philanthropic and social impact sector needs the humility and honesty to deeply ask ourselves: equity in what? Whose vision for the future is being valued and worked towards? Whose is being silenced? The COVID-19 crisis has been both a symptom, and an unveiling, of the injustices that founded and maintain the status quo of inequality, violence, and environmental destruction. Dr. Ibram X Kendi talks about the connection between racism and extractive capitalism, that they cannot be separated. Data tells us that land ownership (and who decides how it is used) is the biggest driver of wealth disparity and inequality. Equity in the status quo doesn’t go far enough. We need transformation, and we will need more people, organizations, and networks in Canada’s social impact sector to lead from behind, and join together in imagining, demanding, and creating a just future that is centred on and powered by Black and Indigenous perspectives and leadership.”

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