Evidence of meeting #55 for Status of Women in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was fields.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
Thank you.
Natalie and Rim from Carleton, maybe I missed it, but how long has Carleton University's Women in Science and Engineering been around? It's such a great initiative.
11:45 a.m.
Engineering Co-Chair, Carleton University Women in Science and Engineering
It was around for many years, but in 2007 it was re-formed, and since then it's been going really strong.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
11:45 a.m.
Engineering Co-Chair, Carleton University Women in Science and Engineering
We're supported by the deans of science and the dean of engineering at Carleton.
11:45 a.m.
Science Co-Chair, Carleton University Women in Science and Engineering
We're very generously funded.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
It's nice you added that.
You were talking about your conference fund. Does that conference fund pay for girls attending Carleton to attend these conferences? Is that what it's for?
11:45 a.m.
Engineering Co-Chair, Carleton University Women in Science and Engineering
Yes. There are some women-specific conferences. There's women in Ontario, ONWiE; the Ontario women in computing conference; as well as a WISE national conference. There's a Grace Hopper conference for women in computing.
That money can be used for those conferences, or for someone like me, who is an environmental engineer, I can apply to the conference fund and get awarded a certain amount of money to help recover the cost to present at a conference.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
That's great. It sounds like you guys are doing a really good job.
11:45 a.m.
Science Co-Chair, Carleton University Women in Science and Engineering
We do make them write a blog, though. We make them work.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
You're doing a good job.
You had talked a few times about the young girls. I don't know if you said grade 4 or four years old...
11:45 a.m.
A voice
Grade 4.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
It was grade 4. How do they know about you? How do you get those girls involved?
11:45 a.m.
Engineering Co-Chair, Carleton University Women in Science and Engineering
For grades 4 to 8 there's a Girl Guides badge day. We send out information through Girl Guides Canada. From grades 7 to 9 we have our Go ENG Girl program, and that is sent out through the schools. They'll get information about that all across Ontario.
We created a list of all the schools and guidance counsellors in the area and we email them our high school programs.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
That's a lot cheaper. High school is more community oriented, but for grades 7 to 9 you send them out all across Ontario.
11:45 a.m.
Engineering Co-Chair, Carleton University Women in Science and Engineering
Yes, Go ENG Girl is a program that's hosted at different universities across Ontario, so we combine forces for that one. We're really pulling in girls from the Ottawa area, but other universities will pull from different areas.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
Okay, that's great.
You also mentioned a few, and you do a lot of different promotions to get girls interested in STEM. Do you have a favourite or one that's worked better than another?
11:45 a.m.
Science Co-Chair, Carleton University Women in Science and Engineering
I am partial, because it's my program. Our program is Discover WISE women in research. The TED Talks give a glimpse of the research, and as a researcher I can really appreciate that, but it also gives a glimpse that you are multidimensional. You can't be defined by one characteristic. For example, Natalie gave a talk about...I think it's poop water that she works with, but apparently it's engineering. She gave a talk about that, but she also gave a talk about gardening and the mix between gardening and....
I think that kind of diversity is so important, so the girls don't feel they're in a niche and that they have to look a certain way, or be a certain way to be accepted. That's one of my favourite programs because it highlights that diversity and it also gives the girls a platform to speak about their struggles.
It's also the youth worker in me. I need to be on the floor. We chat them up and we talk with the teachers and try to provide resources for the teachers and the guidance counsellors to help them. We get a lot of emails that say, "Okay, we're talking about water sustainability, do you have any good resources for me?” We will give that to them.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
Are these girls at Carleton, or are these some of the ones you are trying to attract from outside?
11:50 a.m.
Science Co-Chair, Carleton University Women in Science and Engineering
We invite these girls to Carleton. We send an email to all the high schools in the Ottawa and greater Ottawa catchment area and we invite them to Carleton, along with their teachers and guidance counsellors.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
Okay, do you have one—
Sorry, am I finished?
Thank you.
11:50 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc
Thank you very much.
Ms. Freeman, you now have the floor for seven minutes.
11:50 a.m.
NDP
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Thank you, Chair.
Kate McInturff, from the CCPA, you talked about how women earn 65¢ on the dollar in STEM employment. That's a really scary number, given that this is even below the rather large pay gap that we have generally.
What is the state of our understanding of this wage gap? What kind of data do we have, and where are the gaps for understanding where this inequality is coming from?
11:50 a.m.
Senior Researcher, National Office, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Thank you for the question.
The 65¢ is specifically for the oil and gas industry. As I mentioned with, say, construction or engineering, it's different but it is there and it is in the order of 20% to 30% less for those working full time, full year.
In terms of the data that we have, we have very good data on what people earn and we can break that down by occupation, and by using our National Household Survey data by age group and educational level. The data shows it is highly persistent and we see it in female-dominated and male-dominated industries. We see it between men and women in both those industries. We see it across the board. We see it in industries where men and women are relatively equally represented as in trade, where we have relatively equal numbers of men and women. We still see the wage gap.
A host of things are causal factors. One of the most well-documented reasons has to do with the perception by both men and women, both employers and employees, that the reality of women's unpaid work is going to make women less able to do the job that would come with a promotion, so what you see from day one as women are hired, as I think some of the other presenters pointed out, is that the employers are already putting them in less responsible positions, consequently lower-paid positions. I appreciate the lean-in argument, but the data shows that the wage gap is there the second you set foot in the workplace. Then it gets exacerbated. In particular it gets exacerbated by things like maternity leave, and again, this isn't just a matter of women leaning out. This is employers, often out of very good intentions, discounting a woman who has young children from opportunities and writing her off—not putting her into the competition, as it were.
The data is there. It's pretty clear. The good news is that we also have good data on solutions, and those are some of the things I mentioned earlier.
11:50 a.m.
NDP
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Great. Tuesday was budget day, 2015. There's a lot about manufacturing and a lot about science and technology.
How do you feel this year's budget will impact women in STEM specifically? Do you see it enhancing access to good STEM jobs for women?
11:50 a.m.
Senior Researcher, National Office, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
There were investments in higher education and research, which obviously, as a researcher, I'm going to think are a good idea. I think that I would just flag, for example, increased investment in the Canada excellence research chairs. This is a good thing. It's good to celebrate our researchers, but what we've seen with that program is that women not only do not receive those chairs but do not even get into the nomination process. It's not one or the other. It's not that we can invest in research and STEM, or we can have gender equality. I think we need both things. The issue is to both increase funding for higher education and for people in skilled trades, as this budget did, but I think we also need those proactive programs that are going to go in right now, today, and address the discrimination that's happening.
Attitude shift is crucial but it is generational. The reason I've harped so hard on the issue of the wage gap and discrimination in terms of hiring and pay is that those are behaviours we can fix right now. The attitudes are going to take longer. We've heard some excellent examples of the kinds of work that they're doing at Carleton to change attitudes. I love that they're going with parents and the guidance counsellors, the people who are influencing young people. But that is generational, so I think the other thing we need to do—and I would love to see more money in the budget for this—is really track where the gaps are, and then make sure we have carrots and sticks in place to ensure that, if you're identifying a gap in women's participation or graduation rates or completion rates, you are going in and doing something to change people's behaviour today.