Status of Women Committee on April 23rd, 2015

[Rim Khazall]

There's been a lot of research looking into that. The dean of science actually had a summer worker a couple of years ago look into it, and there are multiple factors that play into that. The fact is that research, especially in fields such as physics, computer science, and what have you, are not very tangible for women in their undergraduate years. Again, when we present these lectures to our undergrads, we aim to showcase that research can be an opportunity if they should deem it necessary or appropriate for their lifestyle.

It's kind of like, “I'm going to go and get a job”, and maybe that's why. A lot of times they're also factoring in the question, “Can I have a family?” They're not aware of things like NSERC, which has a couple of really great programs that are now being initiated with the science chairs. Also, if you have NSERC funding—and it's very hard, as well, to get funding—and if you do go into maternity leave, you can postpone it by a semester. So there are a few things that people are not very familiar with.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

That's really helpful. What recommendation would you like to make to the committee?

[Rim Khazall]

For that? Again, really, from our point of view—and this is extremely biased, as I am a graduate student—I would recommend funding opportunities, 100%. This is something that, when Natalie and I went to the gender summit in Washington back in 2013, I believe, was one of our main recommendations; and also directly to the NSERC committee. We said, “We need funding; let's work on that.”

Thank you.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Livengood, you talked about the hiring challenges and what happens when we're changing. I used that example last week. Are there other things that happen in hiring, for example, largely male panels, hiring within but advertising outside?

I'm really curious whether you have looked at pay equity.

[Danniele Livengood]

I'm going to let Sandra take this one.

[Sandra Eix, Member, Outreach & Make Possible Volunteer, Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology]

Thanks for your question.

In terms of hiring, I think there is also evidence—and I can't put my finger on it here—that the language in which job descriptions are couched is really significant in making them appealing across gender. Something that describes a role as “very competitive” or “demolishing the competition” or “making our company exceed its goals”, those very competitive words versus words like “leadership” and “collaboration”. Even though they could mean very similar things, those words can bias who is interested and willing to apply.

But certainly one of the things we would recommend is that hiring managers need to be supported in learning to understand those biases and those subtle things that can affect who applies and who is successful. There is lots of evidence as well that when hiring panels talk about candidates they'll qualify their approval of female candidates. They'll say they want to be sure she did all that research on her own. They'll do that when they wouldn't necessarily do that for male candidates.

We talk about generational change versus behavioural change. The generational change is very slow. I think you can also speed up some of that change by making people aware of what they're already doing. Even the awareness that you have an implicit bias is huge in helping people to understand how they're making decisions about hiring and promotion and tenure or admission into a graduate program.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you.

Similar to what I asked the women from Carleton, women are roughly 52% of the university population. They get to the assistant professor level and it's 28%, and you said it's 15% at the full professor level.

What are we doing? Why are we losing our women and what are your recommendations to change that?

[Sandra Eix]

I think part of it is the story of implicit bias. As everybody here has pointed out, family-friendly policies are a huge part of it. The legalities are certainly there. There are laws that are meant to prevent people from discriminatory hiring and promotion practices, but the implicit, the sneaky, subtle things, are still there and I think that becoming aware of those sneaky, subtle things is really vital.

I think that making it possible for women in particular, but for everybody to make decisions about how their career path is going to move forward, without having to panic about child care, family support, or where you're going to move to next, all that kind of support is enormous in helping women to take on leadership roles.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much. That's almost all your time.

We have Mr. Barlow for five minutes, please.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Thank you very much.

Thanks very much to all of you for being here.

Natalie and Rim, you guys are the next mentors so it's really exciting to see how much work you're putting into this, and I really appreciate that.

Being one of the Alberta members of Parliament, our issue is skilled labour and we have very significant vacancies, even with the economic downturn. There are some wonderful opportunities there for women to take advantage of. How do we get them there?

Suzanne, you mentioned that of the 5,000-some women involved in apprenticeship programs, only about 128 of them are in the trades. Is that a ballpark figure?

[Suzanne Winterflood]

Yes.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

You said there are obviously some barriers there, and I know that Dr. McInturff also mentioned that.

We've heard a lot about this over the fall, especially in Alberta, and that's why we expanded the Canada apprentice loan to $4,000 per learning term, interest free. We put $100 million into that program. I know that's not going to address every barrier, but do you think that with something like that they're going to have money to cover some fees?

[Suzanne Winterflood]

I don't know that this is an incentive for the women. I think when we refer to the ability to make the decision to go into the trades, that comes when they're a little more mature and they're able to stand out against family values and cultural values. There is definitely an awareness being raised for women to be able to earn more money, and to want to do apprenticeships.

I think the hard thing is finding companies to take the women. Certainly in Manitoba there are incredible traditional values, perhaps is the way to put it. Companies don't even know that they don't know that women aren't there. When you ask companies they'll say they'll employ women if they apply. They won't apply if the selection process and the interview process aren't equitable, and the retention issues in the workplace environment aren't necessarily where they need to be. So I'm not sure that the apprenticeship grants, as much as they are very good, will be enough.

I think role models of women who are already in it— With due respect there is a lot of talk around the STEM projects, etc., and those subject areas are integral to tradesmen and journeypersons, but in the same vein there are women who want to go into those professions, those trades, who don't fall into professional engineering, etc. There's an awful lot of work to be done with industry to be able to have a level playing field and to be supported in those roles. They have to be willing at the company level.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

So finances may not necessarily be one of the main barriers.

[Suzanne Winterflood]

Not for the actual applicants, no, and not for the apprenticeships. I think it's more that the companies have to be aware that women are there and can be a valued member of their workforce, and what they have to do to accommodate that employment. We have companies, there's one in particular, that did employ a woman. She turned up for work, but on the day she started she couldn't access the plant because the only access was through the male changing rooms, so they couldn't start her. Those types of things. We need support for and encouragement of industry in much the same ways as we've done with immigrant groups, with first nations communities, to say that women are out here.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Kate, you talked about this a little too. Would you mind commenting on that as well? You talked about how we've gone from 13% to 18% in new registrations in the skilled trades, but only about a 1% increase in the ones that are finishing. The reason I talked about that and the Canada apprentice loan is that I think about 26,000 Canadians enter an apprenticeship program and less than half actually finish. So men are not finishing because of those financial barriers. Is this a step in the right direction to at least maybe address one of those barriers?

[Dr. Kate McInturff]

I have to agree with the previous witness. This is creating a bigger opening for women at the front end, but the pipeline is still blocked. So you're not going to get any change at the other end of the pipe if you don't clear the blockage, and that blockage really does have to do with the way women are excluded even within the training programs, the inappropriate pictures on the walls, the lack of female bathrooms, all of those—

[John Barlow, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

You don't like the Snap-on Tools calendar?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Dr. Kate McInturff]

You gotta like a good Makita girl, but at a certain point it gets tiresome. I think women mentors as well as the witnesses from the Carleton program have demonstrated so clearly through their work, putting in place those women role models, and frankly, speaking to men in those programs. I think of course we need to speak to women and change their attitudes, but we also need to speak to men within the skilled trades, and men going into those programs to change their attitudes. To reiterate what Suzanne said, the report on women in mining also found that the majority of industry and mining had no recruitment policies specifically aimed at women, yet they were making exactly the complaint that you reiterated, which is we don't have enough skilled workers. The women in mining—and they're already there—are saying they're there, but these are the barriers.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Mrs. Sellah, the floor is now yours and you have five minutes.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First, I would like to thank all the witnesses who have come here today to enlighten us about women working in STEM fields. The abbreviation lets me save a little time.

From current data, we can see that the wage gap between men and women exists everywhere in both traditional and non-traditional fields.

Ms. McInturff, you stated that the salary gap in Quebec is smaller than in the other provinces. So how can we import that model across Canada? We know that the daycare program in Quebec is outstanding. Can you tell us how that kind of program could encourage women all across Canada to become involved in science, technology and mathematics?

[Dr. Kate McInturff]

Thank you for the question.

If you look at women's employment and the gaps in levels of employment and levels of pay across the country, Quebec really does very well. I think that a couple of reasons why the gap is narrower—and indeed the employment gap is narrower as well in Quebec—have to do with the host of family policies it has in place. There's evidence not only from the Quebec model but also from a number of studies that looked at countries in Europe that have similar kinds of programs in place.

I've spoken a bit about child care. The evidence is very clear that where child care is both affordable and available, women's labour force increases and the wage gap narrows, so you see greater economic security and greater employment security for women and their families.

With the $7-a-day child care model in Quebec, it is not as available—there are still shortfalls in terms of spaces—but it is certainly the most affordable child care in Canada by far.

The other thing Quebec has in place, which could be expanded across Canada, is not only a more generous maternity leave policy, one that has a lower threshold of hours worked for women to qualify, but also a targeted paternity leave policy. This is particularly important. What we see in Quebec is that, because there is a specific leave allocated only for new fathers, now in Quebec 75% of fathers take leave and they take 5.6 weeks on average. In the rest of Canada it's 25% of fathers, and they take two weeks on average. The paternity leave is exactly five weeks, so there's a clear causal effect.

The knock-on effect of this is particularly important when we're talking about women's access to work and the kinds of informal biases that push them out of promotion and entry into these fields. The paternity leave program is relatively new, but what I can say is that I've looked at the share of sick leave taken by men for family reasons, and it's actually increased since the introduction of paternity leave. What that suggests is that you're seeing a shift in the balance of unpaid work between men and women because those family policies are in place, and that is hugely important.

We were talking about women's promotion in academia. There are studies in Canada and the U.S. that show that when women in academia have children—I was one of those women, so I feel this in my heart—their rates of pay and promotion go down. When men in academia have children, they go up. There are clearly attitudes at work that say that when women have children they're less reliable, less serious, and not committed; and when men have children, we say they're very responsible and committed, and we should pay them more and promote them more.

Having these family policies in place not only addresses the really pragmatic issues of just how women balance their days, but they actually are helping us shift the relationship between parents. They're shifting the burden of unpaid work, and that is going to create a huge shift within the workplace.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Mrs. Sellah, that was a great question that elicited a great answer.