Evidence of meeting #107 for Canadian Heritage in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was organizations.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
9:55 a.m.
Catherine Benoit General Director, Spira
Good morning, committee members. I am pleased to contribute to your study.
First, I would like to introduce myself to put my presentation in context.
I have been the General Director of Spira for nine years now. I have an MBA in international management and international development from Université Laval. I am the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Méduse Co-op, the Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Pôle des entreprises d'économie sociale de la région de la Capitale-Nationale and Co-Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of the Table de concertation de l'industrie du cinéma et de la télévision de la Capitale-Nationale.
The day before yesterday and today, you have heard from a number of leading organizations and specialists about the impressive situation and about their reality. Spira is a medium-sized organization with a budget of $600,000. I'm pleased to present the reality of an organization like ours. These organizations aren't to be ignored. They are the majority and essential in the portrait of Canadian cultural organizations.
For its part, Spira is a cooperative devoted to independent cinema resulting from the 2015 merger of Vidéo Femmes and Spirafilm, two organizations that have existed for nearly 40 years. Its main mandate is to support the production and distribution of films, be they short films or feature films. The cooperative has about 150 members. Each year, it's involved in more than 60 films and reaches an audience of 400,000 people. Funded by arts councils, the cooperative is not-for-profit. Its revenues are about 75% of grants.
As a result of the merger, in order to maintain the mission of Vidéo Femmes, Spira was keen to put gender equity at the centre of its values. How does this translate concretely?
At Spira, 50% of the projects supported are carried out by women, and a concern for parity is present when our committees and collective projects are put together.
Spira's board of directors includes six artist members and three external members. Of these nine positions, at least four must be held by women, and this is mandatory.
Ten employees—five men and five women—make up the cooperative's team. Women have held the artistic director and general manager positions since 2009 and 2008, respectively.
Spira's board of directors has been gender-equal since 2012-13, and the quota has been in place since 2015-16.
It goes without saying that gender parity is a constant concern within the cooperative.
Spirafilm, of which I was the manager, was already concerned about gender parity. Our merger with Vidéo Femmes forced us to more formally implement procedures that would allow us to maintain gender equity.
Three years after the implementation of these measures, I realize that this reflection was necessary, because it is clear that it is unfortunately not yet natural to think about parity. Otherwise, we would not be here today. It is a reflex that is learned and develops.
The first measure adopted was the quota of women on Spira's board of directors. In fact, at least four of the nine positions must be held by a woman. However, conversely, the board of directors could not be made up only of women: at least three men must sit on it.
It goes without saying that we initially found it difficult to respect the minimum of four women. We had fears: what if we didn't find competent women? The former president of Vidéo Women had warned us that it would take effort.
Three years after the introduction of this quota, the mechanism has become natural and well-anchored in the actions of the board of directors. I will speak about it a little later, but education remains a major point for maintaining the importance of parity.
Efforts to reach parity are well marked, and we have tools and mechanisms in place.
The first method is the active search for candidates. We participate in recruitment activities such as “Tea time with the board”, an activity organized by the Chambre de commerce et d'industrie de Québec. We also called on the people in our network and told them about the profiles of the candidates we were looking for, the idea being not to wait until the AGM of members to have people interested in serving on the board.
We decided to put in place a skills matrix in an Excel table, which is the one proposed by the YWCA and includes not only objectives to be achieved in terms of parity, but also other criteria such as youth, skills and cultural diversity. In the coming weeks, a call for applications will be launched, and we will ensure that we have a large pool of candidates at the AGM.
One of the benefits of this skills matrix is to publicize needs and make a tool to attract women and show them that they have an opportunity to join a board of directors. This opens a door for them and tells them that they can join our board and that we need them.
Something else we have put in place is mentorship. Spira participates in the YWCA's mentorship program for young female administrators. Through the program, a young woman can train for a year by sitting on the board of directors. The idea could easily be adopted by a number of other boards, in organizations large or small.
We communicate the value of parity to members of the board and to staff. We do so in order for it to be easier to achieve and so that everyone can become its champion. At board meetings, and at the annual general meeting, we inform our members of all the efforts Spira makes to achieve parity. We also mention it occasionally on social media. Making our members and our public aware is a way for us to contribute to society, so that it can become more egalitarian.
We also know that achieving parity depends largely on the people in place. So it is critical for us that organizations include parity in their procedures, so that it will last.
I would like to draw your attention to another major issue linked to parity on boards, the issue of the presidency.
Having women on boards of directors is one thing, but it is another to have them take decision-making leadership positions.
At Spira, we recently realized that we had never had a female president. So, next June, we are going to establish parity with a co-presidency. This will allow us to put into practice a joint execution of powers and development of skills. Another method would be to establish alternating presidential mandates, so that the position would be occupied by a woman on a regular basis.
We believe that parity will be easier to achieve if we establish measures such as flexible schedules, the ability to bring children to meetings, and participating in meetings remotely, both for the board of directors and for the staff.
Still with a view to promoting parity, Spira has adopted gender-inclusive writing and lexical feminization.
I will now say a few words on the artistic leadership positions within cultural organizations.
We cannot ignore the difficult question of the low salaries in small organizations and the shortage of labour. It is a problem that limits our choice of candidates. We prefer the most competent candidates. However, where one of the two key management positions is already occupied by a man, we would consider applications from women with particular attention. I have been working in the arts for nine years now and I have noticed that, in small organizations, it is often women who occupy positions of artistic leadership, even of overall leadership, whereas in large organizations, the opposite is true. The workload is the same, but the salaries are lower.
In conclusion, I have the following recommendations for you.
Work with national organizations like the Independent Media Arts Alliance, so that they become champions and intermediaries.
Establish a program to train managers and provide mentorship for women, even in small and medium-sized organizations.
Increase funding to organizations so that they can provide suitable working conditions that may attract competent women to artistic leadership positions.
Encourage quotas. As an earlier speaker mentioned, in Norway and France, quotas have been imposed in public organizations, with positive results. In this country, SODEC, the NFB and Telefilm Canada have implemented measures of that kind, and the results seem very positive up to now.
Finally, we recommend that studies be conducted to determine the status of the situation and that the results be published.
Thank you very much. I hope that my comments will provide you with food for thought.
10:05 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin
Thank you.
Now we actually have Ms. Schirle by video conference. Why don't we go to you to make sure we can keep you in there in case we have technical difficulties?
10:05 a.m.
Dr. Tammy Schirle Professor, Department of Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
I'm sorry for the technical difficulties, and thank you for having me here here today.
As a general statement, usually when I do this, committees limit me to five minutes, so I may be a little brief today just out of habit, but I'm happy to expand the conversation later.
10:05 a.m.
Professor, Department of Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
I would like to begin by clearly stating that I know absolutely nothing in regard to running an artistic or cultural organization. In preparing for this meeting I realized I am considered the equivalent of a director on a board for such an organization, but that does not imply knowledge. Rather, I am a professor of economics.
My research focuses on labour markets and policy, including gender wage gaps and women's participation in the labour market. I also teach economics and gender at Laurier. With that background in mind I wanted to speak more generally about women's representation in leadership positions.
I'm not aware of any formal Canadian statistics regarding the representation of women on boards of artistic and cultural organizations. We know women's representation on TSX-listed boards is low. According to recent reports, women hold roughly 15% of board seats in these companies. The impression I have is that artistic and cultural organizations have better representation of women on boards, but may not have a fair representation of women in top leadership positions.
Gaining better information about artistic and cultural organizations will require standardized reporting. For example, the Canada Revenue Agency could require organizations with charitable status to report the gender of members of the board of directors as public information, adding to the information already reported. With this information, if we see women under-represented, what should we do about it?
Gender quotas are often the first thing that comes to mind, and economists have now had a chance to study a few examples. An excellent example is a paper published in the American Economic Review titled “Gender Quotas and the Crisis of the Mediocre Man”. I have to say I love the title of this paper.
The author studied elections in Swedish municipalities where the council is appointed by proportional representation implemented through party lists. Starting in 1993 the Social Democratic Party lists were subject to zipper quotas whereby party lists had to alternate male and female names throughout their list of nominees. The party seats are then filled according to this list, ensuring representation of women among the seats that are won.
This zipper quota clearly resulted in a higher share of women elected. More importantly, it resulted in an increase in the level of competence among the elected officials, which mainly reflects an improvement in the selection of male candidates. Put simply, mediocre men appeared to be removed from the party lists, especially in leadership positions, and replaced by highly competent women.
One reason I like this paper is it speaks to the main point of opposition to gender quotas. That is the concern that it threatens the selection for leadership positions based on merit. This paper reminds us that many other factors drive appointments, which may not be optimal.
Norway's gender quotas for corporate board membership introduced in 2006 have received more attention. We see evidence that changing the composition of boards will affect corporate strategy. For example, Norway's affected corporations appear to avoid short-term workforce reductions, which affects short-term profits; that may be important as part of a long-term strategy. The same study, however, found that other aspects of corporate decisions affecting revenues and non-labour costs were unaffected.
We also see evidence from Norway, however, that gender quotas for boards may not have much effect beyond board composition. The quotas do not appear to lift the position of women not appointed to boards or alter the decisions of young women who are planning their careers in business.
When we look at the broader literature, the evidence suggests that gender quotas that change the composition of boards can affect the strategy of an organization. Those effects may be small, but I have not seen convincing evidence to clearly suggest it is negative. Gender quotas may raise competence levels in an organization. However, we must remember that policies such as gender quotas are only one small piece of that policy puzzle.
I thank you for your attention, and I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
10:10 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin
Thank you very much for that.
We now move to Mrs. Bouffard, from YWCA Québec, who also has a presentation for us.
You may begin, Mrs. Bouffard.
May 3rd, 2018 / 10:10 a.m.
Angèle Bouffard Coordinator of leadership programs, YWCA Québec
Good morning, everyone.
My name is Angèle Bouffard. I have just come directly from Quebec City. I am from the YWCA there.
Let me take a few moments to introduce our organization, the YWCA. In Quebec City, we have been working to train women for boards of directors for years. This role was designed in, and is unique to, Quebec City, because it does not exist in any of the other YWCA facilities in Canada. Our mission is to empower women as they search for the best in themselves. This means that we provide accommodation services to women in difficulty at the same time as we work with female leaders in major positions.
We have built an entire strategy, which, in English, might be described as “training women as leaders and decision-makers.” At the very start, we were able to count on funding from the Government of Quebec, then Status of Women Canada supported us with two particular components of the program. To date, we have trained more than 1,000 women to sit on boards of directors. For Quebec City, that is huge.
It means that women are ready to train themselves. They come and spend 15 hours with us in order to equip themselves with tools that will make them more skilled in their roles on boards of directors.
We have adapted the training for 17-to-25-year-olds. We are working with women from CEGEPs and from the Université Laval. To date, we have trained more than a hundred, a number of whom are foreign students who want to become involved in boards of directors of all kinds. They see it as a way to become involved in a Canadian organization, to gain experience in the community, and to give back to that community.
We have also established a mentorship program. We have thirty or so pairs at the moment. Mrs. Benoit is one of the mentors. The unique feature of our program is that each mentor agrees to an observer being present at her board for a year, and to help her acquire tools so that she can play her role better. At the end of the time, there has been real development and the women feel even more prepared.
A year and a half ago, we conducted a study with about 800 of our former participants to find out their situations, what they were doing, what boards they were sitting on, and what obstacles they were still faced with, if such was the case. We found that they were very happy that they had taken the training, but there were still some who were hesitant to take the plunge into an adventure on a board of directors, even though they had received those 15 hours of training. However, these were women who already were accountants, lawyers, professionals or public officials. They were women with at least a bachelor's degree, sometimes even a master's degree. The students from the Université Laval are often graduate students in finance, management or law. But they want more tools. They lack confidence. They also suffer from imposter syndrome. We did not ask a lot of questions about it, but that last observation emerged from the responses the women gave us. After the training, they wanted a real experience, which is why we established the mentorship program so that we can guide them.
We also have co-development groups, meaning mutual, professional support among female administrators; they give each other great tips.
Those are our strategies to help women to train themselves and to become even more skilled. Believe me, that is what they are constantly asking for, because they are suffering from imposter syndrome and they always think that they are lacking a little something.
The day before yesterday, we offered an advanced course on financial statements for the management of not-for-profit organizations, following on from three courses in management and in reading financial statements. The women keep asking for them, because their goal is to be super-competent before they take a seat on a board of directors.
We have realized that the problem lies right inside the organizations. Why were 1,000 women not all successful in finding a place? They were ready, they had extraordinary skills, but they were not being noticed. That is when we established a mentorship program for the organizations. The crux of the issue is that we have what we call systemic obstacles. You will see that in cultural organizations.
We decided to provide you with some statistics.
We have parity ratio when 40 to 60% of board members are women. For others, there is only parity if there is an equal number of men and women on the board. We are talking about boards, but the same goes for all decision-making spaces.
In Quebec, 18% of board members are women. These statistics are slightly outdated, but still valid. For three quarters of companies, only 11 to 25% of their board members are women.
One might think it's different in the cultural industry, but here are more statistics on the matter. You will see that we have done our research.
Half of companies have less than 20% women board members. Moreover, did you know that 28% of companies have no female board members? According to a study by Mrs. Brière and Jean Bédard, at this pace, if we were to take concrete measures like the ones used to support organizations, we would have to wait until around 2034 to reach parity.
In reality, according to calculations, if nothing is done, if we take no action, because of fluctuations, departures and arrivals, progress and setbacks, we won't reach parity 2200. That's a few generations away. I am training students for nothing at Université Laval—obviously, I'm kidding.
As you will see in your documents, there are many benefits to having women on boards. The idea is really to diversify expertise, to take certain questions into account and to cover all basis. I can assure you that the women we send on boards are more competent than any other board members I've seen and I would hire any one of the women that I train to sit on the boards that I sit on.
I'd like to go back to statistics for a moment. We are currently gathering statistics on the make up of all boards in the arts and culture sector across all categories in Quebec City. For today's meeting, we took the time to analyse the data collected up until now, and related to 113 organizations.
Today, in Quebec City, only 30% of these 113 organizations in the arts and culture sector have more than 30% of women board members. This sector is made up mainly of women. Yet, these numbers confirm that they do not sit on boards. They hold junior positions and are unable to climb the corporate ladder.
In addition, 70% of these organizations have less than 50% women board members. We have divided those numbers into categories: 0 to 20%, 20 to 30%, and so on. We gave you those numbers, by date and year. We will track those numbers over many years, since we will be asking for them in our support process. Nine percent of organizations in the cultural sector have no women board members.
Concerning the parity ratio, which starts at 40% of women, only 52% of organizations meet this threshold. However, when it comes to a true parity, only 30% of organizations have 50% women board members.
This data concerns the art and culture sector in Quebec City. It is not necessarily the same thing across the country, but at least, we have these numbers.
We make sure to support organizations, because we want parity to be an integral part of their DNA at every level. We have many steps that we would like to propose to increase the number of women board members. There are many models; we have created them. I gave you documentation on the subject. These documents are also available on line. We have created the Guide pour une gouvernance paritaire — Pour des C.A. égalitaires, which offers an eight step game plan. You will find a more detailed version of this plan in your slides and in the document that we gave you.
A lot of support is needed, in two phases, but I would suggest that you follow closely the steps that we have established.
First, senior executives must be there.
Organizations also have to develop official policies. That is the basis for everything. Without a policy that specifies in writing the objectives and criteria, there will be too much fluctuation and too many set backs, and only individuals will support the process, instead of the entire organization.
Then, you have to create governance committees whose role is to recruit.
Moreover, you have to give companies the tools and competency matrixes that they need to diversify the make up of their board, like the kind of matrix use by Mrs. Benoit and many organizations.
You also have to help organizations in using different recruiting methods. We have set up an activity called “A board at tea time”. In March of last year, 40 organizations were recruiting about a hundred candidates. So, it is really a question of shadowing.
Furthermore, you have to diversify the way you do things.
Then, you have to support the new people.
Finally, what we want is for organizations to have the tools to peak women's interest and attract them. That said, it is up to organizations to change the way they do things, not to women to acquire more skills.
10:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin
Thank you very much.
We will begin our questions and answers period. Members will have five minutes each.
Mr. Hébert, you can go ahead.
10:25 a.m.
Liberal
Richard Hébert Liberal Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would like to congratulate all our participants for the quality of their presentation.
Mrs. Bouffard, I'd like to start with you.
In your Guide pour une gouvernance paritaire, you say that 19.8% of board members in Quebec are women, compared to Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan where that percentage reaches 25.7% and 23.2% respectively.
You can see where I am going with this. Why is there such a gap? Why is it lower in Quebec?
10:25 a.m.
Coordinator of leadership programs, YWCA Québec
I would say it's a widespread phenomenon. The numbers are inconsistent. I think the law passed in 2006 helped increase that percentage in Quebec, and that public and parapublic organizations allowed us to reach parity. Until it becomes a legal requirement, nothing will change. Quotas are not mandatory. However, we ask organizations to voluntarily set targets.
I just came back from Halifax yesterday where I was working with organizations from around the country. We decided to ask that a clearer law be passed on the subject, because nothing is getting done. It takes a long time to see any progress.
10:25 a.m.
Liberal
Richard Hébert Liberal Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
In your study, you say that parity has many benefits for an organization, whether it be an arts organisation or an economic organization. I would like to hear about the benefits of parity within a board.
Afterwards, Mrs. Benoit, who sits on a board where there's equal representation, could tell us about the benefits of parity for Spira.
10:25 a.m.
Coordinator of leadership programs, YWCA Québec
Many women sit on different boards. However, they are in a minority position. You need about a third of board members to be women for the board to evolve. Until a board reaches that proportion of women, it will not make any major advances in its governance process.
Then, there is also the competency matrixes. I sit on many boards and support others. The competency matrixes allows us to recruit women, very strong women, that really meet the set criteria. There will be a sort of floating period where men who already sit on boards might fall behind because they will not have been recruited using a competency matrix with many required qualifications. Eventually, they will catch up and everyone will be recruited based on the same criteria.
Nowadays, women who get nominated on boards are very strong. They help the organizations move forward; I see it on many boards.
10:25 a.m.
Liberal
Richard Hébert Liberal Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
That's what I noticed. In a past life, I was mayor of Dolbeau-Mistassini and saw many boards. Actually, at a certain time, in the RCM Maria-Chapdelaine, 33% of mayors were women. Unfortunately, that number dropped down to less than 10% and I noticed a difference in the dynamics of our meetings.
Mrs. Benoit, with the time that we have left, I'd like you tell me how parity benefited your organization.
10:25 a.m.
General Director, Spira
There is no doubt that parity reinforces the collective intellect. Actually, it allows for various points of view, because what preoccupies men doesn't necessarily preoccupy women. Using a competency matrix allows us to have a diverse set of skills on the board.
In our case, it is more about having a vision that is representative of our members, and 50% of our members are women. It is important that they all be represented.
10:25 a.m.
Liberal
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
I appreciate the information we're receiving today. It's excellent. I think we've had two who have talked about grassroots and about some really fundamental things that you've changed and built.
I'd like to go to Professor Schirle. What is your opinion on using search firms when looking for a board of directors?
10:25 a.m.
Professor, Department of Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
I don't have any particular experience with search firms, but there could be some advantages to going outside of your own networks in making those kinds of searches.
One reason we often see a lack of diversity in something such as a board—or any group—is that often these things are selected from within your social networks. You see a position open and ask, who do we know who would be good to fill that position?
When you go to a search firm, the search firm is going to look beyond your social networks. If they're given appropriate directives to look for a diversity of views, they may do better than your own networks in finding some very good, competent candidates for those positions.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
That goes to my follow-up question. Whose responsibility is it, then, to develop those directives for the search firm so that the search firm doesn't just find who they want?
10:30 a.m.
Professor, Department of Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
That is the difficulty. This is where you need to rely on your own board to have the broader interest in mind, if there are no regulations in place. This is where perhaps some guidance along the lines of gender quotas is often suggested. Do you want to rely on the board itself to make these decisions in trying to push forward more optimal choices, or are you going to try to push through some sort of regulations or perhaps some guidelines for these organizations?
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
This doesn't exist in the private sector, but would you suggest this for the public sector, which we're talking about today?
10:30 a.m.
Professor, Department of Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
This is thinking of the public sector and the para-public sector. In this case what I have in mind is charitable organizations. That's why I mentioned the idea that we could use information from the CRA in developing a better sense of what our numbers look like. So, yes.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Professor Young, I know you're a little more on the constitutional side, but do you have any opinions on on this particular topic?
10:30 a.m.
Prof. Margot Young
Let me add to this conversation concerning the relationship between search firms and boards of directors that it should be a close relationship. I've been involved in a number of searches that have had search firms involved. It really is the board's responsibility to articulate clearly to the search firm what the requirements for the candidates are.
I would add to this discussion as well the notion that affirmative action runs along a continuum. We've talked about a range of different measures. If we start from the position that under-representation of women on these important sites of decision-making and cultural formations is a real concern, then we have a series of responses that we could take. They range from things such as the training of women to become competent and skilled to take up these positions to, as we've already seen, outreach programs to look outside your networks and engage with women you don't otherwise run across who would be excellent candidates. You can have a more proactive approach of getting women to apply for the jobs, or you can have some kind of preferential treatment during the hiring, or you can have quotas.
My sense of the literature is that it shows that many of these measures at the low end of the continuum—having reporting requirements is another requirement that we currently have.... For some corporate boards you have a requirement to report what your efforts are to get a more diverse board or what your board looks like. Reporting requirements and outreach are not as effective as quotas. The process often stagnates as we work through different kinds of more moderate measures to try to diversify boards, until we reach the point of imposing some kind of quota.
Norway, for example, has seen the presence of women on the kinds of boards it regulates go from about 23% to 40%. To have a quota system can be very significant for affecting a problem that seems resistant to other sorts of milder measures. I think this is because we face real barriers to diversification in these key leadership decision-making spots, notions of unconscious bias. The stereotypes of structure, the characteristics of leadership that we don't associate with women and do associate with men are clearly important. There's lots of literature about the play that unconscious bias gives and how difficult it is to actually undo it.
Having a quota or some sort of set target for increasing the presence of currently under-represented groups on these important sites of decision-making is one way you can change what our stereotypical assumptions are with respect to women in leadership and decision-making roles.