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.