Canadian Heritage Committee on May 3rd, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Nantel, you have the floor.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank all the witnesses for their presentations.

In the recent testimonies that we have heard, Quebec City has been well represented. I don't know if that is a sign that its economic vitality is finally spurting up in culture, the arts and parity, but it's great. I don't know if the YWCA is as formative elsewhere in Quebec and Canada, but it's really great. It's even better to see that it's related to cultural organizations like Mrs. Benoit's organization.

Concerning Quebec City, I would like to reiterate that we need to consider my motion regarding the painting entitled Saint Jérôme entendant la trompette du Jugement dernier. We learned yesterday that we might never know how much we'll have to pay through our taxes for this boondoggle. Once again, I would like a vote on the matter.

I know the cultural organizations in Montreal very well. I think I can say that the professionals in the cultural sector usually form a boys' club. I probably won't make any friends by saying that.

Mrs. Benoit, is it the same in Quebec City?

[Catherine Benoit]

Like I was saying, I think I mostly noticed a difference between small and big organizations. Looking quickly at big cultural organizations in Quebec City, there are still a lot of women. Actually, it might be slightly different between Quebec City and Montreal, but I don't have any statistics on the matter.

Before coming to this meeting, I took a look at the website of different organizations. We also have national meetings with small and medium-sized organizations, those whose budget doesn't exceed $1 million, and I noticed that there are many women within those organizations. I think the problem is more with big organizations, like museums, operas, ballets and large theatres.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

It is true that highly professionalized organizations are male-dominated. I see Mrs. Bouffard nodding.

Ms. Young, Ms. Schirle, I would like to ask you a question.

Madam Young, do you get the interpretation out there?

[Prof. Margot Young]

I do get the interpretation, so speak in the language of your choice.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Perfect. Thank you very much.

The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage studies cultural issues. That is why we have decided to study the issue of parity in boards in the cultural sector.

Do you think that's the kind of issue that should be studied in every committee on the Hill?

[Prof. Margot Young]

Absolutely, and I understand the current government to really have a commitment to gender mainstreaming as well. One of the important features of taking gender equality seriously is that it becomes a metric in every measure that you undertake in your regulatory and lawmaking capacity. It is clearly appropriate for gender to be on the agenda for any of these sorts of regulatory regimes being contemplated across the range of committees.

You knew I was going to give you that answer, so there it is.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Madam Young.

I'm sure Madam Bouffard will want to add something because you talked about metrics.

Madam Schirle.

[Dr. Tammy Schirle]

I can probably state much the same thing. I think each committee does have a responsibility to do gender budgeting and gender-balanced representation of individuals' views and priorities. It is the responsibility of our government to represent everyone.

We've seen that as an important priority for government in gender-based analysis plus, and I think that is an important component that should continue.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mrs. Bouffard, do you have anything to add?

[Angèle Bouffard]

Yes.

When I said that I was in Halifax two days ago, that was with the Gender Equality Network Canada. These are key issues and we are looking at the issues related to systemic obstacles in organizations. We have to go beyond the mindset of making women fit a certain mould to succeed. Women are ready, but they still have to break through that glass ceiling.

I don't think it would be a bad thing to raise the issue in every committee. It should be studied everywhere, because, transversely, it happens in a similar matter.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Ms. Dhillon, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good morning to all our witnesses. Thank you for coming before the committee.

My question is for Ms. Young. You were the chair of the status of women committee at the University of British Columbia. What can you tell us about the challenges you faced and women faced regarding access to physicians on administrative boards?

[Prof. Margot Young]

I can tell you a lot about that.

I have also been chair of the status of women committee at the University of Victoria. I just came back, actually, from a meeting of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, which at a national level is very much concerned with the diversification and the inclusivity—or lack of inclusivity—of our university environments, with respect to staff but also with respect to faculty particularly.

The issues are challenging. There's much formulation and discussion of equity and what equity requires, but in terms of changing the numbers, there's been slow progress. To the extent that we have seen some progress on the equity front—I'm talking primarily about faculty and faculty moving into positions of leadership within the university—it's primarily been progress that has helped more white women to get positions.

Women are still under-represented, but women who are racialized are very much under-represented. The progress has been progress that has been enjoyed by non-racialized women to some extent. The issue therefore is a complex one, across the different dimensions by which exclusion happens in the university environment. Gender is important. Racialization is important. We certainly need a key focus on retention of our indigenous scholars and movement of indigenous faculty into leadership positions.

I don't want to say that gender doesn't matter. It's hugely important and I've invested many years into working towards the advancement of gender equality in the university environment. However, gender includes women who are indigenous, women who are racialized, women with disabilities....

We have universities mirroring the power structures, not surprisingly, in broader Canadian society. We have yet to reach a position where we're taking advantage of the full wealth of expertise, of experience, and of talent across the range of wonderful diversity that we have in Canadian society. Certainly we see, as we move higher up in the ranks of the university, from assistant professor to associate professor to full professor to dean, and from associate vice-president to vice-president and so on, that a disproportionate number of women and other under-represented groups increasingly drop out of the picture.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

What are the biggest roadblocks? Did you try to push for more women to be in superior positions? Was there resistance? What were the causes? What was the justification for this resistance to women in general and to female minorities?

[Prof. Margot Young]

You know, it's one of these truly wicked problems where we can talk about a number of features that play out to over-determine this under-representation. I'll begin, again, by referencing this notion of unconscious bias. This idea has shown to be incredibly important at every stage of entry, to every stage in an institution like the university, the association of characteristics that are not typically leadership characteristics with women regardless of what women themselves might actually possess.

There is the need to understand that leadership comes in many different forms. There are different styles of leadership. Some styles of leadership can be much more effective for their very lack of the sort of traditional features that we associate with male leaders. It's also the case that the character of these leadership jobs is not always attractive to women.

We're constantly coming up against the gender division of labour in our society: the lack of adequate child care, the way in which the workplace is not structured so that you can be the primary caregiving parent and a full member, a full paid worker in it. That's true not just of universities, but it's certainly true of universities.

The atmosphere at universities is increasingly sharp, pointed, and competitive. On the push for productivity, I've seen a dramatic change in its character and its quantity in the 20 years or so that I've been a university professor. It is hard to have the kind of life as parent and worker that we want everyone to have, and to be fully committed to a leadership position at the university.

It's often the case that women don't think they want to enter into that sort of environment. We have a community of incredibly talented and competent women with tremendous leadership capacities and real promise to reform our institutions in positive ways. We have yet to create the environment that allows them to flourish. There are a variety of reasons for that. Pretty much all of them are discriminatory. Some are forthrightly intentional, but a lot of this unconscious bias—again to refer to the various studies that are tracking that right now—is a really powerful force in limiting opportunities for a number of groups, but particularly women.

I'll just mention one thing that I did do. I started a mentorship program. Mentorship has been shown to be incredibly important, to have women in leadership positions who not only set examples for women so they can imagine themselves moving into those positions and having that kind of career. It also provides the kind of support and appreciation of what it is to be female in an institution and to pass along advice. Mentorship is one good example. Role models are a feature of that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Perfect.

I will have to cut you off there, but it's a good note to end on.

I would like to thank all our witnesses.

That will bring this meeting to an end.

The meeting is adjourned.