Good evening and thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the finance committee, ladies and gentlemen, for inviting us to provide our thoughts as part of the pre-budget consultations.
The Canadian Association of Science Centres represents over 50 science centres, science museums, aquariums, planetariums, and science outreach organizations across the country. Collectively our members reach more than eight million Canadians each year.
I'm here representing our partners in a women in STEM initiative: Ingenium, Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation; and Research2Reality, an organization that shines a light on world-class scientists engaged in innovative and leading-edge research here in Canada. In this initiative, our goal is to increase the number of women entering and staying in the science, technology, engineering, and math, or STEM-based careers.
You asked two questions of us: what federal measures would help Canadians be more productive; and what federal measures would help Canadian businesses to be more productive and competitive. I won't repeat what's in the brief that we submitted, but I will speak more broadly on how diversity in STEM careers will contribute to a more productive Canada.
To be more productive, Canadians need to be more innovative. To be more innovative, Canada needs more science and engineering graduates. To graduate more science and engineering professionals, we must widen the pool of potential graduates. One of the best ways to do this is to look at who is excluding themselves from the candidate pool in Canada, particularly indigenous peoples and women.
We request that the finance committee encourage the government to adopt the recommendations submitted by the Council of Canadian Academies in 2014 to cultivate a strong science culture in Canada, particularly recommendation two, “Making science inclusive”. Women currently make up over half of all post-secondary graduates, but they represent less than a third of STEM graduates. In 20 years, from 1991 to 2011, the proportion of women in scientific occupations requiring a university degree only rose from 18% to 23%, and only 1% of 2016 undergrads who were enrolled in engineering programs self-identified as indigenous. Meanwhile, editorials are filled with stories about a looming shortage of skilled workers, particularly engineers, in the near future.
There are reasons for that lack of diversity in the fields we need to fill, and it is not a new story. Our culture does not support the diversity Canada desperately needs in these careers to be competitive globally. How can we motivate indigenous peoples to consider a path to STEM careers when the culture around them doesn't support it? How can we encourage women to stay in STEM fields when subtle and not-so-subtle barriers continue to exist?
The good news is that we can shift our culture in ways that aren't just directed at addressing individual issues. We can shift the perceptions of all Canadians to subconsciously expect that there will be diversity in the sciences and welcoming of new perspectives. This shift is rooted in culture change and can happen in homes, schools, post-secondary institutions, in labs and in the field, in governments and in boardrooms.
Currently there are good examples of programs that connect science mentors with the Canadian public. These are funded through granting councils and typically target young girls or indigenous youth with small grants, but they are a patchwork approach that lacks Canada-wide reach and coordination. There are no efficiencies or economies of scale, and they do not address the need to shift the public perspective. I'm here to highlight the exceptional nationwide opportunity we have by supporting our substantial science engagement community, including science centres, in this significant transformation in Canadian culture.
The critical opportunity is upon us now. We urge you to support our recommendation to fund programs such as ours that will shift Canada's culture to embrace diversity in STEM careers, thereby increasing our national productivity and global competitiveness.
Thank you once again for the opportunity to speak with you today. I look forward to answering your questions.