Thank you. I don't have the video myself, but it sounds like the audio is here, so I'll jump right in. In the interest of time, I will go right to my points, if that's all right.
The gender wage gap, I believe, is a symptom of a systemic undervaluing of women that exists worldwide. I am not saying undervaluing of women's work; I am saying undervaluing of women. Because this issue arises before employment even begins, I think we must focus on this systemic issue. Establishing equitable pay and compensation scales is part of the solution, but it won't work all by itself. If we don't address the underlying reasons for the pay inequities, we will not solve the problem, and these inequities will continue to reoccur.
Lack of awareness about gender economic inequalities in the workplace is one of the biggest reasons they still exist. The second issue is normalization of the problem. I can elaborate on these afterward in questions, if people want to, but I will just leave it at that for now. Other factors that I believe are affecting women's choices and the gender wage gap are the care penalty and the caregiver penalty. I will assume that you all know what that is. If not, we can explore that again in questions afterward. I believe there are solutions to these problems over and above the whole pay equity piece, which is absolutely necessary, as are all of the things being discussed here.
I think we have to begin with awareness in the schools, at home, and at work. This awareness can be about several different things. About the gap itself, what is it? What causes it? What are the conscious and unconscious effects of that gap?
I believe that this can be accomplished in a number of different ways.
One way is by declaring equal pay day in Canada. I think it is important. We have done this in Ontario. We have given it status, and in that sense brought an awareness to that process. Having an equal pay day helps people be aware that it takes until March or April, depending on the calculation and the numbers used, for women to actually reach the equal pay that men reached the year before. That is the aha moment for a lot of people. It carries on further. Once you get the dialogue going, you can start to talk about how many more years a woman has to work to be able to achieve the same income level that a man has achieved.
The other thing would be public media campaigns that would target the problem of awareness and talk about the unconscious and conscious biases that are happening. There are lots of different ways those campaigns can happen. I believe we have to target schools. I understand that at the federal level that is probably out of your jurisdiction, but I think there could be influences happening across the provinces that would ensure that this dialogue starts early in school and that girls and boys are thinking about all the possibilities, not limiting themselves and not seeing others as limited.
I believe that we have to create an awareness in the workplace. We have to have some kind of employee training, which might be similar to health and safety training, where people learn about human rights and about the biases and the effects that the wage gap has, as well as their rights, of course.
I believe governments should look at their processes and see how those might bias a family so that the lower-income earners may be disadvantaged, and see pay equity for the overall good that might happen with a family.
Now I'm referring here to things like the employment insurance process and tax laws. In the EI system, for instance, I believe that should be reconsidered to see that parents are being given more flexible time for leaves and caregiving. This is more to involve men in the process of caregiving and to make sure women are being paid for short times away. By that I mean that maternity leave and parental leave are part of it.
Other things that influence the wage gap are things that draw women away for short times, such as a sick child who can't go to school, and who can't be put in day care, so a parent has to stay home. It might be for a day or two. Many women, especially part-time workers, would lose income for that and would not have access to things like employment insurance for those short terms. Those are ways we can influence the wage gap.
Tax laws, for instance, may have disincentives for the lower-income earner in families. Those disincentives may cause that lower-income earner to lose wages, and for various reasons to not go to the next lower tax bracket for having exemptions for the family, so sacrificing the wage for the good of the family. It's the way the tax laws are set up, I believe. Those are things government can look at.
Looking at universal child care is also a huge incentive to get women back into the workforce and make sure we're sharing that care between men and women as child care becomes an option. I think that would possibly get women who are not considering full-time employment back into full-time employment and help to close that gender wage gap.
In 2010 the international group of the business and professional women's group I belong to became involved with UN Women and the UN Global Compact, and the newly formed women's empowerment principles. These seven principles guide business to a more gender equitable workplace. This is a voluntary program encouraging businesses to sign the declaration and then employ the principles to raise awareness, remove barriers, and promote a gender equitable business model within their company.
Since their launch in 2010, over 1,000 CEOs from corporate entities with a minimum of 10 employees have signed the women's empowerment principles statement. I believe this is a model that could be adopted. There are seven principles the government could adapt and use as a guide for employers to create awareness in their workplace to closing the gender wage gap. Once created, the federal government could then build resources for employers to use for training—as mentioned before, that kind of employee training—and provide the tools to use for assessing the overall compliance and equitability of their companies.
There are many socio-economic issues women uniquely face and suffer because of the discriminatory gender wage gap. That only aggravates these issues. Women do not pay less for their goods and services, education, rent, utilities, and other items. In our society there's the argument they pay more, yet our society is complacent about women earning less. Trying to navigate the world that expects the same—or more, in fact—as what it would expect from a man, but then only rewarding 70% in return, leads to women living in poverty, staying in unsafe relationships, and enduring unhealthy situations at work all because the choices are limited due to this inequality.
That creates this cycle of socio-economic issues that are a huge drain on our society. I think we must stop this cycle.