Science and Research Committee on Sept. 25th, 2023

Thank you.

I'm on the executive of Universities Canada and I can say that the area of inclusive excellence and equity for faculty has certainly been a top-of-mind issue. Universities Canada has surveyed members—particularly based on representation of equity-deserving groups—in terms of numbers, but to my knowledge, we haven't really seen a study looking at pay gap issues. That's also a very interesting....

There hasn't been a sharing of data across universities that I'm aware of. That's obviously another area for potential collaboration and opportunity.

Bloc

Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC

Thank you very much, Ms. Johnson.

I'm going to stay on topic. What role do you think the federal government could play? What could the federal government do to better support equity among university faculty members, in particular?

President, Simon Fraser University

That's an interesting question. I think my colleague from Saskatchewan alluded to some of this.

The Canada research chairs program is a federal program. It introduced very clear guidance around equity in terms of distribution of those chairs, creating requirements in reporting. We saw the universities respond—slowly, but they did respond.

I think the important thing federally is to think about what the levers are. I would say that the levers are through the granting councils, for the most part. As you know, post-secondary education is a provincial matter, but funding for research is a federal matter through the tri-council and through their various programs like the CRC program, the granting council programs and the Canada excellence research chairs program.

We have seen movement on the part of the tri-council to start to make sure that issues related to equity are considered, but they stop in terms of representation. They don't ask that next question around pay gap. They want to make sure that universities are basically creating opportunities for women, for individuals who are disabled and for the BIPOC population, etc. However, they don't ask that next question about making sure that there is actually pay equity for those individuals as well.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield

Thank you very much, President Johnson. That's great. It's good to get some of these things for our analysts as well.

Mr. Cannings, we'll go over to you for six minutes, please.

NDP

Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC

Thank you, and thank you to both witnesses.

I'll start with Airini.

It's great to hear from someone with an obvious New Zealand background. My son and grandchildren live in New Zealand. It's a wonderful place. I read somewhere that you kayaked across Cook Strait, which to me is a frightening trip, even in a large ship. Kudos for that.

You mentioned that one of the band-aid solutions that has been tried is the “lift to base”. I'm just wondering if you could expand on that and explain why that isn't a long-term solution.

Provost and Vice-President Academic, University of Saskatchewan, As an Individual

Airini

Thank you very much.

In 2015, we introduced the lift to base. It was a correction. It does help to create a narrowing of the gap—by 2%, in our case.

What we're looking for is the long-term fitness of the university system. To do that, we all have to be more attentive to professional development around career progression and more attentive to our actions, our words and our practices in the hiring and decisions around salary placement at the beginning of a career for an academic. We need to be investing in flexibility in workplace arrangements and the access to child care services.

The solutions are multi-faceted. We can create the interventions—they help us to have a close—but really we need fitness of system over the long term.

NDP

Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC

Thank you. I'll turn to Dr. Johnson now.

I'm glad to hear it's raining in Burnaby—we need the rain—but hopefully not too much.

To go back to this situation with research faculty, there's a bigger gap there, and you mentioned the market forces. Is that because those faculty have more ability to negotiate salaries, and perhaps because there are some biases where male applicants have more of that ability, more traction in that regard?

President, Simon Fraser University

Thanks for that question.

I think that's a really good point. Your base salary, where you come in, makes a big difference in terms of how your salary grows. I think, to make sure, from the very beginning.... We know there are biases in how people negotiate their salary and what they ask for. I think there is fairly good evidence that there are gender differences in how people operate in those types of negotiations. I think that's another thing that we really have to bear in mind.

At our university at least, there are no kinds of floors or ceilings. It really is important for people to negotiate a salary as they come in, because that's the salary that, obviously, will grow incrementally over time.

NDP

Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC

Does the same thing apply when faculty are looking for promotions? Are there more opportunities for male faculty members to get offers from elsewhere?

I'm just trying to say that this is a bigger ecosystem than just one university.

President, Simon Fraser University

I think it's such a good point. As I think Professor Airini was also suggesting, there are all these other dynamics at play, and giving people more money on a one-off isn't going to correct the problem.

For example, at SFU at least, we see men going up for promotion. We go through different levels—assistant professor, associate professor, full professor—and you get jumps in your salary as you go through the promotion process. However, we do tend to see men going up earlier than women. There's this kind of confidence factor. There's a sense of being ready. We really do need to be coaching, facilitating, assisting women as well to make sure that they are going up in a timely manner for promotion because, again, it ultimately will affect their salary.

NDP

Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC

Finally, on the parental leave question, I think it's clear that women probably take parental leave far more often than men, although I assume it's offered to both.

You talked about data. Do we have data on that? How often do male faculty ask for parental leave versus female faculty? How can we somehow take that into account?

President, Simon Fraser University

Again, I don't have data with me on that today, but I will say—and this is based on studies that were done probably five or six years ago—that when women do take parental leave, they tend to actually leave the university, care for their children, take care of their home and so on. Often when men take parental leave, they might do child care, but they also work on their papers and are very productive at home.

Again, that's a bias that's gets introduced through the system, and I think it's something to bear in mind in terms of how leaves get evaluated and how we think about them.

NDP

Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have?

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield

You have 40 seconds.

NDP

Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC

I'll just ask both of you quickly to talk about the number of women versus men in STEM. We've been seeing data that shows how difficult it is. There are filters at every level against women, people of colour and people of low income to keep going in university because of funding for research. Could you comment on that?

President, Simon Fraser University

I'll jump in and just say that it is a huge issue for us at SFU. We do not have as many women coming into our computing, science and engineering faculties as we do men, and we certainly do not have that gender representation and diverse representation that we would also like to see. It really means going back into the high schools to correct this problem.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield

Thank you very much.

It's over to Michelle Rempel Garner for five minutes, please.

Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Thank you, Chair.

I want to home in on what recommendations this committee could make to the federal government that are within the federal government's scope. I know, Airini, you had started to suggest a few things, and Dr. Johnson as well. I think both of these were centred mostly around the federal levers of funding particular to research funding.

I think it's very important that we address this issue. To both of your points, it's important to highlight that I do think this is a talent competitiveness issue for Canada as well as an equity issue, but as you mentioned, Dr. Johnson, some of this is within the scope of provincial governments.

I do want to put on the record that there's been a bit of discussion in one province on the Canada research chairs issue, particularly in Quebec. There was a history professor at Montreal's Dawson College who filed a human rights complaint against Laval University and the Canada research chairs program, alleging discrimination because of these changes. Then the Quebec Minister of Education put forward a motion in, I believe, December of last year that asked the National Assembly to express its concern regarding the exclusion of certain candidates from obtaining Canada research chairs on the basis of criteria that are not related to competence.

This seems like a bit of a pickle to me. Are there ways that the federal government could perhaps aid this issue that aren't going to lead it into a fight with the provinces, particularly with Quebec, given some of the concerns that have been raised in the National Assembly?

Provost and Vice-President Academic, University of Saskatchewan, As an Individual

Airini

To provide assurance to the committee members, anybody who is appointed to a Canada research chair must meet the competence standard, and they go through a multi-staged, rigorous process of assessment before actually being recognized by the federal funding authority as having met the standard of competence and in fact exceeding it. There is no compromise on the quality there.

It's an interesting argument, too, of being left out or excluded because of one's demographic profile. It can be made the other way as well, in terms of not having a seat at the table. The assurance that could be helpful from the federal level is that the steps taken to advance EDI in terms of science and research are entirely consistent with the legislative framework for the country itself. We see that similarly in terms of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as well, so providing that assurance and that clarity is certainly helpful.

President Johnson may have a further remark.

Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Yes, thank you. I don't want to cut either of you off. I want to ask you, in your follow-up remarks, to comment on whether Canadian universities have been given any—or provincial governments, particularly.... Both of you are in coordination with your provincial governments on whether or not the new guidelines put in place for the Canada research chairs have met that sort of a legal test that you described.

Dr. Johnson, I will ask the same question that I asked earlier. How should the federal government be interacting on this issue, given some of these emerging dynamics?

President, Simon Fraser University

I would refer you to the Universities Canada statement on inclusive excellence. I think it's an excellent statement. To be clear, we see similar dynamics playing out at our university from time to time, when certain groups are feeling excluded because of requirements around the Canada research chairs.

Things are changing, though, and people are being brought to the table who have not been brought to the table and people are being recognized who haven't been recognized in the past. I think this is good. It's actually good for research. It brings in a variety of different viewpoints. It really fosters excellence, and we know that, but there is a push-back. Sometimes it's a gentle push-back and sometimes it's a strong push-back. In the province of British Columbia, this has not been raised as an issue.

That said, there are certain elements within our own university who pushed back on this from time to time, but I think what we're seeing—

Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

How do you handle that push-back? How does the university address those concerns?

President, Simon Fraser University

Again, I point to the Universities Canada statement on inclusive excellence. All public universities who are part of Universities Canada have signed on to this. To make sure that there is diversity of viewpoints is part of what excellence looks like as well, and different scholars contributing. We can't be excellent without it. We can't be innovative without that kind of diversity. There's very good evidence. We've seen it at the board table. We also see it in research. It's very clear.