Science and Research Committee on Sept. 27th, 2023

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Now I'll go to the dimensions initiative, which is administered by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council for the three granting agencies. It has codeveloped a handbook for post-secondary institutions seeking to increase equity, diversity and inclusion in their environments.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

I'm sorry. I have to cut you off there.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I know how it feels.

[An hon. member]

We all do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

We have five minutes left, and two and a half of those minutes will go to Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Dr. Beaudry and Ms. Whitaker, I'm glad you have a lot of data to give us, but I want us to stay focused on solutions. What are the federal government's levers to really reduce the pay gap that may exist in university faculty? Do you have any solutions for us?

[Dr. Catherine Beaudry]

First, pay gaps must be properly measured by comparing what is comparable. In the case of people who publish at the same frequency and receive comparable funding, there is generally no gender gap. It's the access of young professors, particularly young women, to this funding and to conference support that explains some of the gaps, not to mention the access to child care.

In England, I was paying 45 pounds a day for my two young children. I came back to Quebec in 2002 because there were $5 child care centres. It cost me $10 a day to look after my two children. If you do the math, the financial difference is glaring. If we had day care systematically established in all universities, it would bring communities closer together. Doctoral students and post-doctoral students also have children, who could go to the same day care centres as teachers' children. These day care centres would then help strengthen communities because we would all be in the same boat. However, we are all fighting for child care spaces, and there are none. I can't even imagine what's happening in the rest of Canada.

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

Thank you, Dr. Beaudry.

Go ahead, Ms. Whitaker.

[Robin Whitaker]

In addition to the collection of data and proof, which has already been mentioned, I mention again a strengthened federal contractors program. That would bring more universities and colleges under federal legislation. In 2013, we saw the threshold to be brought into the federal contractors program increase substantially. A number of universities that had been under that legislation were removed.

I think lowering the threshold and then strengthening the legislation that's applied to employment equity and pay equity would be a very concrete thing that the federal government could do.

Going back to a point I made earlier, working with the provinces to stabilize funding to post-secondary institutions—

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

That's great. Thank you. We have that previous comment on the record. I'm sure we'll be using it. Thank you for that.

Now, to finish this up, we go to Mr. Cannings for two and a half minutes, please.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thanks.

I'm going to turn to Dr. Whitaker again.

It strikes me that one of the really sticky parts of this issue is the inherent bias that exists in, basically, all of us. When we have a system whereby decision-making positions are dominated by men.... Hopefully, that's changing. If there's any data that says that's improving, I'd like to hear it.

When we have things like merit pay, time to promotion, starting salaries, professional fees and bonuses, all of these seem to be things that would, for the most part, be decided by people in high places or in the committees that make those decisions.

How do we get around that? How do we fix that, or do we just have to wait until that world stabilizes in terms of women being equal in number to men?

[Robin Whitaker]

No, I don't think we have to wait. I think there are things we can do.

I think you're right: What we need to do is address the systemic issues that take it out of the hands of individual negotiations, the merit pay, the market differentials.... Collective bargaining has been one important mechanism for doing that. As well, certainly, things like compression of salary scales move people up in fewer and bigger jumps, so that you have a transparent salary scale. Women get to an equal threshold more quickly and then are there for longer.

Also, more transparency about what is happening and certainly addressing where there are employment equity gaps in certain fields, the STEM fields that Catherine Beaudry mentioned, but also architecture and some other fields, which tend to be the ones that command the market differentials.... I think there are many things we can do if the will is there to do them, but it does come down to removing those moments where the bias or the discrimination can come in. There have been efforts to reduce those or to minimize the impacts they can have, certainly, such as not allowing market differentials to persist throughout a career and those kinds of things.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

That's great. Thank you. I think that's a great place to leave us at.

Thank you, Mr. Cannings.

Thank you, Catherine Beaudry and Robin Whitaker, for your testimony and your participation in this study. It's very great work that you're doing outside this study and by contributing to our study, so thank you. If there are additional comments, please submit them to the clerk.

On that note, as per the motion that we adopted on September 18, the request for the submission of briefs has now been published online. It will be open for the next three weeks. The study page includes a link to submit a brief, as well as the full text of the motion and the administrative information for contacting the clerk, so look at our website there.

Also, in the discussion with the analysts and clerks—if I could just have your attention for one or two more minutes, members—on the deadline for the suggested witnesses for the study on the integration of indigenous traditional knowledge and science into the government policy development, we will be taking a list of those witnesses until the end of the day on Friday the 13th. Please include your party affiliation if they are coming in through your offices. Should the committee wish, the analysts can prepare this list of witnesses for the parties to consider when they're drafting their list.

I also have a reminder that we're not going to be meeting on Monday, October 2, and that at the meeting of Wednesday, October 4, we will be resuming the studies we've been working on today and continuing the good work.

Congratulations to the committee for a great meeting and, again, to the witnesses.

With that, I'll ask if we can adjourn.

Thank you. We're adjourned.