Science and Research Committee on Oct. 30th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

We'll have to leave that as a comment, but that's a very good back-and-forth.

Thank you.

Now, we go to Mr. Turnbull for six minutes.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to both witnesses for being here today. Your opening testimony was great, although eye-opening, for sure.

I want to get back to Dr. Smith.

In your opening remarks, you talked about using an equity lens and then about the importance of an intersectional lens. I took your point very well when you described the statistics, research and information you were presenting. It seems there's consistency in the fact that racialized women, disabled women and other subgroups are experiencing a lack of pay equity—systematically so, by the sound of it in your testimony.

What I want to ask you, though, is this: In your opening remarks, you were talking about this, and you were getting to the point of saying discrimination is a factor. Then you were cut off because of time. I want you to go back to that point and finish what you were saying.

How do you know discrimination is a factor? I'm not disagreeing with you by asking that question at all. I think it is, and we need to acknowledge it. I want to give you the opportunity to finish what you were saying and make your points about why discrimination is a factor.

[Malinda Smith]

Thank you very much for the opportunity.

I highlighted two studies. One is by Howard Ramos and Peter Li. It's called “Differences in Representation and Employment Income of Racialized University Professors”. That appeared in The Equity Myth in 2017. The second study I highlighted comes from the Canadian Association of University Teachers, or CAUT. Again, it draws from Statistics Canada data. A third study, I think, is very important. It is highlighted in the Employment Equity Act review task force briefs. Consistently, the Catalyst Canada advisory board highlights the same kinds of discrepancies.

These scholars did multiple regression analyses to try to rule out other possibilities. Is it age, seniority or, for example, human capital? Is it factors such as gender or race? How is it that racialized women, for example, or women with disabilities consistently have lower salaries?

May I point out that, in a royal commission report in 1984, Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella alluded to the same fact 40 years ago? The question is, why has it not changed?

Howard Ramos and Peter Li point out that we have to do other kinds of studies that are non-quantitative. Look at productivity. Are they more productive? Are they getting more research grants? Are they engaged in more prestigious services? Ramos did a study on that. Multiple studies show that racialized minorities outperform and out-innovate in many instances, but they are still underpaid. In fact, the 2021 census for Canada pointed out higher education and lower pay, or higher education and underemployment. This pattern has persisted.

What are the factors that account for this? The Conference Board of Canada as well as Li and Ramos say we cannot rule out discrimination as a factor in these kinds of things, because nothing else seems to make sense when you do regression analysis on the role of education, seniority, etc.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Essentially, Dr. Smith, based on all the research and studies you're pointing to, they've sort of ruled out all of the other possible explanations, which would then lead us to believe that discrimination has to be a factor. Is there additional research as to where that discrimination is specifically happening?

One question that I want to pose to you and Dr. Sukhai is whether Stats Canada.... You both mentioned tracking data, and how important that is. I think Dr. Sukhai mentioned the lack of demographic data, and you both cited StatsCan as being one of the key sources for information. Do we need additional data, and what specifically would you require to inform better interventions to close that pay equity gap?

This is for both of you. I'll start with Dr. Smith, and then go to Dr. Sukhai.

[Malinda Smith]

We have good data, including administrative data, on gender—women, men and non-binary. We have inadequate data on racialized persons, persons with disabilities and indigenous peoples. These are not administrative data, these are based on self-identification.

We need a national data collection standard to modernize UCASS, so that it includes all equity-deserving groups. We need a common methodology for collecting the data and analyzing it, so we have consistency and this, again, was called for in the 1984 Royal Commission on Equality in Employment.

I'll leave it there, so that Professor Sukhai can answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

You can answer briefly as we only have a few seconds.

[Dr. Mahadeo Sukhai]

I agree with what Dr. Smith said.

I would actually add that part of the current challenge is that universities and granting agencies will ask the self-identification questionnaires, but not always in a standardized way, not always in the same way. The data then cannot necessarily be standardized and reviewed across the country.

If, for example—

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you. We're over time, but thank you for that.

We'll now go to Mr. Blanchette-Joncas for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Greetings to the witnesses who have joined us today.

My first question is for Mr. Sukhai.

Mr. Sukhai, at the committee's various meetings, numerous witnesses have talked about insufficient data on disabilities among university faculty members. Such data would help the committee better identify the pay equity issues among faculty members. I would like to hear your specific thoughts on that.

What can the federal government do to effectively support pay equity among university faculty members, especially as regards disabilities?

[Dr. Mahadeo Sukhai]

First of all, we need to come back to whether we are having a conversation about a faculty member who's an associate professor or a full professor who acquires the lived experience with a disability as they get older, or are we talking about somebody like me, for example, who was born with a congenital disability and who then goes through a research career and starts encountering barriers as an early-career researcher?

If we talk about the second group, because that's actually where the greater emphasis does need to be placed, we can start talking about programs through the tri-council and in other ways to foster the participation of early-career researchers with disabilities. Those would have to be done in sensitive and respectful ways, so that we're not mandating or forcing a disclosure of a lived experience if that's not something that somebody wants to do.

Certainly, through funding and through scholarships and fellowships, you can actually start to increase that level of representation. You can also develop policy and programs around the research environment and around accessibility within the research space. It's one thing to mandate a representation target, but it's another thing to make the environment fully accessible. Both actually need to be done in order to ensure that researchers with disabilities are retained.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Sukhai.

What kind of data do you think should be gathered about persons with disabilities in order to promote pay equity? I understand of course that such data would always be confidential, out of respect for individuals.

[Dr. Mahadeo Sukhai]

I think we would need to know the disability group. Again, as I said, is somebody congenital, or did they acquire a disability in childhood or later in life? I think we need to know that. Everything else is potentially inferable from those two pieces. You can infer multiple lived experiences at once.

If you use the way that Statistics Canada asks the disability screening question, you're also able to understand a bit of the functional impacts. That combination of functional impacts, age of onset and number and types of disabilities will give us a lot to go along with everything else that gets captured in terms of pay, such as when somebody joins the professoriate, what their salary is and how that salary changes with time.

I will say one other thing, if I have time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

You have about two minutes in total with Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas.

The interpreters are really struggling.

Thank you, interpreters, for doing the job.

There's a bit of a feedback on your microphone. Try speaking more slowly so we can catch it.

Thank you.

[Dr. Mahadeo Sukhai]

Of course.

The one other thing I would say is that there are some really good economic analyses of earning potential over time. An example is post-doctoral scholars as they compare to other postgraduate career paths. Those kinds of economic analyses also end up applying to persons with disabilities, because many of the deeply held conventions around productivity and persons with disabilities go along with this notion of starting later or moving through our career paths more slowly. That also ends up leading to diverging earning potential over time.

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

Thank you, Mr. Sukhai.

We recognize what the three organizations receiving federal funding do as regards equity, diversity and inclusion for underrepresented groups, but what about the pay gap? What needs to be improved to reduce the pay gap, particularly for persons with disabilities?

[Dr. Mahadeo Sukhai]

In less than one minute, the short answer is that there aren't any.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

If there is anything like a link or anything in writing that comes up later that you could submit to the clerk, it would be wonderful. I know timing is very tight in these sessions.

We'll go to Mr. Cannings for six minutes, please.

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

Thank you to both witnesses for being here today.

I'm going to start with Dr. Smith.

In your initial presentation, you mentioned several possibilities of differences that might explain different levels of pay gaps. You mentioned unionized versus non-unionized. When I worked at the University of British Columbia, there were three groups of workers. There was the faculty association with the tenured faculty, there were administrative and professional people, and then there were the unionized workers throughout the university.

Could you comment on whether you have data that would separate out the pay gaps within those groups? Do you have that sort of data? Can you explain why there might be differences based on those different categories?

[Malinda Smith]

Thank you very much for your question.

I think, with the unionized workers, clearly they obviously negotiate and they have comparative data on which to negotiate, including for across the post-secondary sector, which they have obtained through their associations and, I would say, their national association, the Canadian Association of University Teachers. I would say that the pay for sessionals, who also are members of these sometimes unionized workers, would be impacted by the fact that they are maybe term to term or year to year. This is one reason I really appreciate UCASS's modernization initiative to try to track the experiences of sessional, part-time or contract workers who are now teaching a significant percentage of the courses in Canadian universities. However, I would say there is strength in the collective bargaining process for those who can negotiate for better pay, for pay increases over time and for benefits commensurate with their experience.

I'm less familiar with the non-unionized workers, except for maybe support and management and professional staff. I would say they would be more vulnerable and more likely to be laid off more readily than would those with tenure-track positions, and that is no surprise to any of us on this matter. I say that as someone who has been privileged enough to be a tenured professor and who still is a tenured professor as the senior administrator. Undoubtedly, that's a privileged position in the university environment.

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

We've been hearing testimony from various witnesses that would seem to indicate that, within the tenured professors, this pay gap tends to get worse, to increase, the higher you go in that tenure system and the longer you're in the system, especially between men and women. For male tenured professors who are full professors, that gap is bigger than it is at, say, associate or assistant professor levels.

Is that something you see at the University of Calgary, and is there some way of trying to ameliorate that?

[Malinda Smith]

I would focus less on a specific university, like the University of Calgary, and say that the UCASS data is very helpful for providing a snapshot of the post-secondary sector largely. I would say that you would find that the generational impact is important. Incoming new assistant professors, for example, who have better negotiated salaries could be making more than would some more senior associate professors, so you start to see a gap there that has implications over time. I would say that, because we moved the retirement age for full professors, for full professors their age might be more senior than it was historically, so the wage gap might also be higher than, say, it was historically when there was a cut-off at age 65.

There are a number of overlapping factors that shape this, but I don't want to rule out the gender dynamics that impact our women. Those can include lower salary offers, the fact that women do different kinds of work that are less rewarded, such as serving as professional workers or mentoring students, or that they may get less prestigious offers to be research chairs. We know that historically—and we're trying to change this with the tri-council—women didn't get as many Canada research chairs.

As you know from the research on full professors and senior leadership, women are significantly under-represented in these kinds of roles. As well, racialized people are severely under-represented in senior leadership roles, including at my own institution, which we acknowledge. These things all impact salary and they all impact the gap. To the extent that we don't close these other gaps—hiring, promotion, remuneration—we will continue to see them grow or remain the same, which is virtually what's happening right now.

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

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you.

Now we're going to do five minutes, five minutes, two and a half minutes and two and a half minutes, starting with Mrs. Goodridge from the Conservatives for five minutes.

Go ahead, please.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you so much, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for participating as part of this study.

Dr. Smith, I'd like to build on some of the questions that were asked by my colleague Mr. Lobb regarding the role of HR. Do you think universities have to play more of a role internally to address pay gaps?

[Malinda Smith]

That is a beautiful question. The short answer is “yes”. You're highlighting a question of accountability and who's accountable.

Obviously, those of us who are full-time continuing in administration are the ones who have the best data and knowledge and who are in a position of power and privilege to address it.