Status of Women Committee on April 19th, 2010

[Dr. Janet Dollin]

I would add that this is one prong of the approach. This committee is doing what it needs to do for the second prong of that approach, which is to approach women who are working in the field to ask them what their personal barriers are and what part of those personal barriers are really systemic barriers. Then it needs to put policies in place to deal with the systemic barriers.

[Jennifer Beeman]

Thank you, Ms. Boucher, for the question and the interest in our case, but thank you particularly for that question.

To make it attractive, oh heavens, there are projects to promote non-traditional jobs to girls, cute campaigns of all sorts to show girls on the job, and also the other way around, to attract boys into jobs relating to health care, education, and so on.

Promotion is one thing, you have to go out and look for the women. Employability groups will identify the women immediately. A woman who may be older, in retraining, in her thirties, has more baggage. She has what it takes and it would be really worthwhile for her to try. Once we have done promotion, we really have to go and look for the women. Right away, they are confronted with challenges. It is a challenge to be all alone in class. There is resistance, jokes from the guys, instructions who are not supportive. We are just talking about training, but after that, you have to get hired. We don't see girls on worksites, in the trades, and so on. So to get yourself into the workplace later, you have to overcome the resistance, barrier by barrier, and it's huge.

I quite liked what the others said about planability; I don't know how to translate it. It is essential to know that it is possible to plan the work. There is a huge job to do, I completely agree, when it comes to education. For girls to be able to get themselves into these jobs is essential, and for them to be able to do it otherwise. We had "Chapeau, les filles!", a competition held in Quebec for women and girls who choose non-traditional occupations. They get all dressed up to go there, they don't come in dressed in construction boots. They lead a full life, there are other sides to their personalities. That has to be seen and grasped and understood.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

I'm talking from experience. Not my personal experience, but my daughter's, who wants to learn cabinetmaking. It was a woman who denied her access to the job. My daughter also talked to me about the image projected. We often here, about me, that I'm a rabid feminist. Those who know me, Nicole, know that I am a feminist, yes, but not rabid. At the age of 20 or 21, our young people growing up don't know everything that was done in the last 40 years. To them, when they come into the world, it's already accomplished, the things have been achieved.

Is that it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Merci, Madame Boucher.

We'll go to Ms. Mathyssen, from the NDP.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for all this wonderful expertise. It's very important that we get all of this on the record, and I'm most grateful for it.

I want to start with a general question. Anyone can jump in.

In March of this year a report on respect and equality was released by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The media immediately seized upon it, because in one page of the report it talks about women in the public sector and that 55% of the jobs in the public sector are now held by women and that 43% of managers are women. It leaves out the fact that 45% of jobs are held by men, and 57% of managers are men. That being said, the media seized upon it and said that women have arrived and they've achieved equality, and we know it because they're included in the Charter of Rights, and employment equity is of the past and we don't need it any more--it's passé, so get rid of it.

I would appreciate a comment from anyone who would like to chip in on this.

[Nancy Peckford]

I think it's obvious, given where you work, and where we are, that we have far from arrived. I think until all of our legislatures have a minimum of 50% of women in them, we cannot say that equality is here. I think it's incumbent upon all of us to recognize that these institutions are ones women look up to. If they see such a small number of women in them, I think they are sometimes reluctant to see themselves as the decision-makers and the brokers that I think they aspire to be.

[Gisèle Pageau]

I don't think we've arrived yet. Just listening to the presenters today, with 12% for physicians in certain specialties, and our sisters in the Quebec construction area at 1.2%, which is even lower than we are--I thought we were bad, and we're at 4%--we certainly haven't arrived.

One of the things that the CEP does is to give scholarships to women going into non-traditional education. One of the sites that I use all the time is the Job Futures site for Canada, just to make sure the numbers show that a certain job is still not a traditional job now for women. Again, some of the applications I've seen have been for the environment and for the sciences, which are still predominantly male. So I'm not quite sure where that comes from, but we still have a long way to go.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ms. Beeman.

[Jennifer Beeman]

I would like to come back to the idea that it is essential that... There are success stories. Undoubtedly there are, but we are so far from success for a majority of women. We have proved we are capable of managing, we are good managers, teachers, and so on. But the success of that 10% or so of the female population conceals the very difficult circumstances of a large majority of women in the labour market who cannot work at a job they want to work at.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Dr. Gautam.

[Dr. Mamta Gautam]

I just want to add to this.

I've heard similar comments in medicine. I must say I'm a proud member of the Federation of Medical Women of Canada, like my colleagues here. I've had people say, “well, do you think you still need that federation any more?” or worse, if it's possible, “well, maybe we should start a federation of medical men of Canada.” I think that in some ways underscores the fact that we have made a lot of progress over the last few decades. I think we are making a lot more, and there's more to be done, but I have to say those are the comments that stand out. For the most part, I see my male colleagues very definitely appreciating the benefits and changes that women have brought to medicine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Irene, did you want to move on, or did you want to hear from someone else?

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Madame Goulet was indicating.

[Nathalie Goulet]

In this particular case of predominantly female jobs, we have to knock down the myth that we already have equality. Because there are women in the labour market, we have the impression that they are present everywhere. With a few good, well-chosen statistics, we can show that very quickly.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Merci.

I heard today a reference to pay equity. In connection with that, I also heard about the need for cultural attitude changes. Do you think that if we truly did have equal pay for work of equal value we could effect that cultural shift that seems to elude us even now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Everyone has two minutes in which to answer this.

Ms. Pageau.

[Gisèle Pageau]

I think it would certainly go a long way to assisting in that, but there's more than just equal pay for work of equal value. We also have to look at—and I think this was brought forward—child care as well and universal child care.

One of the things we find in the construction industry is the accommodation of women for certain professions. In construction we know that the hours are long. It's 12, 14, 16 hours a day. The projects are three to four months. To find appropriate child care is difficult. So as a union, we try to negotiate some child care funding, but having a universal child care fund would assist women in reaching equality.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have only a minute.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I'd be interested in hearing about child care. I truly would.

[Dr. Kathleen Gartke]

I think the key phrase here is equal pay for work of equal value. I think this is something in which progress needs to be made. We know, for example, that women physicians spend longer with each patient. They're more involved in preventive medicine. Some of these things have a strong value, but they have not typically been valued in the past. While I think as a solution it sounds excellent, we have to redefine it a little bit more closely.

Medicine has always been piecework: you see a patient, you get so many dollars. It doesn't matter whether you do a good job or a bad job. So I think we have to perhaps refocus a bit.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

It would be a model other than fee for service.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

We have now gone seven minutes. Because we've had five witnesses, we've gone longer in our presentations than we need to.

I'm going to move to the second round. This is a five-minute round. We have five minutes for questions and answers.

I'll go to Anita Neville for the Liberals.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you.

Please accept my apologies for coming in late. I got caught in a previous meeting.

As I'm listening to all of you through the many hearings we've had at this committee, whether on this study, on women's economic security, or on EI, I am struck by the commonalities of the issues that we're hearing through the whole range of our studies. Whether it's from doctors or construction workers or whomever, the issues seem to be more or less the same for women, wherever and however they work.

I have a couple of questions that I'll ask right at the outset, because my time is limited.

I wanted to pick up on the pay equity that Ms. Mathyssen identified. I'm going to read the question that our researcher prepared. It's geared for the communications group. In your submission on pay equity in 2002, you said the undervaluation of women's work manifested itself prominently in the pay inequities that exist in the workplace. I'm not going to go through all of it, but are there still wage gaps between men and women in the job classes in the industries represented? Does the gender wage gap persist in jobs for which union contracts exist? That's one question.

My next question is more a comment than a question. It's on the lack of funding you were expecting from Status of Women. That issue was actually discussed at this committee some time ago. You may or may not remember. It came at about the time the government made their pay equity announcement within the budget bill. You issued a press release that was critical of it, and your funding seems to have stopped; I hope that's not a coincidence, but it looks mighty strange to me.

My other quick comment to all of you is that we will be making a report with recommendations. I'd like a quick survey: what would be your foremost recommendation to the committee, based on your own organization's experiences?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Go ahead, Madame Pageau.

[Gisèle Pageau]

With regard to pay equity, no, we haven't achieved pay equity yet. It's really unfortunate. In a study released less than a year ago, I believe, we studied where we were about 15 years ago and where we are today. About 15 years ago, women were getting about 75¢ on the dollar. Some of the study's recommendations were that women needed to get educated; there weren't enough women in universities and colleges. Women, over that 15-year period, did that, but what the study found was that women now are only getting 71¢ on the dollar, so we've gone backwards. In the case of women with university degrees, the study found they were only getting only 68¢ on the dollar. For aboriginal women and women of colour, it was even worse--I believe they were at 62¢ to 64¢--so we haven't achieved pay equity in general in Canada.

With regard to union contracts, the situation for women with unions is better. The study shows that about 92% to 93% of women achieve pay equity through union contracts. Equal pay for work of equal value is achieved in our construction industry because for an electrician, whether a male or female, the industry standards are the same, but we have a long way to go yet.