Status of Women Committee on March 17th, 2010

[Jacinthe Guay]

If I may, our Option gagnante program was very successful in allowing women to try out trades. I say “was” because we were not able to get more funding. Unfortunately, the program ended. The results were excellent. Women left with a good idea of the trade they wanted to work in and what was really involved.

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

Why was the program terminated?

[Jacinthe Guay]

There was no more money.

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

From?

[Jacinthe Guay]

From Emploi-Québec. That was provincial.

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

Would some federal funding be helpful?

[Jacinthe Guay]

Yes, of course, more funding would make it easy to get the program going again.

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

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut off any others who wished to respond.

[Sue Calhoun]

In my opening statement I mentioned an example of a program that was funded in the past fiscal year, a women in technology program whereby they received money to attract young women to consider a career in the technology sector. I don't know enough about that program to know if it included a mentorship aspect. I would assume that it did because mentorship is so important, especially for younger women wanting to go into non-traditional jobs. It's really critical that they have access to those mentorship programs.

[Susan Russell]

We also need to mention that there is a need for mentorship in the professional areas of engineering and those sorts of areas. Women are dropping out in large numbers. My niece, for example, did electrical engineering and never went any further. Another young woman did architecture and never went any further. It is an awful waste of education for that to happen--good brains are being wasted. Perhaps if something was provided to universities so they could call back to their professors--women tend to lack networks when they are in non-traditional professions, and networks could help with the mentorship issue.

Of course, the key is getting more women into both apprenticeship trades and non-traditional professions, but I think that is really important, and I have a feeling that we need more up-to-date research on the subject as to what is really happening in Canada. We did a women in university study in 1992 and my colleagues flatly told me that was out of date, and it is. We need more research. I'm not quite sure how to go about it, perhaps having mentors within the workplace itself and a woman-friendly atmosphere.

Another profession equal numbers of women are going into is law, but it's not a friendly place to be for a woman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 30 seconds.

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

We appreciate your comment with regard to research. We do indeed need research so that we can crack what has been characterized as a very complicated problem.

It is interesting that you mentioned women going into law and not staying there. We had a witness last February, Gwendolyn Landolt, who said that women are going into professions like teaching and the service industry because it suits them better. They just prefer to be there, rather than it not being a choice they would make if they had more options. I wonder if you have a take on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Sorry, the take cannot occur because the time is up.

Ms. Boucher.

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

Good afternoon, and welcome everyone. This is quite interesting. After listening to everyone's comments, I noticed that it often comes back to our image of women. The image that we project of women, whether at the federal, provincial or municipal level or in society, does not include non-traditional jobs at all or rarely. I have two daughters, 21 and 22 years old. When they talk about career choices at school, women are never encouraged to go into construction or electricity, for example. The image that is projected is never one of a strong woman.

There are women with leadership skills, a number of them are at this table. I think that, in order to disabuse us of our notion of where women belong, we also have to talk about the image that society projects. It is not just an issue that concerns governments or governance. Governments have to play a role, but society also has to convey the idea that women are just as strong as men, if not more so. For that reason, I wanted to thank you.

Ms. Guay, I have here the paths taken by the group of Laval women, and I looked at it very carefully. I find it very interesting. I hope that you will be able to renew the program. It is from 2006-2007. I know you received funding, and I hope you will be able to run it again.

We also talked about mentorship. In every province, projects were funded through the Women's Community Fund, a Status of Women program where every person or group can set up and carry out a project. Nova Scotia has the Tools for the Trade: Promoting Economic Security for Women in Cape Breton project, Quebec has the Pour que les femmes continuent d'avancer project, New Brunswick has the Power Up! Mentoring project and Manitoba has the Cultivating Holistic Community Leadership project. These are the kinds of initiatives we need to continue. We often talk about large organizations, but, in many cases, small organizations also need our help, and we are here to help them.

I have a question for everyone, but especially Ms. Guay.

I requested a study, which will be available later. I want to know to what extent you think the image that the media projects of women affects society and our children.

[Jacinthe Guay]

I will give you a very simple example. At the Olympic games, when the Canadian women's hockey team won, the media made a big fuss. So the public started to think that it was scandalous. I really think the media have a role to play in this.

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

It is important to promote the fact that women have their place and are not taking the place of others, but their own. Parties, be they federal or provincial, or even society, could all work together to change this image and make it so that our kids and grandkids could work in non-traditional jobs. They may have been reserved for men to date, but some education is needed.

[Jacinthe Guay]

It is a long journey, but given all the progress that women have made in recent years, I think we can get there.

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

Ms. Russell, what do you think about the image issue?

[Susan Russell]

Most of what I was talking about was on the stereotype. It's not the reality. It's what people think and what the girl starts to think, because she internalizes what other people think. She then starts to think that she can't, while the reality is that she could.

I believe it has to start early. It has to start in the family and in school. It has to start at home. It then has to start with the teachers.

The images in the media sometimes puzzle me. Right now, little girls are princesses. It really disturbs me, because I'm not sure that princesses do carpentry. I find it a little disturbing. I don't think it's what we really want for our little girls.

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

Would you support a study on the image of women projected by the media so as to change society's image of us?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm sorry, we're now a minute over. We'll have to end it.

I want to thank those of you who came: Susan Russell, Jacinthe Guay, and of course both Ms. Hull and Ms. Calhoun, thank you very much. You gave extraordinarily important input into this committee and covered a lot of ground. I want to thank you very much for being here. Thank you for your presence.

In the meantime, we have bells at 5:15 for votes at 5:30. The vote is down the hall.

We have some important things to do, and I would ask that we move in camera. I will suspend for a minute so that the witnesses can leave and we can prepare to go in camera. We can try to get some quick and dirty work done after that.

[Proceedings continue in camera]