Good afternoon. Thank you so much for this opportunity to discuss this important subject, the future for girls in Canada.
I think it's very forward-thinking of the committee to have asked this important question on how to improve the economic prospects of girls in Canada.
Girls Action Foundation was founded in 1995. We have our main office in Montreal.
We have about 270 member organizations across Canada. Our member organizations have presence in all provinces and territories, and we really like to work towards uniting organizations to collaborate for the betterment of girls in Canada.
We do programs with girls. We have a young women's leadership program, and we also reach out to women to mentor, interact with, and exchange with girls. Mentorship and role modelling are some of the important issues we will bring up in our recommendations regarding the economic prospects of girls.
Why should we focus on girls? We believe that Canada will be better off if all citizens are able to achieve their potential. As we've seen on the international scale, investing in girls means investing in the social and economic well-being of the whole country, and we believe this to be true in Canada as well. As prosperous as we are, there is still a lot of work to be done.
Last year, Girls Action Foundation conducted a public opinion poll, which found that, at the top of the list regarding issues around equity of men and women and girls and boys, 96% said they felt strongly that equity between boys and girls was an important Canadian value. However, it's clear that many girls are still not reaching their potential in career and financial security as they grow up. So what can we do?
For example two-thirds of those who work for minimum wage in Canada are female. Male wage earners earn 20% more than do female wage earners in Canada, resulting in one of the highest gender wage gaps among the OECD countries.
It seems as though girls are doing well. For example, in education, it appears that fewer girls drop out than do boys, but when we look beneath the surface of girls' daily lives, there is a lot going on. There are daily experiences of harassment. Violence is still quite widespread. Girls have very low self-esteem, and these things seem to be getting worse. So schools are not super safe places for a lot of girls.
We also know that girls are more vulnerable to economic insecurity since they face additional barriers and limited opportunities related to their ethnicity, their income, their class, their ability, their immigrant status, and whether or not they have aboriginal heritage, and so on. These are all important things going on in girls' lives.
I think it's very interesting that there's more and more attention being paid by the federal government and so on to the need for greater representation of women in governance. There are some very important initiatives addressing women, for example, even on corporate boards. Companies are more profitable when there are more women in decision-making roles.
So we need to start young, and that's why we're here today—to help girls cultivate confidence, skills, and experience so they can reach their potential, and also to improve the social and educational environments in which girls are growing up. I think it's on both sides. It's not just an individual problem, such that if girls are confident everything will be fine. It's also about creating environments in which girls can be successful as they grow into women. We also know there is an intergenerational effect. The more girls and women can achieve economic stability and prosperity, the more they will contribute that to their children and to the community.
This week in Quebec a study that looked at dropout rates was also released. Obviously more boys than girls are dropping out of high school—we know that—but the impacts on girls are greater. Girls who do drop out tend to stay in poverty, whereas men are able to find other kinds of jobs.
This shows us again that we do need to start young. I will now pass the mike to Saman Ahsan, who will speak about our recommendations.