Status of Women Committee on May 7th, 2012

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Thank you.

Tricia, do you have something to add?

[Tricia Robertson]

We have three first nations community schools, and we've had more that are involved with Techsploration. The first school began with us at its inception—the Waycobah school in Cape Breton. There's an awesome difference between how things were when the school began with us and how the young women and the teachers participate in the program now.

There are so many things that are important here. When the young women come to the community college, the university, or to other schools, they learn from the young women in the schools as well as from role models. Sometimes we have first nation role models and sometimes we don't.

One thing that was really interesting last year was that for the first time we started to pair our schools. Our Eskasoni First Nation community school hosted one of the teens from another school. After the teen left, the Techsploration student went to school at Eskasoni. They emailed us to say how excited the teen was to be at a first nations school for the first time. The same thing goes in reverse. This year the girls were at our Whitney Pier school and all of the girls at Whitney Pier and the other kids got to meet the teen from Eskasoni. These are opportunities that they probably wouldn't have had otherwise.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

A mentor and a teen showing them examples would certainly be a great benefit to them all. Girls will definitely experience some challenges along the way. I wonder if you can provide some insight into the unique challenges these girls are likely to face with regard to doing their best and trying to achieve economic advancement, prosperity, and leadship.

[Margaret-Ann Armour]

One of the things that we have found, and we have for a number of years now, is first nations girls coming to the WISEST program—the one I was talking about where they come and spend six weeks at the university—from a distance are quite hard for us to keep in touch with and to continue to mentor. For example, we had one young woman from Fort Good Hope, which is about 200 miles south of Inuvik on the Mackenzie, and when she went back to her school, it was quite hard for us to keep in touch.

When the girls are here, they have that group of 60 as a community, and when many of them from the city go back to their schools, there are two or three of them who have had the same experience. But girls from the first nations communities going back are usually the only girl who has come from the community, and it's hard to go on providing the mentorship and support that encourage them to continue. We find it more difficult to make sure that they continue post-secondary training after grade 12, either in the trades or at the university. That's a difficult one.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

You have 15 seconds left.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Thank you very much for all you have provided here today.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

We will now move to the members at the other end of the room.

Ms. Ashton, you have seven minutes.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you, Ms. Robertson and Ms. Armour, for your very informative presentations. I think we all definitely appreciate the work that you've done when it comes to promoting the importance of role modelling, and the work that you've done to make that a reality.

When we look at the statistics of women involved in engineering, mathematics, and natural sciences, there are some pretty disappointing trends overall. I was part of the status of women committee in the last Parliament when we looked at women in the trades, particularly, and some of the reasons behind that. When we look at the overall statistics of women in these fields, we notice that in 1987 only 19.5% were women when it came to these occupations. Moving forward to 2009, just a couple of years ago, that percentage only went up by a couple of points, and is now at 22.3%.

I'm familiar, as somebody who has women engineers in my family—and male engineers as well—with the kinds of programs that are out there. But it seems to me that there's more to it in terms of the barriers that women face. Could I ask you, Ms. Robertson, what kinds of barriers do women face, beyond the lack of role models when it comes to entering these professions?

[Tricia Robertson]

I believe that the biggest barrier of all is the lack of role models, so I'm perhaps not answering the question the way in which you would like it to be answered, but the number one barrier to young women is the lack of role models. I think that's where government really needs to take a lead to help promote and get more role models in these activities. For example, within government departments, there are all kinds of engineers. If there were the opportunity for them to provide these engineers to go to things like Techsploration, and to go to school and program events, it would make a huge difference. I've seen first-hand—

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Actually, Ms. Robertson, sorry, I just do want to get through some more questions. I certainly appreciate your answers based on the work that you know well.

I would like to focus on one of the points you raised—and I know that because of the ten minutes you perhaps didn't have time to go into it: the work and family balance. To me, that seems to entail slightly more than role modelling, but I'd be interested in knowing the kinds of barriers existing in that respect that we need to be tackling to encourage more women to enter these professions.

[Tricia Robertson]

Actually, balancing work and family is a huge barrier. There are a lot of young women who actually graduate from engineering but when they have families they leave the profession. The main reason cited is that the work environment is very unfriendly for young women with families. That is definitely a major barrier.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you for raising that.

I ask because when we did study women in the trades, one of the issue that was raised quite often was the lack of accessible child care. I know coming from a largely industrial part of Canada, with a lot of young families and very few affordable child care spaces, that's an issue I hear of quite often in my area.

Do you think that ensuring affordable and accessible child care would be a way women could more easily find a balance when it comes to work and family in such professions?

[Tricia Robertson]

There's absolutely no question that accessible day care would make a huge difference. When it comes to the trades, there's also a lot of shift work involved, so part of the problem is 24-hour day care. That would be another area that needs to be looked at.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you very much.

If I can move on to Ms. Armour, you made reference to the important work that you do with young aboriginal women and girls. Do you have a way of tracking how many of the girls who go through your program end up going into engineering or the trades?

[Margaret-Ann Armour]

Yes, we are doing that. We find that about half of them are coming back and going into...well, into engineering. The work that we've started with the girls in trades is more recent. Having young women come into the summer program, we started that in 2000, so it's ten years old, but usually only one or two or three young aboriginal women have come and been part of the WISEST summer research program. About half of them are coming back to university and continuing in some kind of post-secondary education, which is probably higher than would have been if they had not had the opportunity to participate in the program.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you, Ms. Armour.

If I could follow up, given that you work with girls who come from the reserves, we've heard a lot about the inadequate situation when it comes to schools on reserve. Do you believe that supporting education, when it comes to the maths and sciences on reserve, would be a way of encouraging more young aboriginal girls to enter such programs?

[Margaret-Ann Armour]

Yes, I believe it would be. We notice a very large difference between the high school for aboriginal girls that we have in the city of Edmonton at Amiskwaciy Academy and the girls who come from schools that are on reserves or are remote. The background of their education is very different. They're coming with a disadvantage from their education in the reserve school, yes. And I say that with sadness.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Ms. Armour, I have to interrupt you. Thank you.

I will now give the floor to a member from the government party.

Ms. Ambler, you have seven minutes.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to our guests for coming in today and for providing such wonderful insight into this subject for our study.

I'd like to begin with a quick story, if you'll allow me, just to tell you what I do. I'm sure most of us members of Parliament at one time or another speak to classes, particularly in Ontario, in grade five and grade ten, because part of the students' curriculum is civics. So I often find myself speaking to grade five and grade ten students.

A few months ago I visited a grade five all-girls class, and I began the way I usually do, by asking how many of them planned to grow up to be politicians. I don't think I've ever had anyone actually raise a hand and say yes, because they don't think of themselves as future politicians when they're ten years old.

So in this grade five class of girls.... I guess my point is I think in some ways the trades and engineering and sciences are kind of the same. There aren't enough young girls who see themselves 20 years into the future as politicians or engineers or scientists, whereas even as young as grade five many of them can think of themselves as teachers, for example. That's one I can think of off the top of my head that is for whatever reason more encouraged in young girls.

That turns in my mind into a question of age and how important it is to “get them young”, shall we say. So high school is a great place to start. Do you find that by grade nine there's already that stigma or unwillingness to look at a career in engineering or science? Or do you find that this is early enough, that grade nine is young enough to get started?

Ms. Robertson?

[Tricia Robertson]

I think the earlier you start, the better it is, of course. I think it is really important that grade nine be the latest that you reach the young women. At grade nine they're making important course choices, such as which math or science course to take, so we really want to work with them in that area, and that's one of the things that all our role models do.

At this point in time, they're very willing to listen. In fact they're eager to hear about all of the different careers. If you hear the young women talk about the women they've met, the role models they've met, either at our events or in the workplace, and how excited they get about it and how much detail they can tell you about it, it's not too late.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

That's good to hear.

And in fact you mentioned in your presentation that Techsploration, the program, was a collaboration of many groups, including teachers and employers, but you also mentioned parents. May I ask how parents are involved in your program?

[Tricia Robertson]

Parents are involved in our programs in a number of different ways. For example, a parent may be one of the chaperones to work with the teachers to bring the girls to our events. We've had many parents involved in the program who get very excited to hear about the opportunities that their daughters wouldn't otherwise hear about.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Thank you. That's great.

I was wondering if there was the aspect of asking the parents at home to maybe steer girls into reading for pleasure books about science, books of that nature, as opposed to other books they might want to read. But it doesn't sound as if that is part of the program specifically.

[Tricia Robertson]

No, at this point it isn't. When we begin our online workshops, parents are definitely one of the targets we want to reach out to. I think that parents definitely need a lot of assistance in that area. If they themselves haven't been exposed to careers in sciences or in engineering, and they know very little about it, they too are at the same disadvantage that the girls are because they haven't met women doing these jobs.