Good morning. I would like to thank the committee for inviting me to appear today to discuss the barriers to achieving economic equality for women in Canada.
My name is Anne-Marie Roy. I am the president of the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa, representing all undergraduate students at the U of O. I also sit on the national executive of the Canadian Federation of Students, Canada's largest and oldest student organization, with members from Newfoundland and Labrador to British Columbia. The Canadian Federation of Students represents over 600,000 students from more than 80 students' unions. It advocates for affordable and accessible post-secondary education.
For years, students have been at the forefront in the fight against gender inequality and violence against women. I am pleased to be here today to discuss some of the struggles with you. As a woman who through my own efforts and the help of my community has reached leadership positions, I know how important it is to celebrate those victories, but also to look around and ask: who is absent from the table and why.
Over the past 20 years, women's participation in post-secondary education has risen dramatically. We know that in order to have a chance at a living wage, women must go further in their education than their male counterparts. Between 2010 and 2012, average real wages for women with a bachelor's degree were closer to the earnings of a man with only a high school diploma than to those of their male peers with a bachelor's degree. Unfortunately, at the same time, in almost every province, tuition fees and student debt rose dramatically, making it increasingly difficult for women to access the education they need to achieve economic stability.
In 1991, average tuition fees in Canada were $1,706. As of 2014, that number has increased to $5,959. For many women, this cost alone can mean that getting a post-secondary education is simply not an option. High upfront fees are more likely to be a barrier to women from marginalized communities, including racialized and indigenous women, women from low-income households, women with disabilities, and queer and trans women.
Women who are able to attend school are often forced to take on substantial student debt in order to pay these high upfront costs. In total, Canadian students owe $16 billion in student debt to the federal government, and billions more to provincial governments and private lenders. Rising tuition fees particularly impact women, who account for 60% of borrowers from the Canada student loans program. On average, after a four-year degree, a student in Canada will graduate with over $26,000 in debt. When you break it down by province, the situation is even more alarming, with average student debt being as low as $14,400 in Quebec and as high as $39,600 in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
Once in the workforce, women continue to make less than their male counterparts. A recent study by Statistics Canada on cumulative earnings between 1991 and 2010 found that working women earned $500,000 less than men over that period. At every level of education, and across occupations, women earned less. In the case of engineering, women earned an average of 47% less than men over the course of 20 years. Even in teaching, the occupation where women and men were the closest, women earned 19% less than men. These differences in earnings mean that it will take women longer to repay their student debt after graduation, and as a result, they will pay more in interest. Ultimately, this means that women are paying more for a post-secondary education than their male peers, whose incomes would allow them to pay down their student debt more quickly. The federal government should be working towards pay equity across Canada, but by reducing the cost of post-secondary education and investing in the Canada student grants program, the federal government could, at least, stop women from being doubly penalized for their lower earnings.
Campuses are also workplaces for many students. Recent trends of precarious employment are damaging students' working and living conditions. For many graduate students, working as a teaching or research assistant while studying is necessary to complete their program; however, the shift at many universities to hire staff on short-term contracts has left graduate students without benefits or job security. Investing in post-secondary education by increasing transfer payments to provinces and replacing the Canada student loans program with grants would be a good start towards making post-secondary education more affordable and accessible to women.
For first nations, Inuit and Métis women, there are additional barriers when it comes to being able to access a post-secondary education. Educational attainment levels among aboriginal people in Canada remain significantly lower than those of non-aboriginal people. Only 8% of aboriginal persons hold a university degree compared with 23% of the total population.
Currently, the federal government funds education for aboriginal students through the post-secondary student support program, also known as the PSSSP. Unfortunately, annual increases in funding for this program are capped at 2%, despite the growing number of aboriginal students seeking post-secondary education and the increasing cost of tuition fees, which increased by more than 3% this year.
Prior to 1992 funding was allocated based on the number of eligible students and their estimated expenses. As a result of the funding cap, over 18,500 qualified aboriginal students were denied funding between 2006 and 2011 alone. Aboriginal communities are often forced to choose whether to fully fund a few students or spread funding over a greater number of students. This is a clear violation of Canada's treaty responsibility to fund aboriginal education. Lifting the cap on increases in funding to the PSSSP would help ensure that no qualified aboriginal woman is denied the funding she needs to attend post-secondary education.
For students with children, access to affordable child care is required to take on or complete a degree. The average cost of after-tax child care in Canada is now $15,000 per year. Day care facilities on campuses are often similarly overpriced, and overcrowded, with waiting lists that take years to get to the top of. In some cases, as happened here in Ottawa, there have been attempts to block some students from accessing child care subsidies. Even today, women continue to be more likely to be responsible for the primary care of children and other dependants. Without a universal child care program in Canada, women will not achieve equity with their male peers.
Last, as we have seen this past year, women continue to face the threat of sexual and gender-based violence on campuses. It has now been 25 years since the Montreal massacre, and women are still unsafe at Canadian colleges and universities. Young women aged 15 to 24 experience higher instances of sexual violence in Canada than any other age group. Much of that sexual violence happens on our campuses, in workplaces, and in our communities. More than ever it is incumbent upon our institutions, both colleges and universities as well as governments, to show leadership in challenging attitudes that perpetuate sexual violence and normalize rape culture.
Our country has disgracefully stood by as over 1,200 indigenous women have been murdered or have gone missing. We continue to be complacent in the high instances of violence against indigenous women, who are eight times more likely to be murdered than non-indigenous women like me.
Across North America, trans women experience dramatically higher instances of violence, and often college and university campuses intensify the already daily violence with strict legal name policies, gendered washrooms, and severely lacking anti-violence policies.
The Canadian Federation of Students has been at the forefront of movements against sexual and gender-based violence on our campuses and in our communities, but often our efforts are undermined by the lack of funding and support from governments and institutions to address the root causes of these issues. Women's social and economic equity cannot be won in a day. Students know that we need broad social changes if women are to achieve gender equality in our lifetime. I hope the committee will recommend the implementation of substantive changes that can move us toward this ultimate goal.
Thank you.