Thank you for the opportunity to join the conversation today.
I'm here today to talk about women in construction. As we all know, Canada needs all hands on deck to support the continued industrial investment that helps drive our economy. This means we must ensure that Canada has the workforce it needs to build, operate, maintain, and provide leadership on those big projects. The challenge is that this industry will lose 24% of its workforce and specifically those individuals who have moved up in the ranks and into leadership positions. We're going to lose those people to retirement and global competition.
Underemployed women in Canada comprise the largest underutilized workforce in Canada. These are jobs that require no student debt to get into or to succeed at. Canada needs to support any and all proven initiatives that attract and prepare those who want to enter this industry, in particular women.
Women coming out of the Women Building Futures programs on average see an increase in their annual income by 127% on day of hire. What's not working right now is the funding that's needed to help women get into this industry.
The recent Status of Women Canada call for proposals forces respondents to create projects that will repeat work that's already done. It called for research and the identification of best practices and gaps in service. It allows for no training, awareness, mentorship, or any direct service to women as part of the project. It is our opinion that there is a plethora of existing research out there that identifies gaps, success strategies, and best practices related to this specific issue. This funding could be applied directly to what Canada really needs in women, which is programs that will attract and prepare women for construction jobs, including those jobs that offer leadership opportunity at a high rate of pay, I might add.
This year alone, Women Building Futures has seen 5,000 women come through its doors looking for a way to come into this industry. Our funding allows us to train 120 of those 5,000 people. We have a 90% success rate in helping women get to work in this industry, increasing their average annual income by 127% on day of hire, and yet organizations like ours are ineligible for the funding from Status of Women Canada. It doesn’t make sense to us.
Our recommendation is that Status of Women Canada funding should support direct programming that does have a proven track record in helping women get to work in areas that will result in economic prosperity for those women.
Next, I'm going to speak momentarily on equality. Women, boys, men, and girls are not homogenous, yet government policies that drive programs are often based on all people being equal. This framework negatively impacts half the population of Canada. I'm going to give you a short case study to demonstrate this.
I'm going to talk about Susan. Susan's a single parent of two, works full-time earning $30,000 a year. She wants a career that will increase her income substantially and offer leadership opportunity. Construction is her industry of choice. Susan applies for a construction training program that has a proven track record of success. The program is fully funded by an employer. The trick is Susan doesn't have sufficient savings to cover her living costs during this eight-week training program, so she goes to the Government of Alberta to request a counsel to leave, which is a process to request permission to leave her current low-paying job so that she can have money to pay her bills and feed the kids while in this eight-week training program. The cost to government would be approximately $3,000, or 1% of the investment that that company is making in that individual. The response from government was no. Living costs for people in this type of training program are not an eligible expenditure.
Here's the rub: men are hired every day in Canada's construction industry without having to take any type of training. The reality is very different for women. Women must be much better than, in order to be seen as good as. That's just how it is. Opportunity in this industry is significant for women, but it is far from equitable. This woman will not be hired without the training. Barriers to training are reinforced by government policies that treat everyone as equal when they are not.
This case study is real. The woman was denied housing support and therefore was not able to enter the training program. She remains underemployed, unable to boost her tax contribution, and unable to boost her consumption of goods. Government will continue to subsidize her and her children, and industry has lost another potential local worker and future leader.
What we ask is that gender-based analysis be used when creating policies and programs across all ministries and all programs. We would also ask that governments collaborate with each other so that we can fill these cracks that are impacting women every day.
Those are the points I wanted to make today, and I thank you for the opportunity to make them.