Status of Women Committee on March 24th, 2015

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Okay.

Madam Savoie, it's nice to see you.

[Linda Savoie]

Thank you.

I totally agree that hands-on experience is an absolute necessity.

Stakeholders whom I deal with on this issue will tell you that parental influence is huge. Role models and parents are of very significant importance to get the young girls' mindsets to change.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Are we doing anything specific in this way in Status of Women that you can point to, or would you?

[Linda Savoie]

I believe we have some of our projects focusing on involving the mothers, for instance, in some of these science-based or trades-based discovery awareness types of initiatives. They're trying to bring in the parent, and specifically the mother, because they know that will have a great influence. We're working with a number of organizations right now that are targeting the younger women. As I mentioned, there are organizations such as Actua that are doing fabulous work, and also the Ys, so there is a lot happening out there.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thanks.

Mr. Graham.

[Matthew Graham]

The largest part of CIC's budget is spent on settlement and immigration services for immigrants and newcomers to Canada. I think that to do justice to your question, we'd like to take it back.... Because none of us is responsible for that area of our department, perhaps we'll take our question back and take a look at what we are doing for the language services and the other types of employment and integration services that we offer to newcomers.

Are there aspects of it that are focused on ensuring that the children of the immigrants who come to Canada and the children who are coming to Canada with their families are exposed to the opportunities that we want all of them to have? Perhaps we'll take that question back and respond in writing.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

If I could just comment, I just took a look through the Canada research chairs, and very many of them are names that are new Canadians, so they're doing a better job in other countries of getting their girls interested in science and technology, it appears on the surface. Maybe we could learn from them.

Mr. Dumas.

[Louis Dumas, Director, Case Processing Centre - Ottawa, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Thank you for the question. I always enjoy soul-searching questions like this.

I come from the more operational side of CIC. I'm in the business of selecting immigrants. What I like about CIC at the moment is that we offer a number of avenues for young girls, let's say, or younger women to come to Canada. We've talked about the federal skilled trades program. We've talked about the federal skilled worker program and even the Canadian experience class. I think it's very important that we offer, as we say in French, une panoplie, a wide range of different opportunities to come and join our society.

As well, I think Mr. Barlow mentioned express entry. I think it's very important that we are able to respond very quickly to the demands of potential immigrants to Canada. Through express entry, I think we're in a very good position to do that.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Casey, your turn for five minutes.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Chair, seeing how my time has been cut off, could the other three submit an answer if they have one for us?

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much. Very good.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

I have a question for you, Madam Savoie.

We hear from time to time some frustration with trying to access government employment programs, the most recent example being the Canada job grant. I heard an answer from Ms. Scott earlier that would contest what I'm about to put to you, but I don't want to get into a debate about that. I want to elevate it to the policy development level.

One of the things we've heard is there was a lack of flexibility within the Canada job grant program to accommodate the fact that it's still women who do the majority of the caregiving. That limited the opportunity for some women to participate in that particular program. My question for you is not to get into a debate about that, because I suspect if I left it at that level we probably would.

Status of Women Canada, could you explain to me the role you have when these programs are being developed in terms of thinking through these flexibility and access issues that are more predominant among women? That's my question for you. Where is Status of Women in the policy development process as it pertains to addressing the barriers that we're studying?

[Linda Savoie]

Each department, as it designs policies and programs, has the sole responsibility for ensuring that they meet all of the Government of Canada's requirements, including gender-based analysis. We do not have a role unless we were to be called upon to provide some advice and to provide some resources. As I was mentioning earlier, the capacity within a large number of federal departments is significantly in place to do this type of analysis.

Our role is more to increase the general capacity across the federal government, not to work with specific policy program development. We do boot camps, GBA boot camps we call them, where we invite federal colleagues to come and examine a specific issue to further their knowledge of gender-based analysis. The responsibility for each policy and program of a specific department rests with them. They're accountable for the GBA.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Is it for Status of Women Canada to take a proactive role where they see deficiencies in program design at any level to put their hand up and say, “Hey, what about this?”, or is that, as you indicated, something that's left within individual departments?

[Linda Savoie]

We don't have a role of being an auditor, but the Government of Canada's auditor examined the implementation of GBA in a number of institutions a few years ago. That would be their role. As well, central agencies have a role to ensure that the requirements to do the gender-based analysis is conducted.

We do not have a watchdog role, but again at times we're solicited for advice and for support. We do speak with our colleagues across the federal family all the time in many interdepartmental working groups. We're always advocating for a thorough gender-based analysis wherever we go.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you.

I have no further questions.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you, Mr. Casey.

It is now over to Ms. Bateman for seven minutes.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses today.

The numbers that you quoted, Madam Savoie, at the start: skilled trades, 5% women, so that means 95% male; STEM, 22% women, 78% male. Wow, but all is not lost, because I'm a chartered accountant and I remember in 1905....

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

No, it was the early eighties when I got my CA designation. I was hired after business school by Pricewaterhouse. They hired 12 people that year and I was the only female. That industry has changed markedly over the last number of decades and these will too.

I think it's so important—and I echo all of my colleagues' comments about the importance of involving young women early—because if we don't take a long-term view of this, all of us...and I'm all for breaking down the silos of which you speak, madam.

I can't stand

silos. We have to work together. We have to make sure that this happens, and we have to engage young women.

I speak as a mother. My youngest, a daughter, is in grade 11. She's in the IB, international baccalaureate, program, and I think she's just one of two women in the physics class. The advanced math is equally sparse, although it's a little better. I think without a focused outreach....

Could I ask, first, Mr. Will, that your website with all the links be sent to the

clerk of the committee because it's very important for us to have that information.

We have to use that, not only with our families, but with all of our constituents, who are our families, and we have to make sure that this tool, which sounds wonderful, is widely marketed. I am so pleased.

I think, Ms. Scott, you talked earlier about YES, the youth employment strategy. Was it $40 million we invested in last year's budget in that incremental investment in youth?

[Catherine Scott]

That's right. That was an investment specifically into economic high demand occupations—

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

The economic action plan 2014. That's great.

On the apprenticeship program, I have to double-check with you because we just introduced that last year. It was 2014, right?

[Catherine Scott]

The Canada apprentice loan?

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Did you say 500,000 applicants have been processed?