Evidence of meeting #51 for Status of Women in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was young.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
That's interesting. I'm wondering what data we have that's gender specific. Do we have any data around unpaid work, the share of unpaid work, and the women working in these fields versus those who work in services or other fields?
Senior Director General, Women's Program and Regional Operations Directorate, Status of Women Canada
I'm not aware of very extensive segmentation of the data for unpaid work that would go into the division of whether the women doing the unpaid work are in trades or in more traditional occupations. There is extensive data that exists through StatsCan or the publication “Women in Canada” that speaks to the very significant share of unpaid work that women are shouldering in the country.
NDP
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Then we'll make sure to ask StatsCan to submit that to the committee.
Do we do extensive gender budgeting in the Canadian government?
Senior Director General, Women's Program and Regional Operations Directorate, Status of Women Canada
That would be the responsibility of the Department of Finance, and of course these are not documents that we would be privy to. Our role would be more to advise them if they felt they had a capacity-building requirement.
NDP
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Okay. That's what I was wondering. How would you be involved in looking at making sure that programming across departments is eliminating a gender bias in programs that exist across the department? Would you be involved in that at all?
Senior Director General, Women's Program and Regional Operations Directorate, Status of Women Canada
Well, we're truly there as a resource, but as you've seen, I'm sandwiched between colleagues in departments that are extremely savvy at gender-based analysis. It's part of each department's mandate to develop that expertise and to take on the responsibility of doing that thorough analysis.
We're there to offer support and to offer some tools. For instance, we have an online tool that is quite popular. Recently, I believe it was last year, we updated it to make sure that there were more science and technology case studies associated to it, to ensure that these fields don't feel that they're not committed to and shouldn't be interested in gender-based analysis.
NDP
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Do you know if there's any kind of mandatory pre-screening checking so that there would be an analysis done? I'm thinking specifically of the changes to employment insurance, which civil society and women's organizations found made access to it disproportionately more difficult for women, and that access was already problematic. Is there anything in the government that forces a check? Would Status of Women be involved in that?
Senior Director General, Women's Program and Regional Operations Directorate, Status of Women Canada
There is a requirement for gender-based analysis to be conducted of policies and programs. Again, our role is to advise and to provide support if the department needs it to build the capacity across the federal government. Again, the responsibility for each department lies within that department.
NDP
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
That's interesting. It would be interesting to see greater sort of working.... Maybe the other departments could speak to this a little bit. I think it's very important, because obviously the way we decide to do our programming and the way we construct our budgets greatly affect Canadian society. If we're cutting jobs in the public service, where for women and men the pay gap is smaller and where women do tend to work in non-traditional employment—
NDP
The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc
Continue very briefly just to get an answer to the same question you asked Ms. Savoie.
NDP
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Are there coordinated actions across departments to eliminate the gender bias in programming and in budgeting?
Maia Welbourne Director General, Strategic Policy and Planning, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Maybe I'll speak quickly to some of the initiatives that are in place at the Government of Canada level led by Status of Women Canada and then take a little look at CIC's experience with gender-based analysis.
There is a departmental action plan that applies across the Government of Canada.
NDP
The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc
Thank you very much. The answer is yes, there is.
Sorry. You can expand later on.
NDP
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Maybe they could each respond specifically to the committee in writing. Would that be possible, Madam Chair?
The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc
Very briefly, if there is such a process, you could submit information on it to the clerk, please.
Thank you very much.
Madam O'Neill Gordon, for seven minutes.
Conservative
Tilly O'Neill-Gordon Conservative Miramichi, NB
I want to welcome all of you and tell you how important these studies and facts are to our important study. I thank all of you for your presentations. We certainly realize there are many barriers and challenges out there for women to get into the field of the trades.
I think one of the things Jonathan—and probably all of us—mentioned is the importance of getting it started at an early age. The earlier we get this started, the better it is.
What are some of the things we are doing now to trigger this interest at a young age?
Director General, Economic Policy Directorate, Department of Employment and Social Development
One thing Employment and Social Development Canada is doing is developing a career choice tool that will provide information to young men and women, guidance counsellors, parents, and other influencers to provide them with information about the employment outcomes and wage outcomes of people who pursue certain courses of study and enter into certain fields and trades.
We feel this is important information to provide to help inform men and women about choices they may make. This information is more valuable to individuals who might not have considered a course of action. We hope making this data available will provide a better sense to young Canadians about their opportunities in various fields.
Conservative
Director General, Labour Market Integration, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
Sure. I can mention the apprenticeship grants program. This is a program that seeks to remove any financial barriers individuals may face when they are entering into apprenticeship training. It provides individuals with up to $4,000 in grants over the course of their apprenticeship: $2,000 in incentive grants as they progress, and another $2,000 for a completion grant once they finish their apprenticeship training.
Over 500,000 apprenticeship grants have been issued since the program was launched, and the program is seen as one that addresses some of the financial barriers apprentices may face in terms of buying tools or paying for tuition fees. The money can even be used for things like child care as well.
Conservative
Tilly O'Neill-Gordon Conservative Miramichi, NB
That is a very important initiative and a very important message to get out there, as my colleague said, to parents, because parents are always the ones who are really worried about the costs and about where students can go for loans. We know that for post-secondary education there are loans available, but hearing about something like this is very positive and upbeat for young women and their parents so they will know where they can go for this funding.
My next question is about scholarships that are available. Those are certainly a big draw for young people. I was also wondering if we ever ask businesses to sponsor these people. Doing that would help people reduce their costs and give people hands-on experience, and at the same time businesses would be receiving assistance from these people working.
I'm wondering where we can go with that. Does anyone want to answer that?
Director General, Labour Market Integration, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
If you look at the youth employment strategy, that's certainly one of the key goals: to provide wage subsidies for employers so that they can take on young people who are looking for experience. There have been investments in the last budget through the youth employment strategy to realign the program so that young people can get real-life work experiences in some of the high-demand fields. So there was an additional investment announced of $40 million through the career focus program, specifically to allow young people to get work experiences and real-life hands-on training.
Conservative