Status of Women Committee on April 21st, 2015

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Good afternoon, and welcome back.

I like to be punctual, out of respect for our guests and everyone else. I call the meeting to order.

I want to welcome you to the 54^th meeting of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. We are continuing our study on women in skilled trades and science, technology, engineering and mathematics occupations.

Today we welcome some very interesting witnesses, Ms. Bonnie Schmidt, president of Let's Talk Science; Ms. Dorothy Byers, member of the Board of Directors of FIRST Robotics Canada, and Head of School, St. Mildred's-Lightbourn School, as well as Ms. Karen Low, member, Board of Directors. We also welcome Ms. Saira Muzaffar from TechGirls Canada.

Each group will have 10 minutes to make their presentation. Afterwards, members of the committee will ask questions.

We will begin with the group Let's Talk Science.

Ms. Schmidt, you have 10 minutes.

[Dr. Bonnie Schmidt, President, Let's Talk Science]

Thank you very much for inviting me to address the committee about developing STEM talent. As the founding president of Let's Talk Science, I personally have spent the past two decades working to ensure that Canadian youth are prepared to thrive in this country, enjoy a high quality of life, and contribute as engaged citizens.

Let's Talk Science, or Parlons sciences, is a national charitable education and outreach organization that helps youth prepare for their future careers and their citizenship role through STEM engagement. I won't describe our programs in detail here, but I can deal with them during questions, if you like. Our programs support preschool through to grade 12 youth and educators. Our primary goal is to keep young people engaged in the STEM fields to the end of high school. We believe this will enable them to keep as many doors open as possible to all post-secondary pathways, including college, university, and apprenticeships.

We've reached well over 3.5 million children, youth, and educators since our inception. We annually work with about 4,000 volunteers, the majority of whom are post-secondary students in STEM disciplines. It may be of interest to the committee that over 60% of our volunteer base annually are women in STEM.

Let's Talk Science creates world-class learning resources. We connect youth with STEM volunteers, and we conduct research into our own impact as well as some of the systems-level research. It's that research that I'd really like to share with the committee here.

With that context, I'd like to share three key observations for your report. The first one is that definitions are very critical. The lack of clearly articulated visions, goals, desired outcomes, and measurement systems in place now results in a misalignment of effort and missed efficiencies. STEM is a global acronym that has little resonance with most people. While we understand that it refers to science, technology, engineering, and math, most people don't. In fact I recently asked a large group of high school students what they thought STEM was, and they thought I was going to talk to them about stem cell research.

When it comes to measuring STEM workforce issues, there is also no standard definition for what constitutes a STEM job. Research and engineering-type jobs consistently make the list of STEM occupations, but there is less agreement about whether to include such other occupations as educators, managers, technicians, and health care professionals. Let's Talk Science supports a broad definition of STEM occupations. In fact, until we have real clarity and standardization about what falls into these categories, we'll continue to question whether our engagement efforts are actually succeeding, because we're all measuring different things.

My second observation is that considerable progress has been realized, but gender differences in STEM participation continue, as this committee well knows. During my tenure at Let's Talk Science, which is actually pushing 24 years now, we've seen girls close the gap on achievement on national and international science tests, clearly demonstrating that capacity isn't the challenge. Female participation at university has overtaken male participation. Women now exceed men in life sciences and environmental sciences, and men exceed women in physical sciences and engineering disciplines, there again underscoring the importance of defining very clearly what you're talking about with STEM. Unfortunately, over those two decades little has changed regarding participation rates of women in such STEM-heavy skilled trades as welding, or in engineering technologies.

With one of our partners, Amgen Canada, Let's Talk Science has been looking at the implications of STEM learning at a macro level. We've produced several reports, one of which I've shared with the committee, called “Spotlight on Science Learning”. The reports can be accessed through the Let's Talk Science website. A copy of this most recent report was included in our submission, so all committee members should have access to it in French and English.

The study is called “Shaping Tomorrow's Workforce: What Do Canada's Teens Think About Their Futures?” We surveyed teenagers aged 13 to 17 years to understand their perceptions and interests in broadly defined STEM work. I'd like to share a few of the findings from the report.

[A hon. member]

We don't have it.

[Dr. Bonnie Schmidt]

You'll get it, then, because it was sent.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

We have a few copies, but we don't have copies for all the members.

[Dr. Bonnie Schmidt]

I will make sure to send them.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

The link was distributed to them.

[Dr. Bonnie Schmidt]

Perfect, so I'll give you a few of the highlights. You don't need to be reading through the report right now. It will be sent to the clerk for sure.

We found that overall 88% of teen girls and 79% of teen boys felt that women could find great satisfaction in a STEM-related career. It's clearly a positive finding, but it's perhaps a little surprising to see a nine-point spread between boys' and girls' impressions.

Several of our findings showed no gender differences. For example, the vast majority of boys and girls want to make a useful contribution to society, help people, make decisions, and solve problems. Furthermore, both boys and girls are more likely to make post-secondary decisions based on their personal likes and interests and their perceived skills and abilities.

A few areas did result in significant gender differences. I want to highlight those.

For example, teen girls reported to be significantly more likely than boys to want to use communication skills, have a professional job, be responsible for other people, work with animals, care for sick people, and work in a laboratory. Girls are significantly less likely than boys to report they want to work with their hands, although I would say that 60% reported that they were quite interested in working with their hands. They are also significantly less likely than boys to want to create new products, use math or calculate things, and design things like buildings, bridges, and cars—which is a dire concern if we want more engineers—and work with machinery.

From these results and others that are discussed in our report, it appears that we're working from a position of strength and that Canadian teens want fulfilling work that allows them to make useful contributions and play leadership roles, but we need to do a better job of helping them understand how STEM-based work can fulfill these personal motivations.

Understanding the factors that influence girls' thinking and when those factors come into play also helps us to design programs and interventions that will lead to positive outcomes. I know that some of my fellow panellists here will actually share some of their best practices in this case. In some cases, while this is perhaps not very scientific, I suspect that a simple lack of experience or exposure is leading to negative perceptions that can be long-lasting.

My third observation is that, while it's outside my personal area of expertise, I know that quite a bit of research has been done on assessing barriers that face adult women in the STEM workforce. Within my sector, a considerable amount is known about the barriers to youth STEM engagement, and a significant challenge has been not to continue to look at the factors but to figure out how to scale effective practices.

Indeed, considerable global research has been done over the past decade to identify barriers, as many countries are dealing with trends similar to Canada's with respect to youth participation and in particular girls' participation in STEM. In general for the barriers, I'd bucket them into three big areas. One is a lack of perceived relevance, including a lack of perception of career awareness and what is waiting for them down the road if they stay in STEM. Also, the negative stereotypes are deeply persistent, and a lack of role models is part of the negative stereotypes.

The third big area is school-based issues. There are too few subject areas and too few subject experts teaching STEM. There's a lack of equipment and there's a lack of resources to do experiential learning in schools. The curriculum in every province continues to grow and expand without losing things. In fact, the greatest challenge might even be that science and technology lack priority across the country. No jurisdiction requires students to complete a technology or shop course during high school, and no province requires grade 12 science for graduation, so that's a problem.

Let's Talk Science has focused our programs on addressing the known barriers. From toddlers to teens, we are reaching about 600,000 kids a year, plus teachers, and from our program-based evaluations we see positive results related to skill and attitude development. A lack of sustained financial support makes research on the long-term impact prohibitive, but we're pretty sure we're on the right track.

At a systems level, we've also seen the impact that focused resource allocation can have. For example, Let's Talk Science has enjoyed a significant partnership with Hibernia in Newfoundland and Labrador over the past two and a half years. With their support, we’ve been able to grow our annual reach in that province to well over 65% of the province’s schools, including the schools in Labrador, and establish a strong working relationship with the Department of Education.

In Ontario, FedDev's youth STEM initiative invested about $20 million over three years in the youth engagement sector. In the same time period, we saw a steady increase in the rate of applications to Ontario university STEM programs. Unfortunately, the FedDev youth program sunsetted last year, but we were quite happy to see that the 2014 federal science, technology, and innovation strategy referenced a significant increase in funding through NSERC to support youth STEM engagement.

Based on my observations, I have three quick recommendations for the committee.

First, in your report please do define “STEM” and “STEM-based” work clearly and broadly. I also encourage you to develop a bold vision and clearly defined outcomes that can help us align and leverage stakeholder efforts.

Second, please endorse the funding support that's referenced in the recent federal science, technology, and innovation strategy towards effective youth STEM practices. It has the potential to really energize the sector and leverage it in a significant way.

Third, recognize that balancing gender participation rates in STEM to maximize the benefits is complex and in part a cultural issue that will take some time to change. Significant advances have been made, but clearly more can be done.

In conclusion, this is a very important issue, as the highest-demand jobs in a creative, knowledge-based economy require people with the skills and knowledge that are developed by STEM learning. Many jobs that have been traditionally perceived to require lower-level skills have been transformed and also require STEM. All jobs benefit from people who are analytical and curious—the very qualities that drive innovation and that are developed through STEM engagement.

In my opinion, all young people need to have more opportunities to be engaged in STEM. We need to start early and we need a strong national effort that's focused and measured. If we don't, Canada will slip behind, as other countries are focusing on the issue and investing. Some of the other research that we've done has been looking at China.

While your report is focused on women, I just want to leave you with the final message that the cultural shifts that are happening are including both genders. There's no simple solution to solve the talent development challenge. It will take a long-term, sustained impact. We have seen considerable movement over the last 20 years. With your leadership and guidance, I think we can continue to achieve great things in the next decade.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

I now give the floor to the representative of FIRST Robotics Canada.

You have 10 minutes.

[Dorothy Byers, Head of School, St. Mildred's-Lightbourn School, and Member, Board of Directors, FIRST Robotics Canada]

Karen and I are absolutely delighted to be here today and to be able to share some of the best practices we have seen through FIRST Robotics Canada and the impact that it has.

I'd just like to tell you that I am the head of school for a girls' school that has been involved in robotics for 13 years with great success. Our girls right now are on a bus on the way down to St. Louis for the world championships.

[Voices]

Hear, hear!

[Dorothy Byers]

I will be very happy to share a little bit more detail about the tremendous impact it's had, not only on them but on the culture they see in this, as Bonnie has said, very male-dominated world.

[Karen Low, Member, Board of Directors, FIRST Robotics Canada]

FIRST Robotics was founded by Dean Kamen. If you think of the Segway in the U.S., he was the founder of the Segway. He also did the insulin pump so that people could wear it on a belt, instead of having to take injections throughout the day, and the biomechanical arm. Perhaps one of his most far-reaching notions was the fact that he wanted scientists to be the 21st century's superstars. Basically, he wanted FIRST Robotics to be like the Olympics to an athlete. FIRST Robotics would be the same type of event for somebody involved in math and science.

In 2002, FIRST began in Canada. Mark Breadner, a teacher at Woburn Collegiate, had the notion to bring the same type of program to Canada.

[Dorothy Byers]

FIRST is a very lean organization and we just wanted to highlight that for you. Everyone who is involved in FIRST is a volunteer. Karen and I have been involved as volunteers for a very long time.

What happens, though, when we begin, looking at what the pieces are that really surround FIRST Robotics and what makes it unique, is that it starts in junior kindergarten and goes all the way to grade 12. As you see on the screen, Junior FIRST LEGO League is really from kindergarten up until grade 3. Then FIRST LEGO League picks up and works to grade 8. At that point, students are engaged in another program, called FIRST Robotics. That's where they build the big robot that weighs about 120 pounds. Those are really incredible machines.

But what is so wonderful about it, as you will see in the statistics, is that in 2002 FIRST started with 26 Canadian teams. Two of those were all-girl. Sadly, one of the all-girl teams faded. Our girls' team continued. Now we're looking at 4,300 direct participants, with an annual growth rate of about 30%.

Essentially what we're seeing is that if you pour some water on it, it will continue to grow. We had to begin the junior programs because there was such demand for it.

[Karen Low]

As Bonnie mentioned earlier, there is a big need to have experiential learning. That's what these programs really give our students. Hands-on, they can make it or break it, and there's no fear that they'll have any negatives. They're always going to be learning.

FIRST Robotics Canada needed funding. Take a look at some of the sponsors. We have a number of companies that decided that not only did they too want to invest in the students, but this also was a way for them to get their mentors working with the new people, with what they're thinking, and to be right on that cutting edge of technology.

[Dorothy Byers]

Over the years, as you can see shown on the screen, we have been very appreciative of the federal government's financial support, which has really enabled FIRST to grow in Canada. From 2011 to 2014, we were very happy to have $1.5 million spanning those three years. The Ontario Ministry of Education also supported the program with $3 million over five years. That saw real growth in the first program, doubling the number of teams, first of all, and students and competitions. There was an incredible impact from the water that was poured on the program. It really did grow.

What you can see as well is that between 2011 and 2014 there was remarkable success in all-girls teams. We're very proud of that, because we grew from two to ten, and that was through the tremendous support of one of our large banks in Canada that really believed it was important to have an incubator program for girls who were interested in STEM but were feeling a little uncomfortable about joining boys' teams or coed teams in their schools. We are very proud of that. Most of those are in Ontario. There are a number of them. There are two girls' teams in Alberta. Our team at St. Mildred's has really been the spawner of seven of those teams, so we're very proud of that work.

You can see as well that in 2013, after tremendous success, two FRC teams met with Prime Minister Harper.

[Karen Low]

STEM programs through FIRST Robotics also include outreach to targeted groups, including not only women but first nations communities, visually impaired and hearing-impaired students, and at-risk students. We also spend much of our resources to reach out to those in underserved areas or under-resourced areas where perhaps the school district doesn't have the money to go ahead and institute one of these programs.

We do a lot of network building, our students with our mentors and our students with our teachers. It's amazing that even though they're in the same school every day with the same teachers, robotics brings them together and really is a new fabric in the school. We feel that this is developing our next generation of STEM leaders, and we know that because we've been around long enough now such that a lot of these students have now graduated from university and are coming back or serving in those university communities as STEM leaders.

We're seeing a transformation of what was science and technology and engineering into what's really a popular sport. I wish I had had that choice years ago as well, but we are empowering women to make courageous post-secondary and career choices. Sometimes in these teams it's the first time they've learned that they're making decisions based on critical analysis and thinking. It's no longer about voting for the most popular beauty queen or who's going to be in charge of your football team. It's based on scientific information and they now realize they have a very strong voice at the table.

[Dorothy Byers]

At the same time, as the girls are working in their teams, they are also using what they're doing in their classrooms. One of my favourite stories is about girls struggling with trigonometry working ahead of a team meeting. They went off to look at the ramp the robot had to roll up. They looked at each other after figuring out what the angle was and said, “We're using trig.” It really gave them a hands-on, real-world experience to take what they were learning in their classrooms and transfer it into a real-world learning opportunity. You have no idea of the confidence that will give young women.

There's another piece we're seeing when we look at the numbers. Our teams with the younger students tend to be made up of boys and girls fifty-fifty. Sadly, as they get older, that number drops across the country. I'm very happy to report that our statistics are better than those in the United States. We're seeing about 35% to 65% of girls carrying on. In the U.S., it's about 72% boys and the other smaller percentage is girls, so we're doing something right up here.

The other thing that's really exciting about STEM is that the girls who are involved in FIRST Robotics have a hands-on experience with it that they really take forward. As we look at our graduation rates—and I surveyed the other girls' teams—we see that about 87% to 90% of the girls who have been involved in a FIRST Robotics program go on to study the hard-core STEM subjects at university, so we know it's working. The other tremendously powerful thing in this is that through these clubs and teams they have met with women who are mentors and who are practising engineers, and they really have a tremendous network and resource.

The other thing that I believe this does for us is that it's shifting a change in opinions of boys and men around what it is that girls are able to do. They are seen as equal partners on teams when, as Karen said, they're an equal voice at the table. The boys look at them differently and understand that they really do have an excellent grasp of what science, math, engineering, and technology are, and they can do anything with that.

[Karen Low]

The Ford Foundation in the United States commissioned a study by Brandeis University, and they looked at two groups. One was FIRST students and one was another group of students with similar backgrounds and achievement in high school. They took a look at four metrics: those attending college, aspiring to post-graduate degrees, majoring in science and engineering, and majoring specifically in engineering. As you can see, the students who had the chance to build that confidence in FIRST Robotics fared much higher on all four of those metrics.

[Dorothy Byers]

When we look at success for women, it's the growth of interpersonal skills. I guess I'm fortunate in working in an all-girl environment, because we're very aware of the different learning styles that girls have. It's really critical for us to challenge those and to be able to extend any kind of learning style a girl has and take her out of her comfort zone so that she is able to stand on the world stage and in coed teams to be able to support that.

They also learn how to integrate. They have developed tremendous confidence. They get very comfortable where it is uncomfortable to be. They really learn to mentor each other as well. They're learning great mentoring skills from their colleagues. They're very excited to stay on course. As you'll see, they really develop an incredible passion for STEM.

[Karen Low]

What's been most exciting for us is that our universities want our young women and our young students through FIRST Robotics. In fact, we have over $26 million in scholarships worldwide, $150,000 in Canada. You'll see the 10 universities in Canada that are now supporting this program. They've supported not only with money for scholarships but also in kind, with a number of them donating their campuses and venues so that we can have our FIRST Robotics on site. They feel that if a high school person goes on site to a university, they're 70% more inclined to choose that university or college later on, because now they're familiar with it. It's no longer that scary environment. They become comfortable again with the uncomfortable.

We want to mention that Minister Holder has indicated his support of FIRST Robotics. We were also thrilled earlier this year when we had MP Carmichael at Ryerson, MP Perkins at UOIT, MP Braid at Waterloo, MP Aspin in North Bay, and MP Watson in Windsor.

We just wanted to say thank you to each of you for taking your time on a weekend to come out and have that dialogue, one to one, with the students. It was significant for them to meet someone in government being so supportive.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.

I now give the floor to Ms. Muzaffar.

You have 10 minutes.

[Saira Muzaffar, TechGirls Canada]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank the committee for inviting TechGirls Canada to present and to participate in this important study along with the other panel members here. In my statement, I will focus on six key reasons why our efforts to date are failing to achieve equitable change and equal compensation for women in STEM, and how we need to approach solutions going forward.

TGC focuses on building community and driving change by spearheading and amplifying support for women's leadership in STEM fields. Our platform provides national leadership to over 300 organizations working to encourage more women and girls to consider career options in tech fields.

Through numerous documented studies, we know that women's access to roles in leadership positions and their financial compensation in these positions do not competitively or equitably compare to the access and compensation available to men who have similar experience, expertise, and qualifications. This is true for most industry sectors, not just STEM fields, meaning that with all things being equal between two job candidates, one man and one woman, even in the average best-case scenario the woman will make 20% less money than the man and will face more barriers when applying for senior leadership positions than he will.

We in both the private sector and the public sector question why this is still the case at a time when we have the largest number of educated women and women in the workforce than we have ever had historically. This can be understood if we always remember the following.

One, simple access to education is not a good enough solution to attracting and retaining women in STEM fields. The education itself needs to be considered.

Two, there is no equality without equitability. When industry, institutions, education, and culture, both social and corporate, are designed to benefit the status quo and the privileged group, we cannot achieve equality between men and women without changing how we educate our youth, how we support professional development, how we structure and exercise hiring practices, and how we foster and promote leadership and excellence.

Three, individual merit does not trump and cannot balance the influence of institutional and behavioural barriers. Leaving the onus on the individual to represent themselves and transcend both institutional and social barriers is not a good enough solution and speaks to neither equality nor equitability. We have seen time and again how women in general are chastised for not negotiating better and for not being more assertive. These claims do nothing to address the systemic institutional barriers that keep women in the workforce from building STEM careers whilst being fairly compensated.

In order to address equitable change in STEM fields and others, we in the private sector and the public sector need to understand the language, the cues, and the baggage of being a woman in the workforce. A majority of our decision-makers are men in positions of authority who have blindly enjoyed their privilege without ever having to understand what micro-aggressions are, why safety and harassment at work go hand in hand with job security, and why having a family and more responsibilities can be perceived to mean one is less serious and less capable of taking on a prominent role in a company, instead of the opposite.

Real solutions lie in helping us become better at identifying and mitigating our learned and subjective biases, individually and organizationally. We need to think about merit at the same time that we think about privilege. We need to think about professional development at the same time that we think about meaningful access and support. We need to think about education and behavioural change for everyone, not just women. We need to deal with the issues at all stages simultaneously, from elementary school, to internships, to continued development and advancement appointments, because tackling only the pipeline portion of this problem does not provide any solutions to the women who are already in the workforce.

Real solutions lie in challenging the notion of fostering, hiring, and promoting only those who look like us. Most hiring policies in the private and public sector favour candidates who are a good cultural fit, a fit decided and informed by the existing privileged class. Lip service to race, gender, and social class understandably does not go far enough in helping decision-makers take into account how social barriers can shape a candidate's experiences and our perception of them.

I would like to close by helping you focus on a statistic that has terrified us at TechGirls into taking action, and I will caveat this by saying that the stat comes from U.S. Labor. A white woman makes on average 77 cents to every dollar her male colleagues earn. When we look at women of colour, that average drops to 55 cents. This is the state of things before we even look at the barriers of social class, access to education, support in professional development, and institutional barriers to health care, the judicial system, and a host of other relevant factors.

The situation is dire but not impossible to resolve. The solutions, however, need to be encompassing and, more importantly, they need to be tried, tested, measured, and improved, as all the panel members have spoken to.

We greatly look forward to the committee's study and recommendations and would like to support you in this in whatever way we can. The top three things we would like to communicate to the committee in regard to what we can do for women in the workforce right now are these: create legitimate transparency in hiring, compensation, and performance reviews; create and support awareness of learned and unconscious biases around race and gender; and invest in and incentivize flexible work infrastructure for both men and women.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We will now go to questions.

Ms. Truppe, you have seven minutes.

Ms. Sellah, did you want to say something?

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I have a point of order, Madam Chair.