Status of Women Committee on April 21st, 2015

[Saira Muzaffar]

Absolutely, I would love the opportunity to do that. Thank you.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thanks.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.

We will continue this discussion with Ms. Bateman, who has seven minutes at her disposal.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you all so much. It's days like this that it's a privilege to be on this committee. It's an absolute privilege to hear the details of the work that you're doing and the difference that you are making. There are so many pieces to this.

It's funny, you made me go back.... I have a 17-year-old daughter, and I remember that in grade 5 we had a robot to build. We had every body part, and hers opened and we saw the insides of the kidney, or whatever. Anyway, it hadn't really pasted together. Interestingly, she is in Grade 11 and is one of the few girls in her high school who is not only in the IB program but also in the physics class. There are three girls in the physics class, I think.

[A voice]

Tough mom.

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

I think it's her too, but it shows the importance of starting. Who knew? Maybe it's because of grade 5. Maybe it's because of that teacher who maybe got trained by you on how to do these interesting extra pieces in the classroom.

I think it was you who mentioned STEAM. I was just at Balmoral Hall last week because they had the world map. It was so fascinating and wonderful to talk to these young women. I learned there that it was STEAM instead of STEM. I guess it doesn't matter what the label is in terms of how we make the difference. Frankly, and with the utmost respect, Saira, regarding your comment that you have to tell them, you don't tell teenage daughters what to do, or it's at your peril. You have to present the opportunities that they will then choose to embrace. How do we do that in the context of the missed efficiencies that you said are prevalent in this?

[Dr. Bonnie Schmidt]

I might be able to tell you more in October. In the field right now we're doing a survey of parents that complements the one we did with the kids last year, helping to understand what parents' perceptions around STEM careers are, the type of work that would be within STEM, and understanding parents' knowledge of their own ability to influence kids.

From the research that we've done on parental influence, it remains the number one influence on young peoples' selection of high school courses and the beginning of post-secondary pathways. They don't have as much influence on careers, but definitely on academic pathways. Teachers' influence is very high, but they're not trumping parents yet. However, a survey that we did a couple of years ago said that only 20% of parents were having a discussion with their kids about some of these pathways. Even though you can't tell them, you have to try to explain it to them. The fact is that they're subtly listening and parents who are not recognizing the influence they have around academics, because they didn't remember it that way when they were young, and whatnot, are a critical factor in a study that we're doing right now.

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

That makes me think about your comment that engineers aren't caring.

[Dr. Bonnie Schmidt]

It's the perception of kids.

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

My father is an engineer. Oh, my goodness, that Kipling ritual meant everything to him. He always told us the story about how lives are saved, or not.

[Dr. Bonnie Schmidt]

Most people don't know that the ring signifies safety, a commitment to safety, right? A lot of people don't understand that.

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

It's so interesting how it all connects.

I think it was Karen who talked about the electricians being the highest, or no, it was you—at 6%, right? That's the success story.

We'll look forward to hearing in October about the missed efficiencies. If we don't start with the very young, I think we're going to be lost. We clearly are making progress, although my daughter, because she has two chartered accountants for parents, never got to the do the basement because we don't feel confident doing drywall. That's a wonderful thing.

Somebody said you don't know how to match it up and you don't know how to showcase what's out there. Could you speak to that?

[Dr. Bonnie Schmidt]

Twenty years ago there were very few organizations that were actually in this space. Universities didn't have science outreach offices. Flash forward now and there are hundreds and hundreds of organizations. Only a few have a national perspective, but there are literally hundreds of organizations. Because of the lack of funding in the sector, it's very difficult. You would think it would drive consolidation or drive efficiencies. It's actually having the opposite effect of, “Oh, my God, I'm too busy trying to find my own money, I don't have time to be strategic in creating partnerships.”

Some of the opportunities that FedDev has, with some level of basic funding available for some of the bigger players, started to cause partnerships to form because we weren't so stressed. You could sit back and think a little bit more strategically about what communities we should be going into, because FIRST is maybe here but we'll go over there, and whatnot. Some of those synergies can actually be driven with an incentive model, and not a negative incentive model.

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

If you have concepts or ideas that didn't make it into your paper but you'd like to share with us, we would welcome hearing about those. I know that the clerk would make sure that all members of the committee receive them. That's sort of the solution piece.

Over to you, Dorothy, on the same point.

[Dorothy Byers]

Getting the system to work together is one of the pieces that FIRST has really been able to do through the support. As Bonnie said, if you're not worrying about the funding it gives you the opportunity to reflect and plan to be able to engage with community partners across the country. That really enables you to systemically and thoughtfully go into different areas in the country, like Calgary, for instance, where there was a competition started about five years ago. That was a grassroots competition. It was actually a girl from our school who saw that as something she really wanted to do. She is a biomedical engineer and develops prosthetic devices for people who have spinal injuries. She understands the caring part of being an engineer. It was through FIRST that she really developed that.

To have the opportunity to look at how you can work with universities to help spread the word.... This is the STEM question again. What is this thing called STEM? We're behind. They're talking about STEAM a lot more now. In speaking with students, they will tell you that engineering and science and technology are more about curiosity and creativity than about numbers. They've got it; they understand that. For us to be able to have an opportunity to spread that and draw in as many community partners as we possibly can, that is really how we can engage girls and women in this particular kind of work that we're really trying to do. Also, to help them understand that, as Saira talked about, they get so far.... Karen and I joke about the noxious gas—that there's that glass ceiling. We believe and are told that we can get through it, but somehow there's this layer of gas up there and you just can't get through it to get through the ceiling. That's what we have to help the current and next generation of girls to be able to do.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.

[A voice]

Is that all? What a pity, Madam.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

I am sorry, but your time is up.

Did you want to add something, Ms. Muzaffar? No? Very well.

Ms. Liu, I yield the floor to you for seven minutes.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Muzaffar, for talking about the issue of micro-aggressions as well. It's so hard to point out, but it happens, and it happens to women in a lot of male-dominated sectors. In fact, I sit on the international trade committee and we're speaking to SMEs right now, and it's something that we're hearing about from female entrepreneurs as well. When they try to get loans or when they talk to clients, it's the same kind of thing, so I think it's really important to bring that up.

We also know that women deal with specific needs in the workforce as well. I've been speaking to female entrepreneurs who have to be on conference calls on their cellphones while they're picking up kids, and the kids are yelling in the background when they're on the phone with their colleagues.

How can we take into consideration the specific needs in terms of a work-life balance for women? How could we create more STEM positions that support employees who have responsibilities relating to family care or elder care?

That's for any one of our witnesses.

[Saira Muzaffar]

On changes in the workplace, this is something that I am learning about on the go as part of TechGirls, as are micro-aggressions.

Flex schedules have gains not just for women but for all caregivers, and yes, women are still predominantly the ones who are taking care of dependants at home, and not just children but also the elderly. That's not going to change, but it may evolve. If we actually achieve equality and equitable change, you will see more men playing this role because more of us are getting older, and that will happen.

On changes for a flex schedule and the ability to work from home, I can tell you that when I started working it was a privilege to be able to work from home. It was not something that was a standard, which makes no sense to me now, sitting in the tech industry, because my schedule is 24 hours a day. My tools work 24 hours a day. My office is not my desk. My office is my phone. My office is my computer and my tablet.

As for changing the way people picture what a workplace looks like, changing how compensation is tied, and how performance reviews are tied, if you have the pressure of having to clock in and clock out from 9 to 5 when you need to drop your kids off at 9, and if you are going to stick with that if industry is not able to evolve, then having after-school and before-school programs that are affordable, available, and accessible would also play a giant part.

I think those are some of the key points.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

I think that delves into the question quite a bit.

Ms. Byers, in your earlier response, you talked about how curiosity and creativity really attract girls to science and how we have to start talking about science in that kind of context. Unfortunately, we know that at the federal level we've oriented the NRC and NSERC more towards industry or industry science. Amounts for the discovery grants program have gone down, so we've really started taking financing away from discovery-related science. In and of itself, I believe that's a bad thing. You never know what applications science may have down the road.

Have any of you done any kind of analysis on whether this has a gendered effect on women in science? Do you have any numbers or information on that?

[Dr. Bonnie Schmidt]

Let's Talk Science hasn't done any analysis on some of the funding and research allocations, but I know that NSERC has done quite a number of gender-specific program reviews, and with the women in engineering chairs, has actually produced a number of reports looking at things like that.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

If you find anything, it would be interesting to table it for our committee as well, because these changes are quite recent. I'm not sure that there actually have been studies carried out on that.

We've also talked in committee about the importance of diversity at all levels. A lot of people have brought up the importance of ensuring equal representation on hiring boards as well. We've talked about how removing names on initial job screening applications has an effect on hiring women. How could we further take away or remove some of the unconscious biases in terms of hiring, selection boards, and allocating funds?

[Karen Low]

I'd say having females on those selection boards is going to be a significant step in the right direction because, again, I think that sometimes men and women communicate differently. They have different expectations. Again, having a diversity within that hiring board I think would be helpful.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

How could the federal government encourage more female ministers in science-based ministries? How could we encourage more women to head science-based parliamentary studies? Would you have any recommendations on that level?