Evidence of meeting #56 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 girls.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:35 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Actua
We have received our funding primarily through the corporate sector. I mentioned some of those big funders: Google, Suncor, and GE Canada, but we also receive funding through NSERC PromoScience and through CanNor for our northern programs.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
Approximately how much do you receive from each of those?
11:35 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Actua
We receive about $250,000 from PromoScience.
11:35 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Actua
We get about $100,000 through CanNor and some additional territorial support in Nunavut.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
It was very cute. They really seem to engage in it and, really, without that at that young age.... They're not interested if you start them off at the end of grade eight. If you're engaging them, probably they think it's cute to bring it to their parents and to show their family what they have.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
I have one more question for you.
You mentioned, I think, engaging about 100,000 girls. What is your best method for engaging them?
11:35 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Actua
We engage them inside of schools by doing school workshops to support and enhance what teachers are doing, but our work is primarily outside of school. We engage them through after-school programs, weekend clubs, and in summer camp experiences. We really focus on engaging them for an extended period of time, beyond just a couple of hours. We want to get them 40 plus hours of content.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
Now I'll go on to mining.
Ryan, I remember when I was doing round tables. Is the president of the Mining Association a woman? I'm not sure what her title was.
11:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Mining Industry Human Resources Council
Yes, she is. Zoë Yujnovich used to be the president of IOC, Iron Ore Company of Canada, and has now moved to Shell. She continues to be the senior executive with Shell Canada and is still the president of MAC.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
Excellent. I thought that was really good for a woman to be in that position in the mining industry of all places.
11:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Mining Industry Human Resources Council
She was the first woman in 120 years.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
Kudos to her.
I found out from doing those round tables how much money the girls could be making in the skilled trades, not even in STEM, and I couldn't believe it. Instead of working at lower minimum wage jobs, if they knew about these jobs,...my God.
The fellow who was there from one of the mining industries said he was looking for another hundred people. He said if he could pick between the girls and the boys or the men and the women, he would take the women any day because they're more meticulous. They don't have anything to prove to each other and they're far better workers.
That was nice to hear, as well.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
My last question is whether you have mentorship programs in place.
11:40 a.m.
Executive Director, Mining Industry Human Resources Council
We do. We have what we call a Virtual MineMentor Program. The idea behind the program was that we were seeing a significant amount of mid-program attrition at the post-secondary education level. People would start in mining-related programs, be it in geosciences or skilled trades, for technician or technologist programs, and if they weren't connected to the industry, they would drop off. Obviously there isn't a mine site in proximity to most colleges and universities in Canada, so this was a way to bring people who were at a site into classrooms. It is relatively successful. We've divested the program to one of our partners that has a much broader reach, and now the Canadian Institute of Mining is operating the Virtual MineMentor Program. They have 14,000 members, so that really allowed us to expand the program in a much quicker way.
11:40 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc
Thank you very much.
Ms. Freeman, you now have the floor and you have seven minutes.
April 28th, 2015 / 11:40 a.m.
NDP
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thanks to all our witnesses for being here today.
I'm going to start with Ms. Darling for a couple of questions.
You mentioned that there was difficulty keeping and recruiting women and making sure that they get through the program. We talked about it and Ms. Truppe even asked you about it. I know you mentioned having children, and things like that. What are other examples of things that would lead a woman, who has been recruited into the program or who has decided to pursue a career and take the classes at Okanagan, to drop out?
11:40 a.m.
Program Administrator, Women in Trades Training, Kelowna Campus, Okanagan College
I want to be clear that we have great retention while they're in programs. It's once they get on the job that retention becomes an issue. We're fortunate enough to have had nobody drop out of programs in this last fiscal year, which is the first time. We do have the odd ones drop out, but this was the first time everybody stayed in.
I'm going to say the number one reason is isolation on the job, even if it's not a remote job site. It's just being perhaps the only woman on that job site. Again, the lack of role model or mentor on the job site has become an issue. The women who feel isolated feel they're not getting the training they need, because with an apprenticeship, you need the combination of the technical training and the work-based training, and if you're not getting to work-based training and you're just showing up and doing the same thing every day in isolation, that's not really going to help you to get your apprenticeship
11:40 a.m.
NDP
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
You mentioned safety and security guidelines and being able to understand security measures and things like that and really having access to those. We've had quite a few witnesses point to things like microaggressions as well. What they mean by that is not being taken seriously on the job, things like that, or as women being denigrated.
Have some of your students, or those who have gone into apprenticeship programs, experienced that kind of thing?