Evidence of meeting #106 for Status of Women in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was data.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Assistant Director, Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
We do have data, as well, from the GSS on volunteering, which shows that women are more likely than men to volunteer, and that men's and women's behaviours in volunteering are different.
Men are more likely to be coaches or to engage in maintenance or repair services, whereas women are more involved in organizing committees or involved in health care. They're more involved in church groups and school groups, etc.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
On this chart, where you have a lower proportion of women who report being very interested in politics, you've said politics in general. When I look at the footnote, it says “international, national, provincial, and municipal”. Do you have it broken down between those four categories? Being interested in international politics is a lot different than being interested in municipal politics.
Survey Manager, Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
No, it was just one question: “How interested are you in politics?”
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
When you asked the question, did you specify international, federal...?
Survey Manager, Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
There was a note. If people wanted to have it clarified, then we would read it out to them.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
You talked about the regional differences. In terms of the number of women who are members or volunteer for a political party, you gave us the regional differences. Do you also have it by age? You don't have to give it to us now, but we would like to see what the age breakdown is.
I think you indicated to my NDP colleague that, when we're talking about GBA+, you don't have it broken down on the plus side, to take into account marginalized women, or women living with disabilities, or—
Assistant Director, Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
Or indigenous women, or looking at by population group, otherwise known as visible minority status....
Liberal
Assistant Director, Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
And we really do try to be fun.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Is there any data that shows...? When you were talking about women being just as busy as men, is that the wording that was used for why they didn't vote, that they were too busy?
Survey Manager, Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
They were too busy.
Chief, Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
No, and there were three categories that indicated there were time constraints, like at work, something else other than too busy, so it was a combination of all three that was equal, but there could have been some slight differences between men and women on the specific categories. Again, we can provide that to you afterwards.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Okay.
It was just, “Why did you not vote?” Was there anything else besides, “I was too busy” or “I wasn't informed”?
Survey Manager, Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
Yes, on the question of why you did not vote, first of all, it's only related to the past federal election, and then it said, “What were the reasons you did not vote?” and they were listed underneath. We can send you the whole group of questions if you like, or I can read them out to you, but it's quite long.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Obviously there was a difference between men and women not being informed. This being busy was equal.
Survey Manager, Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
Yes. Most of the other categories were pretty close. It was them not being informed that stood out.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
What was the number one reason people did not vote?
Survey Manager, Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
What was the number one reason? It is in there. Just give me a second.
Liberal
Survey Manager, Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
Yes. Okay, the number one reason.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Thank you very much.
We're now going to switch over to our five-minute round. We're going to start with four minutes to Gérard Deltell.
Conservative
Gérard Deltell Conservative Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC
Madam Chair, I am very pleased to be invited to this committee, and I am very pleased to see you running the show quite well.
Mesdames, welcome to your House of Commons committee.
First of all, Madam Chair, I have to excuse myself because I misled the committee when I said a few minutes ago that it is 52% women in Canada. Well, based on the figures that I checked on the Statistics Canada site, I have learned that, based on the figure for 2017, there are 36.7 million Canadians, and 50.4% are women and 49.6% are men, so it's almost equal. I'm sorry for that.