Status of Women Committee on June 5th, 2018

[Pamela Best]

I would just add something on this question of the timeliness of the general social survey. I've made two appearances before a Senate committee on charitable donations, as well, recently and that question has come up. Stats Canada is modernizing the general social survey. We do hear that the frequency with which the data are collected is important.

We have to balance the resources that Statistics Canada has as an organization and the burden that we place on our respondents when we're looking at the frequency of the data we collect. We also understand that we may need to measure certain social trends with a higher frequency than others, so we're examining all of the data that we gather in this program, whether it be victimization data, data on social identity, information on caregiving and care receiving, to see if the frequency should be changed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much, Bernadette and Emmanuella.

Rachael, you're on for seven minutes.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you so much.

Could you do us a favour and run through province by province so that we have an understanding of what those discrepancies look like? Just for clarification, we're looking at the percentage of women who are very interested. Is that correct?

[Anna Kemeny]

I have the other percentages as well but we'll look to the extremes, whether they're interested or not at all interested.

The overall figure in Canada, as you can see from your infographic, is.... Do you want men and women or just women?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Just women.

[Anna Kemeny]

So the Canadian average is 15%. Newfoundland and Labrador is 12%. Prince Edward Island is 17%, but that's a number that should be treated with caution.

Nova Scotia, as I said, is 15%. New Brunswick is 9%. Quebec is 18%. Ontario is 15%. Manitoba is 13%. Saskatchewan is 12%. Alberta is 15%. British Columbia is 15% as well.

[Jennifer Kaddatz]

We'd be happy to provide you with the actual tables for that after the meeting.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

That would be great. If you could provide the tables, that would be excellent.

I'm curious. Why is P.E.I. supposed to be treated with some caution?

[Pamela Best]

I'll address that. It's just because it's a general household survey and we have a fairly small sample size. When we get to the smaller provinces and we break those numbers down into smaller and smaller pieces, there's a higher degree of variability. It's not that we need to be cautious of those from Prince Edward Island, just of the estimates the data produce.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Of course, thank you very much.

What is the total percentage of women in Canada's population as a whole?

[Anna Kemeny]

I think it's something like 52% or 53%.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I am looking for StatsCanada data and not opinions around the table. Is it 52%? Is it 53%?

[Anna Kemeny]

We can probably get that for you if you want exact percentages.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

That will be really great, thank you.

Can you talk a little bit about income levels, income level of the women versus income level of the men, particularly with the same education? I want to see where we are in Canada as a whole in terms of income levels for women versus men.

[Jennifer Kaddatz]

When preparing for today, we really tried to focus on the question at hand and come up with statistics from the general social survey about activity. Statistics Canada definitely has those numbers on income levels, age levels, even the earlier question about university degrees by province, and we can provide all that to you, but we would need to do that after this meeting as well.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Okay.

Are you able to comment on what percentage of women participated in the last federal election, breaking that down by province? Do you have that on hand?

[Anna Kemeny]

We don't have that on hand.

[Pamela Best]

No, we don't. In fact, we didn't think that the voting behaviour was going to be of interest to the committee today. I'm very sorry that we didn't bring that for you, but we can make it available.

[Jennifer Kaddatz]

The other item to note is that this survey focus is from 2013. It didn't focus on the last federal election. I know Status of Women Canada, which is presenting in the hour after us, does have some data for the last federal election. I don't know what their source is but it wasn't from Statistics Canada.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I have many interpretive questions but unfortunately you wouldn't be able to answer those for me.

In terms of data, I really would like to know the voting patterns of women across the country by province. That would be of interest to me. As well, I would love to have verified the exact percentage of women in Canada, in our population as a whole.

[Jennifer Kaddatz]

For voting patterns, do you just want federal elections in 2013, or do you want the provincial and municipal as well?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I'm interested in federal, but I'm sure the committee as a whole would find both helpful for understanding voting patterns at the provincial and municipal levels. If you're able to give that information to us, that would be wonderful.

[Jennifer Kaddatz]

We can give you those. They are fairly interesting because women are...we're reporting in 2013 that they're more likely to vote in the municipal and provincial elections than in the federal.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

That's interesting. When they answer these questions though, do women have an opportunity to explain why they come to that conclusion?

[Jennifer Kaddatz]

No.

We build a general social survey based on input from several policy departments. Since we have to keep the response burden low and the number of questions limited, anything that's too detailed on a specific topic, we have to weigh against all the needs of the federal government, at the same time. Those types of questions didn't make it into the last round, but there's still an opportunity to get them into our 2020 survey, if that's seen as a priority by the government.