Status of Women Committee on Feb. 16th, 2016

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

—but I promise I will do my best to become educated in advance of these sessions so I can be a meaningful contributor to the discussion.

One of the things I'd like to talk about is the stigma around gender-based violence, particularly intimate partner violence. I come from a very small community, and people don't talk. I think a healthy way to kick-start a discussion so that we can become advocates is to get information.

You touched on the economic costs of gender-based violence. Is there a way we can find objective information that could be be a conversation starter in communities like mine?

[Meena Ballantyne]

Yes, absolutely, and I think we have some really good projects in what constitutes healthy relationships, for example. Just having those kinds of conversations is useful, so that at a young age both girls and boys are able to say that it's not acceptable for him to treat me like this or for him to share my pictures on his cellphone without my consent. There are all those kinds of issues. We're trying to fund projects, and then they can provide some more information.

Therre can be discussions. For example, there are the white ribbon campaigns with Todd Minerson, who is doing some amazing work on the new masculinity and what it means to be a man and what defines masculinity. He's having a conference in Toronto this weekend. Those kinds of conversations in which men are talking about it and are able to talk about these things in an open way is huge. Men are part of the solution.

I'll let Linda respond too.

[Linda Savoie]

Thanks.

You raised some very interesting points, because a few years ago we were looking at some statistics on the rates of intimate partner violence across the country, and an overwhelming majority of the locations were in rural or remote areas, not the larger urban centres or even medium urban centres that we would have anticipated as a result of the volume of people. As a result, we funded a number of projects that were specifically looking at violence in rural communities to see some of the emerging issues, some of the very peculiar challenges.

There were things we anticipated, such as issues around transportation and infrastructure and supports that were lacking, but one thing that was also a big factor was the lack of confidentiality raised by many women in not having that safety net of being able to discuss things with someone who was not their neighbour or who didn't know their entire family history. There were some interesting findings there.

I can't say that we have the solutions yet, but we are working with groups and looking at further exploring those issues through funding further projects.

That's an example of the type of work we're doing.

[Meena Ballantyne]

Can I have a moment to add something that pertains to some of the other questions too?

We're trying to empower women and girls to speak up and also to engage men and boys to say, “Don't be a bystander. Don't let somebody get away with this kind of behaviour.” The purpose of all these projects, whether it's in rural communities or projects with men and boys, is really to get a dialogue going about that issue and get some tools that will help people in their communities or in their interactions with each other in schools and their peer groups to be able to talk about these things.

There's an Ontario campaign called It's Never Okay. I don't know if you've seen the commercials, but they're really fantastic in speaking up and saying “It's not okay, it's never okay”, and just having those conversations.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I don't want to cut in on the ability of somebody else to ask a question, but would it be possible for me to get information that I can pass on to women's organizations at home that could potentially take part in the kind of work you're doing in small towns and rural communities?

[Linda Savoie]

Yes. If there's a particular area of focus, we can certainly connect them to other groups in a similar environment and that have learned lessons through our funding projects. Whatever aspect is of interest to you—if it's violence in a rural environment, for instance—at this point we can look at our expert groups.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Should we just go through you guys for now?

[Linda Savoie]

Sure.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Perfect. Thank you very much.

[Linda Savoie]

It's our pleasure.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

One thing you talked about is getting women into non-traditional jobs. Skilled trades was one area. Have you looked at barriers to explain why they aren't getting into some of those jobs?

For example, if you want to go into policing or many of the non-traditional jobs, you have to be prepared to do shift work, and you can't get child care for that. Have you looked at some of the barriers to getting women into non-traditional jobs and at how we address those barriers? If we remove them, then we make it possible for women to get into these well-paying non-traditional jobs.

[Meena Ballantyne]

Absolutely we've been looking at that. In fact, on our website we've created a business case to show the economic benefit of having women in some of these non-traditional jobs in the skilled trades and how companies and employers can remove or address the barriers when they're hiring women.

Basically, even recruitment strategies that they have for women can change, in terms of what attracts women. Instead of having an interview at 3:30 in the afternoon, when women have to go to pick up their children, for example, the time of the interview could be changed. Small things can go a huge way in recruiting more women to these jobs.

Workplace culture is another aspect. Many women who go into these various non-traditional fields find that they're the one of whatever—the first helicopter technician, or engineer, or whatever—and the workplace culture is just not conducive to their staying in those jobs. Even though they trained for them and made it into that workplace, they're leaving, for whatever reason. Perhaps it's because the workplace isn't conducive to child care or elder care, or perhaps it's because of workplace habits, in terms of the teams and the kind of language that's used out there.

One thing we've tried to do is create a business case so that there can be consensus around the country whereby people can say, yes, this is why we need more women on boards. A few years ago Status of Women worked with the Conference Board of Canada, and we came up with a business case—and now it's out there—that people are talking about. Now it's becoming much more common to talk about the business case for women on boards, about why more is better and is profitable and all that.

Concerning women in skilled trades, we still have a way to go, because, as I said, 95% of the people in skilled trades are still men. What can we do? We also did a business case on women in skilled trades, which employers can use, to provide some strategies they can employ to attract more women into these fields. That's on our website, and we have the provincial and territorial governments working with us, so they're promoting it to all the employers out there.

We're finding out from some folks that women in some of these cases are actually better for the bottom line because, for example, they take better care of the big trucks they're driving because they actually read the manual. This is what the Canadian Truckers Association, for example, told us.

Another example is the mill workers in the forestry and the paper products industry. They're saying that they're much more organized, they clean up after themselves, they delegate well, they're better team players.

That's not to say that women are better than men. It's not going down that road. It's just basically saying not to discount women because they have child care responsibilities or because they can't come to the interview or because they have to do things a little differently in the workplace. We're trying to promote that, absolutely.

The business case is on our website, but if you'd like, we can send it to you as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

All right. Around we go.

Go ahead, Ms. Wagantall.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Thank you so much for presenting today. I appreciate the very important work that you do. Within the House of Commons, I'm new at this. Hopefully my questions will make sense.

You talked a lot about wage parity and the gap there. It's something that we really do have to improve. It is foundational in so many ways. In the House, the minister has talked about the dynamics of a number of programs that have been in place, and you guys have all the experience here. She mentioned that we're not going to reinvent the wheel when something is working really well.

With the various roles that you play, is there a nugget or two that has been extremely effective in what you've done? If you could share it with us, that would be great.

[Justine Akman]

I believe this committee has studied best practices to address violence against women fairly recently, so that would be something of interest to take a look at.

[Meena Ballantyne]

We are always trying to look at best practices and trying to make sure that people across the country know about them so that they're not reinventing the wheel.

For example, we put success stories on our website. We've taken projects, asked why they succeeded and what they did differently, and put them up on our website so that, hopefully, somebody in Newfoundland sees what somebody in B.C. is doing and can employ the same programs.

We've also taken a list of all these projects that engage men and boys in different ways. There's the Don't be a Bystander campaign. There's the Moose Hide campaign, and there are various other programs that have been done across the country. We're trying to say that if you want to engage men and boys, go and talk to these people, wherever they are, and get lessons learned. We're trying to connect them.

As Linda was saying, for example, even in something like campus violence, where we funded these projects, we have some great data coming out. Not everybody was involved in them, so we're trying to figure out creative ways of getting people involved—not just the ones who worked on the projects, but others—so they can take some of these best practices and say that they need a simple guidance document, or this or that kind of a tool.

We're trying to do that as much as possible everywhere we can.

[Linda Savoie]

We have some pretty spectacular projects under way. We have a series of projects taking place in the digital economy. They're trying to ensure that women are attracted to the tech world and the information technologies, and once they're in, they're retained and advanced. Through working with some associations that are well connected with large players and large corporations, like IBM, they review human resources and hiring practices. Maybe those corporations are not asking the right questions or shopping in the right places. Maybe the women they're marketing their jobs to are still thinking of technologists as nerds in their basement, or something like The IT Crowd, if you've watched that show. They're trying to destigmatize the picture of what a woman in technology looks like and make sure that the practices around hiring, retention, and the culture in the workplace are adapted accordingly.

Those are the types of interventions that we like to support. They transform the environment. Rather than tossing more women into a bad environment, they transform the environment with the help of the people who are part of those environments and have the expertise. They know their environments and they can be the change agents.

Some very interesting projects are under way. There are strategies that are not just employed by Status of Women. We have some colleagues in other departments who are putting a very strong gender lens to their programs. It's quite encouraging for us to watch them do that and be very thorough, making sure that the programs they're putting in place, such as for new immigrants, are well adapted to both men and women. There are lots of good practices out there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you. That's excellent.

We're at the end of the time that we had indicated we would have you here. The good news for everybody is that Meena is not going off the planet. We can have her back as many times as we want and as often as we want.

I appreciate your coming and I appreciate the questions. I'm looking for some input from the team as to whether we should put you on the agenda to have you back again. Maybe it could be Thursday. My people will work with your people.

Thank you.

[Meena Ballantyne]

We are back next week with Minister Hajdu, as well, on Tuesday.

It's up to you. We really look forward to working with this committee, so thank you so much for your time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Very good.

I believe that the parliamentary secretary is here. They asked me about you the other day, and I wasn't sure if I had introduced myself.

I need a motion for you to be able to remain for the rest of the meeting, so could I have a motion from someone?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I so move.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

They've explained to me that I don't need a seconder in this parliamentary world, so you're it. You just made a decision, and you're on the record.

Welcome. You're welcome to stay.

We're going to suspend for the in camera part of this meeting. The fun part for the newbies is that when they say “in camera”, what they really mean is “off camera”. We're going to go off the radar here, so we can all feel free to have a more congenial discussion about what the committee's going to do.

[Proceedings continue in camera]