Status of Women Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2017

[Justine Akman]

I might come back, but I believe that one of the upcoming chapters of Women in Canada is going to focus on women with disabilities. I assume it would include a lot of data about employment.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

One of the other things we've heard is that when an occupation starts becoming more female than male, the wages in that occupation actually start to go down. Is there anything from Statistics Canada or from Status of Women that can correlate that? That was one of the things we heard in the testimony, that the feminization of the workforce actually reduces wages.

[Andrew Heisz]

I'm not aware of anything.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Those would be interesting things, I think, for the committee, if there were any.

[Justine Akman]

I haven't seen that either, of course.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Okay.

[Justine Akman]

As you're well aware, there are many studies about pay equity and differences in wages, but I'm not sure about that trend line.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

You're out of time.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I want to take the opportunity to thank our witnesses. The work you're doing is amazing. It's going to be very helpful to the committee as we go along. As you know, we may call you back later in the study, as we find gaps in knowledge that we want to have you fill.

Thank you for your time. If there are things you think you want to send—we talked about a few of them—please direct them to the clerk, and then the committee will get them.

At this time, I'm going to turn it over to Sheila Malcolmson, just before we break and suspend.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to introduce to the committee two up-and-coming women leaders, who I'm really proud are with me today. Tajinder Rataul from Brock University's Women in the House program is here, and also I'm very glad to be supported by Astrid Krizus, who is one of the parliamentary interns. She's from both Queen's and U of T.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Welcome, girls.

I believe Ms. Damoff also has some girls here.

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

I do. One of the students is Jacqueline, and I see that Madi Fuller has joined us as well. Madi is another student with Brock Women in the House.

To both of you, thank you for being here. This is awesome.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Wonderful. We love to have more women in the House, although the gender parity is also appreciated.

We're going to suspend for a minute to get our next panel going.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We're happy to be back with our second panel. We have an exciting bunch again for the second panel, from more government departments.

We have, from the Department of Industry, Shereen Benzvy Miller, the assistant deputy minister for small business, tourism and marketplace services. From the Department of Employment and Social Development, we have Doug Murphy, the director general for social development policy. We have Andrew Brown, the executive director for employment insurance policy, skills and employment branch. We have Catherine Demers, director general, strategy and partnership, skills and employment branch; and we have Drew Leyburne, from the Department of Natural Resources, who is the director general, strategic policy branch, strategic policy and results sector.

We're going to start with the Department of Industry. We'll start with Shereen.

You have seven minutes.

[Shereen Benzvy Miller, Assistant Deputy Minister, Small Business, Tourism and Marketplace Services, Department of Industry]

Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair and distinguished members.

My name is Shereen Benzvy Miller. I am the assistant deputy minister for small business, tourism and marketplace services, at Innovation, Science and Economic Development.

I'm pleased to be here today, alongside my colleagues from ESDC and Natural Resources. Thank you for providing us an opportunity to speak to you about how ISED is supporting the economic security of women.

There is a growing understanding that addressing the constraints of women's economic empowerment is fundamental to lasting, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth and to the achievement of gender equality

However, women continue to face challenges. We know that women are generally under-represented in entrepreneurship and small business ownership, in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and on corporate boards. In addition, sometimes general programs and services don't take into account the distinct needs of women.

Let me walk you through some of our department's initiatives and programs that aim to address these issues.

First, women entrepreneurs represent a significant source of untapped talent and potential in Canada. Only 15.7% of small and medium-sized enterprises are majority owned by women, as opposed to 64.7% majority owned by men.

As well, only 5% of women-owned businesses export, as opposed to 12% of male-owned businesses. Despite expressing high growth intentions, women are less likely to scale up their businesses and export due to a number of barriers, such as limited business networks, lack of financial literacy, inconsistent levels of training and mentorship, and lack of access to capital for financing.

For instance, Statistics Canada found in 2014 that only 78% of majority women-owned businesses that requested debt financing has those requests approved as opposed to 91% of majority male-owned businesses that requested it. That's only 78% of women-owned businesses being approved for financing.

ISED is working on determining how to best support women entrepreneurs. As part of this, the program is continually engaging with stakeholders. For instance, on November 9, 2016, the Honourable Bardish Chagger, Minister of Small Business and Tourism, hosted the Canadian Women's Entrepreneurship Conference in Toronto. Businesswomen from across the country came together, as did Minister Hajdu and Status of Women, to discuss the challenges that women entrepreneurs face and to collaborate on ideas to provide better support for them. I am very pleased that more than 250 inspiring women business owners and organizations that support them were able to participate. Going forward, this engagement will inform policies to promote the full participation of women entrepreneurs in Canada's economic development.

During the conference, Minister Chagger announced that she had asked the Business Development Bank of Canada, the BDC, to become a world-leading financial institution for women business owners. This will involve an introspective look at their business processes and how they meet the needs of women.

Minister Chagger also announced BDC's creation of three new initiatives to support women entrepreneurs in the technology sector, totalling over $50 million in investments.

BDC has also committed to increasing its term lending to majority women-owned businesses to at least $700 million over three years ending in fiscal year 2018. BDC is on track to exceed this commitment.

The six regional development agencies support women entrepreneurs and organizations that support women starting and growing their businesses.

For instance, FedDev Ontario announced in June 2016 $880,000 over two years to directly support women's entrepreneurship through Fierce Founders, a specialized program for women in technology industries.

Both Western Economic Diversification Canada, WD, and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, ACOA, provide financial support to member organizations, like the Women's Enterprise Organizations of Canada. These organizations provide critical business management skills.

ISED programs that support women in business include the Canada Business Network, a comprehensive directory of services for business provided by the federal, provincial, and territorial governments, which has dedicated a landing page for women entrepreneurs featuring the profiles of successful women entrepreneurs. I would also ask you all to follow the Canada Business Network on Twitter. Their handle is @canadabusiness.

Futurpreneur Canada, another ISED program, is a national not-for-profit organization that supports young entrepreneurs aged 18 to 39. Over 40% of Futurpreneur's clients are women.

ISED is also committed to working to improve the representation in the STEM disciplines. For instance, ISED is working with ESDC to help employers create more co-op placements and work-integrated learning opportunities in the STEM and business fields for young Canadians, including young women and indigenous peoples.

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada's, or NSERC, chairs for women in science and engineering program was launched in 1996 to increase women's participation in STEM disciplines and to provide career role models for women in those disciplines. NSERC's PromoScience program also helps promote STEM culture by supporting non-profit organizations that generate public excitement in STEM and motivate and encourage youth, specifically young women and girls, to participate in STEM activities.

Increasing women's diversity on boards is also recognized as important. To address this, Bill C-25 was tabled in the House of Commons on September 28, 2016, by the Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. The bill concluded its second reading on December 9, 2016, and has been referred to the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology for further study. It will require directors of federally incorporated companies to disclose to shareholders the diversity of their boards.

In conclusion, ISED's policies and programs are helping to foster a workforce that is more inclusive for women. ISED is striving to better support women entrepreneurs and ensure the representation of women in STEM, and to improve diversity on corporate boards. Moreover, by applying the GBA lens to new initiatives, ISED will ensure that women are considered in policies and programs. Together, these actions contribute to the economic empowerment and security of women.

Furthermore, as we look to the future, ISED's new innovation agenda will pursue inclusive economic growth to help realize our country's full economic potential and help strengthen the middle class.

The innovation agenda will help unleash the economic potential of women and other under-represented groups in Canada's entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Thank you for your attention and I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Well done.

Now we'll go to Doug Murphy from the Department of Employment and Social Development, for seven minutes.

[Doug Murphy, Director General, Social Development Policy, Department of Employment and Social Development]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you distinguished members. It's really a pleasure to be here.

My team is leading the development of two key initiatives that will really support the economic security of women. One is a poverty reduction strategy and the other is an early learning and child care framework.

As we heard this morning, poverty and women and gender is a large issue. Andrew and Justine, my colleagues, talked about some key areas of concern—lone parents and unattached seniors—and poverty is a complex issue. It's for this reason that the Government of Canada has committed to developing a poverty reduction strategy that will set targets and timelines. This is being led by Minister Jean-Yves Duclos. As a first step, a discussion paper towards a poverty reduction strategy was tabled at the human resources committee on October 4, and that paper frames the issue of poverty. It raises some of the multi-dimensional aspects of the challenge, and I would encourage members to have a read if they have not. It's at canada.ca.

As I said, we had a very good discussion about some of the key challenges this morning, when we heard from Andrew from Statistics Canada and Justine from Status of Women Canada.

As a next step in that process, Minister Duclos will be announcing a very comprehensive engagement strategy to hear from a variety of stakeholders and Canadians about the real challenges of poverty and how the government can best address them.

Another key element that has tremendous implications for the economic security of women is, of course, child care. I was happy to hear the discussion this morning about the importance of child care in terms of labour market participation. We use the same studies, which look at Quebec. That's where most of the research has been done, and it really shows that affordable child care is a key element in promoting labour force attachment.

The return on investment on child care is also very high. We have studies from the TD Bank that show that for every dollar invested, you can get as much as three dollars in return.

We've had a good discussion about affordability. When we do our work with provinces and territories, our work in developing a framework is very much guided by the mandate letter commitments, which talk about affordable, high-quality, inclusive child care.

Finally, we touched on some really interesting and compelling issues around indigenous women, and I'm happy to say that there will be an indigenous early learning and child care framework. This will be a very co-developed framework with extensive engagement and consultation to address the very compelling issues on that front.

In conclusion, I would like to thank the committee very much for inviting me here, and I am happy to address any questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'll turn it over to Andrew.

[Andrew Brown, Executive Director, Employment Insurance Policy, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development]

Thank you, Chair, and good morning to all the members of the committee.

I am pleased to have the opportunity today to give you an overview of the employment insurance program and the way in which it supports the economic security of women.

Employment insurance, EI, is a foundational program that supports millions of working Canadians every year through life transitions. Regular benefits, of course, assist workers who experience job loss, and EI special benefits play an important role in helping women and men balance work-life responsibilities. They provide temporary income support to workers and self-employed individuals in specific circumstances such as sickness and maternity, and to those providing care to a family member at the end of life or to a new child.

To better understand and inform existing and proposed policies, the department analyzes the use of the program by women and men and conducts gender-based analysis on proposed changes to the EI program.

Over the years, the EI program has adapted to better reflect the changing labour market and the evolving needs of workers, including pressures on families.

In 1971, maternity and sickness benefits were introduced into the program, and in 1990, parental benefits were introduced so that mothers and fathers could receive support by taking leave from work to provide care for a newborn or newly adopted child.

The duration of parental benefits was increased in 2000 and, more recently, care benefits were added to the program to provide family caregivers with support in specific situations. These benefits provide additional support to working women and men and have been widely used by women in the workforce.

A key area of interest for EI is access to the program. Statistics Canada monitors this annually. It reported that in 2015 the overall eligibility rate for EI was 82.8%, and the eligibility rate for women was 84.3%, slightly higher than for men. Part-time workers tend to have more difficulty qualifying for EI than full-time workers, due to the hours requirement. As there are proportionally more women in part-time employment, as we heard earlier, traditionally the eligibility rate has been lower for women than for men. It remains to be seen whether that will continue.

I see that my time is running out. I will just say that the government has committed to further improvements to the program following a number of changes in 2016, including the elimination of the new entrant and re-entrant rules that made it easier to access the EI program.

The coming changes reflect commitments to better help Canadian families, including more flexibility in parental benefits, and a more flexible and inclusive compassionate-care benefit that would provide access in a broader range of caregiving situations.

In conclusion, we apply a gender-sensitive lens to our policy development as we look at enhancing supports for workers and Canadian families. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll go to the Department of Natural Resources.

Drew Leyburne, you have seven minutes.

[Drew Leyburne, Director General, Strategic Policy Branch, Strategic Policy and Results Sector, Department of Natural Resources]

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to participate in the development of this committee's important study. My focus today will be on providing concrete examples of the efforts being made by Natural Resources Canada, or NRCAN, industry, and other partners to understand and overcome the barriers to gender equity in the natural resources context.

Canada's natural resource industries are important economic players. In 2015, they accounted for nearly one-fifth of GDP and 1.8 million direct and indirect jobs.

Conventional natural resource industries, in Canada and around the world, are at a crossroads. Our transition to a lower-carbon future will require maximizing our potential, including women, men, youth, immigrants, Indigenous peoples and all demographic groups.

The government-wide implementation of gender-based analysis has prompted us at NRCan to examine the natural resource landscape through a demographic lens and to consider the disproportionate impacts of resource development on certain groups.

More specifically, GBA+ at NRCan has enabled increasingly comprehensive gender- and diversity-based assessments of policy proposals; a greater awareness within the department of gender disparities in the natural resource and STEM workforces, as well as ranges of incomes for those women who work in the industries, and the number of women in leadership positions; and a growing understanding of the barriers to women’s equitable participation in S and T occupational groups at NRCan and more broadly in the natural resource industries.

With this greater understanding of the demographics and statistics, NRCan’s focus in the coming years will be on putting in place initiatives that actually bend the curve, whether it be in the lab, the shop floor, the boardroom, or our own department. The gender disparities in the natural resource sectors are evident within each of the primary industries—energy, forestry, and mining—and across key employment areas, including natural and applied sciences, engineering, trades, heavy equipment operators, and management. For at least the past five years, the ratio of male to female workers in the resource sector has been 80-20. I think I distributed a placemat that shows some of the facts and figures related to these numbers.

We feel there are three general areas where NRCan is taking steps to reduce the barriers to greater gender diversity. First, we're delivering programs that seek to improve the participation of women and other under-represented groups in the natural resource industries. For example, Career Alliance 360 is an NRCan program designed to enhance representation of women and indigenous peoples in key STEM fields, with a particular emphasis on northern Canada. Our Geological Survey of Canada has the Alice Wilson Fellowship, given to two outstanding women scientists pursuing post-doctoral research in the field of earth sciences.

Our forest service has the aboriginal forestry initiative that supports efforts that increase the participation of diverse groups of indigenous women and men in the sustainable transformation of Canada’s forest sector. This program seeks to mainstream gender-based considerations in project development and capture diversity and gender-related data.

In 2013 an analysis of gender representation in the mining sector was introduced as a key indicator of social performance in the “Mining Sector Performance Report”, which we publish every three years. As with other indicators, the section on gender diversity offers an overview of data trends over the past decade, as well as examples of best practices.

NRCan is also involved in international activities with the goal of enhancing participation. The International Model Forest Network is led by NRCan and includes 30 countries that are working in partnership with industry and civil society to develop a common vision for the sustainable development of forest landscapes and ecosystems, recognizing that globally women are often the keepers of culture and traditional knowledge.

NRCan is also involved with the clean energy education and empowerment initiative, or C3E, through the Clean Energy Ministerial, an international network to advance women’s leadership in the global clean energy sector. The efforts of industry, academia, and other partners to close the gender gap in the natural resource industries can be instructive and complementary to NRCan’s efforts.

As part of NRCan’s gender-based analysis plus work plan for 2017, we’re looking to engage with industry sector councils, associations, and other organizations to learn from their experiences. The Mining Industry Human Resources Council, for example, continues to actively support greater gender and demographic diversity in industry by conducting surveys and research, sometimes in partnership with allies, like Women in Mining Canada.

Our intent in consulting with industry, academia, and other potential partners is to identify collective priority areas of improvement, enabling us to focus our work on complementary actions to improve the representation of women in Canada’s resource sectors.

Internally at NRCan, the majority of the department’s labour force is in science and technology, but women remain significantly under-represented in some key S and T groups, including scientific researchers. This is a third area where we can do more. NRCan has been making gains in addressing this imbalance. For example, in 2012, our Canadian forest service introduced the women in research initiative, a pilot project to enable women in various S and T groups to move into the scientific research job classification. Given the high success of the pilot, the initiative has been extended to reach more high performing women in S and T across our organization.

The National Energy Board, for example, is also taking steps to enable women’s corporate leadership. Their Women’s Leadership Community of Practice aims to increase awareness of gender-based challenges facing women in the workplace and helps participants develop their own personal method and style of leadership. Recently under the leadership of NRCan’s deputy chief scientist, we aim to inform future iterations of our employment equity action plan. NRCan completed a suite of initiatives, including analysis of two years of demographic data, gender-based demographic analysis of the career progression of NRCan’s research scientists, and a study of women in science and technology in the department.

The early recommendations arising from this work include strengthening our internal processes to address unconscious bias and remove barriers to career progression, as well as to actively promote leadership opportunities.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with the committee

I would welcome your questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you very much.

We will start with Mr. Serré, who will have seven minutes.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you so much for all the work that all you are doing on this issue.

There are many questions, but I'm going to try to be very specific because the chair has very tight timelines, which is good.

My first question is for you, Mr. Leyburne. You talked about 19% of women in the mining sector and about three steps you're undertaking. That's great work on those three initiatives. I want to see if you could elaborate.

When we talk about the mining sector being spread out vastly across Canada, and when we focus on mining clusters, are there any benefits in those three steps that you've identified as working, in terms of focusing more on a certain three or four cluster areas in mining across Canada in order to get a better impact?

[Drew Leyburne]

By that, you mean geographic clusters...?

Yes, I would say that mining has been one of the areas where we've seen some of the most progress in terms of percentage improvements.

We also recognize that industry has been making great efforts in this regard. I mentioned earlier that we were working with industry associations. I'm going to look for my list of those associations, because in mining in particular we've been working with the Mining Association of Canada, the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, and the Mining Industry Human Resources Council, but there are also some organizations that have made huge gains in looking at this from a more regional approach. That includes Women in Mining Canada. There's also an organization called Women Who Rock, which has been looking at this as well. I think one of the things that we have to recognize with natural resources in particular is the remote community aspect of a lot of mining and other natural resource industries, which does influence how we attract labour, including women, to the workforce.

I don't know if we've done anything specific on looking at specific clusters geographically. Certainly, a lot of the efforts of all of the organizations I've mentioned, including our own department, have been focused in areas like northern Ontario, where there is obviously a real....