Status of Women Committee on Feb. 7th, 2017

[Jennifer Reynolds]

I think comply or explain is that middle point. It's saying that we're putting this on the table in front of you and on the agenda, but we're letting you pick your own targets. We're letting you deal with diversity in your own time schedule. If you're a mining company and you're nowhere on diversity, we're going to let you pick that schedule. However, if companies continue to do nothing, we're kind of forced to do something, because if they're just going to do nothing, then we do have to look at it.

That's the changing tone, I will tell you, because when we first started this dialogue around comply or explain three and a half years ago, the idea of quotas was abhorrent, and now I keep hearing the word “quotas” more and more often. Corporate Canada does not want to go the way of quotas, I promise you that. There is no question about that, but I do think there are interim steps between that and where we're at today. If we don't see any uptake on comply or explain and if people aren't adopting policies and they're not setting targets for themselves, we need to encourage them in some way to do that. Is it that you say to them that they have to have a policy or that they have to have a target? Those types of interim points between where we are today and a quota are good ways to sort of push things forward.

The other thing about the gender wage gap and gender representation is that many countries are saying—generally for larger companies, because there's an expense associated with it—that they have to disclose the gender numbers at different levels and the gender wage gap at different levels. We're seeing a lot of tech companies in the U.S., such as Salesforce, actually taking it upon themselves to do this. That's another mechanism the government has to expose it, because the gender wage gap is a good proxy for where we're at in terms of women in leadership in the corporate world.

Those are a few different ways you can get at that.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

To follow up that issue about the gender gap at different levels, my background was primarily in the private sector in a standard big law firm, and that was the number one issue I saw facing that industry. Every year they would hire 15 to 20 articling students in our office, and every year there would be four or five partners, and maybe one of them would be a woman. We were bleeding talent at the mid-levels, and we're talking about people who were at the top of their class in respective law schools across Canada.

I'm not 100% sure what the reasons were. I'm sure there are hundreds you could come up with, but it seemed as though the business development opportunities were based around beer over a hockey game and it seemed as though the social networks outside of working hours were a very big deal.

Do you see other things being obstacles that are keeping women from making that partnership level? Are there things the federal government could potentially do, aside from the transparency issue, to help women take that next step in the private sector?

[Jennifer Reynolds]

I think the legal profession is the perfect example, because it has had fifty-fifty intake at the junior levels for two and a half or three decades now, and yet women are not making it to partners. In the legal industry, typically the partner level has about 20% women.

You mentioned a few of the things that are happening. Part of it is that sales cycle and where it happens and how business is developed, but I don't think that is the key problem. I think there's a lot of the unconscious bias piece that I was talking about: how work is allocated in a law firm, who gets the best deals, who gets access to the best clients, and who gets the sponsorship from the key partners. That's how you make partner. You have to be good at what you do—that's table stakes—but those relationships are critical in advancing to partner. I think that happens quite often.

I think there is certainly the issue of family and what happens when you're having a family. One of my firm recommendations is that when you think about parental leave, think about how you're going to get men to actually take parental leave. First of all, let's have very progressive policies around that, because until we remove that, that's a key barrier for women. Until men start taking parental leave, that's a barrier in the corporate world for women. There's a huge stigma for both men and women around it. I think if, from a policy perspective, there are ways to encourage men to take that leave, it will have a huge impact.

There was actually a good research report done by EY and the Peterson Institute for International Economics that showed there was a correlation between men taking paternity leave and the proportion of women in leadership. However, there was no correlation between the length of maternity leave, or maternity leave policies, and women in leadership, so that's something we as a country really need to think about. Other Scandinavian countries are really thinking about that.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I wish I had a half day with you guys. Thanks very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That's excellent.

We've got time for one more little question period of five minutes with Mr. Waugh.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Why should we reinvent some of these wheels? Is there a country out there doing something that we can pick up on and adopt as a gender policy? Is one country ahead of everyone else? Is there one area?

[Jennifer Reynolds]

Not in every area. Iceland has the lowest gender wage gap, for instance. It also has a very high proportion of women in politics, and that's changed in recent years, in particular since 2008. Scandinavia is much further ahead on the whole board issue, and particularly on parental leave policies. When I was talking about those policies earlier, those are the countries where you've seen models and you've seen that correlation between better numbers of women in leadership.

I wouldn't say there's a country out there that has solved every problem when it comes to gender diversity, but the ones I mentioned are the ones that tend to be doing a bit better. New Zealand's done very well on the gender wage gap as well.

It's sad to me that Canada.... That study I mentioned earlier was a study on gender diversity in corporate leadership. Of 92 countries, Canada was in the bottom 10. It's a big problem.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Work hours are changing. It's eight to four, nine to five, but that's really changing now. We're seeing in our workforces in this country that you do lots of work from home. Can that be a major change as we go forward? I'm thinking of what you were saying, Ms. Lockyer.

[Rosalind Lockyer]

I think flexibility in the workplace is key to our moving forward, because the whole way we work is changing. This is where I think women would come in with the innovation word. Having good systems whereby people work at home but there's still accountability to the employer would make a big difference for women, because often women choose self-employment, for example, just to have that flexibility to care for their children or their elders.

[Jane Stinson]

If I may, I think it's really important that we not see working at home as a solution for women to manage paid work and child care. If any of you have ever tried it—I know I have—you know it's really hard to do both. You're not giving your kids the attention they need or you're not giving your job the attention it needs, and you get put in the middle, pulled in two different directions, so that's definitely not the answer.

I'd argue that even the move toward self-employment has created more inequality in our society. Some people benefit well, but I think if we look at the numbers, many people are struggling to make a decent income when they're self-employed, and especially young people.

[Jennifer Reynolds]

Some research has been done, and flexibility does impact retention. Flexibility does not positively impact women moving into leadership. I think the message is you might keep them because they're working, they're happy, and they want that flexibility. I know I do; I have children, and that helps a lot, but you still have to make sure there's no stigma along with that in the corporate world. If I take it, then I'm not really giving everything in my job, and then I'm not going to get promoted.

I think women tend to get stuck in middle management for a bunch of different reasons, but potentially that's one of them. It's part of the solution, but it needs to come with a bunch of other things changing.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Yes, those are all good points.

I think we're running out of time here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Yes.

I want to thank all the witnesses today for your excellent contributions and I want to leave you on a moment of hope, because I'm the first female engineer in the House of Commons. I was on corporate boards and I'm now a woman in politics, so it can be done. We just need to do more.

Thanks for your help.

The meeting is adjourned.