Status of Women Committee on May 9th, 2017

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Good morning, colleagues.

Today we are resuming our study of the economic security of women in Canada.

We will hear from some excellent witnesses today. By video conference from Montreal, we welcome Ms. Louise Champoux-Paillé, corporate director of the Quebec business women's network, the Réseau des femmes d'affaires du Québec. We also welcome Ms. Catherine Mavriplis, chairholder and professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Ottawa, who holds the NSERC chair for women in science and engineering. We also welcome

From Women Unlimited Association, Doreen Parsons is with us. She is the chief executive officer.

We are going to hear from each of these witnesses for seven minutes.

I will give the floor to Ms. Champoux-Paillé first.

You have seven minutes.

[Louise Champoux-Paillé, Corporate Director, Réseau des Femmes d'affaires du Québec]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for inviting me here this morning.

I am pleased to represent the Réseau des femmes d'affaires du Québec before this committee. Our network is made up of more than 2,000 women throughout Quebec, and its influence is felt both in Canada and internationally. Our director is Ms. Ruth Vachon.

My name is Louise Champoux-Paillé. I teach governance and risk management at UQAM, and I serve on a number of boards of directors, including those of the Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal and of the Centre hospitalier universitaire Sainte-Justine.

I have worked as a volunteer for over 30 years now promoting women at the highest levels of our organizations.

My objective this morning is to speak to your mandate, which is to examine ways to increase the entry, participation, retention and representation of women at high-level positions.

I will proceed as follows: I will present two of my key findings in this regard and then offer recommendations to increase the government's involvement.

To begin, I would like to provide an overview of the representation of women at the executive level of our organizations. Since there are no statistics on career paths in Canada, I will outline the situation in the United States, as it can be assumed that our situation is not so different from that in the United States.

Although women are almost equally represented initially, we have found that men become much more strongly represented in executive positions over time.

We have heard about the glass ceiling and the sticky floor, but there is also an organizational maze in which a number of women seem to get lost. What are the reasons for this? We find that women often begin their careers at lower levels than men do, have fewer advancement opportunities in key sectors, and that men have access to more seasoned mentors, which greatly accelerates the advancement of men. Finally, work-life balance policies are not still not widely enough available in our organizations. This maze is also created by a number of stereotypes, such as that women lack strong leadership to manage teams or that they are not interested in executive positions.

My second point pertains to the representation of women on company boards of directors. My most recent study pertains to the disclosures by Canadian publicly traded companies after the Canadian securities administrators, or CSA, adopted reporting requirements with respect to their diversity practices. Although there has been some improvement in recent years—26% at large corporations—, progress is very slow. As people say, the balanced representation of men and women will not happen tomorrow. The situation has become very worrisome at the executive level, since just 15% of women hold those positions.

What can we do to increase the representation of women at all levels of our organizations? My recommendations here will focus on potential actions by the federal government. Here are 10 recommendations.

First, all crown corporations and companies in which the government is a majority shareholder must adopt gender diversity policies with targets and timelines by 2018, with the ultimate objective of approaching gender equality at all levels in the next five years.

The second recommendation is to ensure that ministers who have the authority to suggest candidates for boards of directors are invited to suggest one man and one woman for each position.

Third, as part of Bill C-25, An Act to Amend the Canadian Business Corporations Act, the government should adopt regulations imposing reporting requirements on companies valued at $2 billion or more in order to achieve 40% representation of women by 2025.

Fourth, we have to create a strong pool of women among the next generation in the public service by creating an interdepartmental committee with the mandate to promote women's rights in the government's areas of activity.

Fifth, efforts to promote women entrepreneurs must be increased. Let us recall that women own 15.7% of SMEs in Canada, businesses that create more than 1.5 million jobs. Let us also recall that businesses owned by women are among the group of small businesses with the strongest growth. So it is important for the government to take action to support their growth, specifically by including more women in its supply chain.

Sixth, efforts must be made to mobilize Canadian banks so they better inform women business creators about the solutions available to help them, and conduct internal activities to promote entrepreneurship among women.

Seventh, we recommend that a national database of women candidates be created to showcase qualified women for director and senior management positions.

Eighth, data must be gathered and disseminated on appropriate government websites regarding the representation of women and men in other decision-making roles in order to inform the public and companies about best practices for gender diversity.

Ninth, executive recruitment firms must make a commitment to put forward at least one woman in the final list of potential candidates.

Tenth, the efforts by the prime minister to promote greater gender diversity in private and public organizations must be continued and intensified, along with those related to the development of women entrepreneurs.

Achieving greater gender balance requires changes in mentality, perception and ways of doing things, and the federal government can be a key driver of change.

Thank you for your attention.

I will be pleased to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll go to Catherine. You have seven minutes.

[Catherine Mavriplis, Chairholder and Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ottawa, NSERC Chair for Women in Science and Engineering]

Thank you. I have to say that I agree with the first speaker on many points.

I'm honoured to have been invited to appear before this committee to be a witness on the economic security of women in Canada. Thank you for the invitation. I would particularly like to thank the gentlemen who are on this committee for serving and for fighting for the rights of women. It seems like this is a problem that we women have worked on—mostly as volunteer work—for a very long time. It is just not possible to right all of these problems without the engagement of men. Thank you for being here.

My name is Catherine Mavriplis, and I'm a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Ottawa. I also hold the NSERC chair for women in science and engineering for Ontario, and I'm representing the five chairs across the country today, as well, in my comments. I've also spoken to many of our stakeholders and other participants in our programs, and to my friends and colleagues in other non-science and engineering arenas to create my comments today.

I was told that you might be interested in a description of what my career path has been in science and engineering, as an example of the lives of women in these fields. I'll start with that, and then make some comments on the economic security of women and ways in which we can improve the situation. There is much to cover. I read all the comments from the previous witnesses, so I'm going to try to add things that perhaps you've not heard before.

I grew up in Montreal and obtained a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from McGill University. I really, really, really wanted to work in industry. I kept looking in the newspaper for jobs, and all I could see were these girl Friday ads and HVAC engineering. I had no idea what those things were and what they could do for me. I figured that if I went to work in industry, I would probably just get swallowed up by the men there and be an insignificant person in a big company, so I decided to get a higher degree. That's what a lot of women do. They get more education and more pieces of paper, thinking that it will help them to establish themselves.

After obtaining a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from one of the top institutions in the world, I interviewed and received a job offer from the Boeing aerospace company at 15% less pay than my almost identical classmate. I was told there was absolutely nothing I could do about it; that was just the way it was. I did see that there was a class action suit against Boeing by some women a number of years later, and I thought that was kind of interesting. I didn't have the fortitude to do something like that, but it was vindication, perhaps, for what I'd experienced.

I decided to go into academia, thinking it would be flexible for having kids—I have four children. Unfortunately, I did this in the U.S., and I ended up with zero maternity leave. I had to plan for all of my children to be born during the summer so I could go without pay and come back to work, which is hard to do. Luckily, I was able to keep my job. I did work as a professor. I did become unemployed for two years. I have worked part time for three years. I returned to Canada nine years ago, and making that transition was difficult after being unemployed.

I offer you this glimpse of my path as an example of many women who I have met over my 37 years in the engineering community. I've created and helped organize workshops for over 1,500 doctoral women in science and engineering, and I've run activities for about 6,000 women—mostly women, but also men—to promote diversity in technical fields.

The elements of my story are not uncommon to the past or the present. People are still experiencing these things. Women are opting for postgraduate degrees to gain more credentials. They have non-linear career paths. They have periods of unemployment or part-time employment. They have a large share of unrecognized, unpaid, family-related work and responsibility. They have wage gaps and a lack of paths to career-building.

Many of us who succeed in this male-dominated field feel like we're on a treadmill. We feel that we have to be superwomen, and at the same time be ladylike and not offend sensibilities. There needs to be a critical mass of women in these fields. Engineers Canada has proposed a 30 by 30 initiative in which 30% of newly licensed engineers would be women by 2030, but some of us wonder why that goal is not 50%. Within our group—and perhaps we're conditioned by being in a male-dominated group—there are people who are radical about going to fifty-fifty, and there are the other people who say that we shouldn't ask for too much. Again, it's this perception of women in society that we're very wary about as well.

What does all of this have to do with economic security? STEM jobs are key to economic security for women. Statistics show that STEM jobs are more permanent, and offer full-time and well-paid employment.

Furthermore, the demand for qualified science and engineering workers is increasing, yet we hear of industry going to other countries to fill these positions. I really don't understand why we don't train the people who are here to fill those jobs.

Women hold only a fraction of those jobs. The statistics are improving, but at a very slow rate. In some fields, such as medicine or life sciences, parity has been or is close to being reached, but then again, we hear of salary levels dropping as more women join the field. The government is one area where parity has been achieved and this is a good result. This is a result of fair and transparent practices and it's a good way to achieve equity, although some say that maybe it's the low wages that keep the more competitive men out of this area.

Generally, women tend to fare better at large organizations where a set of rules are in place. There have been some studies of women in large organizations versus more organic, perhaps groovy, start-up places. In the end, women do better in the large organizations because there's less of a “bro culture” and there are more checks and balances, let's say.

In the face of unemployment, many women go into entrepreneurship, but it's very difficult for them. They often lack financial know-how and they lack access to capital. At the University of Ottawa, we've run a women in entrepreneurship mentoring program for the last two years and that has instantly increased the participation of women in this area.

What can we do about it? I will go to some recommendations. My first recommendation is to lead by example. We've seen some wonderful things happen in the past couple of years. First of all, the balanced cabinet of Prime Minister Trudeau was something that was heard around the world. Certainly, when I visit other countries, that's the first thing they ask me about. The Ontario Securities Commission's comply or explain disclosure policy is also something that we're keen on. The B.C. government added computer programming to the school curriculum in 2016. These are bold measures and we applaud them. We also want to say that we're in support of Minister Duncan's recent decision to get after universities for the Canada research chair targets.

With little time left, the last thing I will say is that we're hosting the next Gender Summit this year in Montreal and I hope we will put on as good a performance as the Europeans. At these European-organized events, we see male politicians and university administrators debate the issues and we learn about their countries' national programs for gender equity. What will Canada have to show by this November?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Excellent. That's very good. It's always a pleasure to see another female engineer come to our committee. A lot of your testimony resonated with me, especially the 15% inequity, which I also experienced, and a human resources lawyer did also take care of that. They're very common stories.

All right. Now we're going to go to Doreen for seven minutes.

[Doreen Parsons, Chief Executive Officer, Women Unlimited Association]

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, for this opportunity.

The Women Unlimited Association is a not-for-profit organization in Nova Scotia that supports diverse women to build careers in the trades and technology fields. Cited as a best practice in Canada, we work with relevant industries, unions, governments, apprenticeship, educational institutions, and the community to address the systemic barriers diverse women face and to support their recruitment, retention, and advancement in the trades and technology fields.

Women Unlimited works with women like Denise Watters, who we'll hear from shortly this morning, who are dedicated to building careers in the skilled trades. Although women represent 50% of the workforce, they make up only 5% of our skilled trades workers. Trades jobs offer women a living wage with benefits. We know that when you improve a women's economic situation, there's a ripple effect that spreads to her children, her family, and her community. Women's economic prosperity is a gift that keeps on giving.

Our model is designed to encourage and support diverse women along a multi-year journey from recruitment to career exploration, through college level trades and technology training, to employment, and along the apprenticeship pathway to certification. Women are with us for between three and seven years, some 10.

Since 2006, we have supported more than 650 diverse women to build careers in these fields. To date, 94% have completed our programs. More than 80% have proceeded to college level training and on to employment, many of them at the top of their class, I might add.

A recruitment process sets diversity goals. As a result, 50% of those selected self-identify as African Nova Scotian, indigenous women, immigrant women, women living with disabilities, and women from the LGBTQ community. As well, more than 65% are youth, and almost 50%—47% to be exact—are lone parents. I'm also proud to say that 75% of our dedicated professional staff self-identify as diverse, thus creating a culture wherein diversity can thrive.

More than 175 Nova Scotian employers have hired our graduates, employers such as Irving Shipbuilding, through the national shipbuilding procurement strategy, and Emera Newfoundland and Labrador, through the Maritime link project. They have significant partnerships with Women Unlimited to increase gender diversity in their workplaces.

Through complex consortiums and partnerships, Women Unlimited has demonstrated what can be accomplished when resources and commitments are combined to achieve the common goal of addressing the systemic barriers diverse women face and supporting their successful recruitment, retention, and advancement in these fields. The greatest barrier diverse women face is finding employers who are not only willing to hire them but also committed to supporting them through the apprenticeship journey to certification and to addressing the workplace culture in a comprehensive, sustainable way.

Women Unlimited's partnership with Irving Shipbuilding is a good example of what an effective consortium can achieve. In 2011, when Irving Shipbuilding was awarded the combat vessel package under the national shipbuilding strategy, Women Unlimited saw it as an opportunity to increase the number of women working in the trades at the Halifax shipyard. Within a year, Irving Shipbuilding began a partnership with the Nova Scotia Community College called Irving Shipbuilding's centre of excellence.

Irving committed to invest $250,000 annually over the life of the contract to create opportunities for Nova Scotians to participate in shipbuilding, with a specific focus on under-represented groups: women, African Nova Scotians, indigenous persons, and persons with disabilities. Women represented only 3.7% of Irving Shipbuilding's trades workforce, so this investment could change that. We had a vehicle.

The Irving Shipbuilding-Women Unlimited partnership was launched in April 2015. Twenty diverse women were recruited through a joint selection process with Women Unlimited and Irving. With the support of the Government of Nova Scotia, they participated in a 14-week career exploration program focused on the metal trades. The following year they entered college-level welding and metal fabrication programs with a letter of intent to hire from Irving. With the support from the Canadian Women's Foundation, Women Unlimited provided wraparound support so that challenges associated with child care, transportation, driver education, books, tools, and tutoring were addressed.

With the support of Status of Women Canada, Women Unlimited is working with Irving Shipbuilding and others in the marine sector, including the Nova Scotia Boatbuilders Association, to build gender equity strategies to support both their retention and advancement in these fields. Advancement in a skilled trade also depends on achieving a Red Seal certification. It is the other post-secondary venue.

Status of Women Canada is also supporting Women Unlimited to work with our industry and apprenticeship partners to build a more inclusive and respectful apprenticeship system for diverse women. We will be building a gender equity plan, a women-in-trades network, and participating in the pan-Canadian network of women leaders.

The Irving Shipbuilding-Women Unlimited partnership is ground-breaking. Why?

First, this national contract had requirements for diversity hiring. As a result we built an intentional coalition between more than eight diverse partners—Irving Shipbuilding, Unifor, Women Unlimited, the Nova Scotia Community College, the governments of both Nova Scotia and Canada, the Nova Scotia Apprenticeship Agency, the Canadian Welding Association Foundation, and Praxair Canada—through a vehicle called the Irving Shipbuilding centre of excellence.

Second, we have demonstrated excellence in women-centred programming through a model of best practice. Third, we are working to shift the workplace and apprenticeship culture. Fourth, we are broadening our impact. Irving Shipbuilding has committed to two more projects with Women Unlimited. The second group started this April, in 2017, and the third will be in 2019.

These are my recommendations.

I recommend that the Government of Canada establish procurement and employment agreements on all infrastructure funding proposals requiring diversity plans with a goal of achieving employment equity and gender diversity in the trades. Second, we recommend that the Government of Canada establish a five-year national funding strategy to support the full and equitable participation of diverse women in apprenticeship in the skilled trades.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We are ecstatic today to have MPs Julie Dabrusin, Colin Fraser, and Jenny Kwan joining our committee.

We're going to begin our first round of questioning with Anita Vandenbeld for seven minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

Thank you, all, for being here today and of course being here again.

I noticed that two of you were talking about some of the measures that are in Bill C-25, the comply or explain measures. Also, there's a recent initiative in the federal public service, a pilot project, on name-blind hiring. I notice that Ms. Parsons talked about the willingness of employers to recruit and hire women and those with diverse backgrounds.

What impact do you think those measures will have? Is that enough or is there obviously more that can be done?

[Doreen Parsons]

I think there is so much that can be done. I really do. We're at 5% and that hasn't changed in 20 years.

Truly, both in small and medium-sized businesses as well as in large initiatives, the workplace culture is the issue and recruitment and hiring is the issue. Women are so incredibly under-represented, yet at the top of their trades and technology programs. There has to be a really considerable effort done on both procurement and diversity hiring.

[Catherine Mavriplis]

I think the comply or explain program is good as a start but if nothing happens within a couple of years I think we have to go to stronger measures. I think that's what Minister Duncan has done with the universities. You now have the freedom to create something. People are ingenious. If they have an incentive they will engineer a solution but if they don't do anything about it then you need to get tougher.

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

Go ahead.

[Louise Champoux-Paillé]

Those responsible for executive and managerial recruitment should be required to suggest one candidate in two or one candidate in three who are women. This would highlight women's talents in those high-ranking positions.

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

Thank you very much.

To what extent does this have to start young?

Thank you, Ms. Mavriplis, for talking about your personal story. In my case, in grade 10, my highest marks were in math and I decided I wanted to be an astrophysicist. Somehow, by grade 12, I was telling everyone I hated math and I wanted to be an historian. I've thought to myself, over and over, what was it that caused that transition, even if being an historian has been wonderful.

You talked about the economic impact and sometimes there are self-limitations that come from these systemic barriers. I notice all of you work on mentoring, on workshops, and on training. To what extent should perhaps that be done amongst pre-university, the younger pre-college, and the younger age groups?

[Catherine Mavriplis]

It's done all the time. We are constantly running camps and weekend events and all sorts of stuff. Some attitudes by some people in the school systems tend to steer women away. Most women I meet tell me a guidance counsellor told them at some point that physics was not for them. Our goal sometimes is to make sure that girls take all the science classes they need to before the end of grade 12 so they don't limit themselves.

The other thing is to make our profession appealing. By putting a twist on what their profession does, engineers serve society. Most people don't understand that. It's our own fault as engineers that we haven't been promoting the profession that way.

When you say you're going to be doing biomedical engineering you have no problem getting women in. It's fifty-fifty for the students and fifty-fifty for the profs as well. If you have a computer science class and you say you're going to talk about counting cells and doing statistical analysis of medical data, you have all the women coming. But if you say it's particle physics, they're not coming.

I have a new Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grant with a professor in education where we want to concentrate on what would happen if you sold engineering as something that serves women, technologies designed for women. Would you have more people coming into those fields? I hope that's going to be successful.

[Doreen Parsons]

I have a report here that we just published of stories of a number of women in our program. Many of them will say they weren't encouraged at a young age to consider the careers, the trades, or technologies. We don't work specifically within the school system, but the women we work with do. The greatest way to encourage young women to participate in the trades or technologies is when their mothers, their sisters, or their aunts are in these fields.

So many women who are unemployed and underemployed are able to be retrained to work in these fields that we have to do both: work within the school system as well as encourage and support programs that offer opportunities to support women to move into these fields.

We need role models.

[Louise Champoux-Paillé]

In teaching at the master's and bachelor's levels, I create working groups on specific topics. I ask my students to make sure their groups are 50% men and 50% women. Once they have finished their work, I ask them to reflect on what the men and women each contributed to the decisions made. I think that we as teachers also have a role to play in increasing gender diversity.

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

Thank you.

I was quite startled by some of the numbers. You talked about 3.7%, 5%, or 7% in a company. Is the situation improving? Is it getting worse? Is it stagnant? Are there certain sectors where there is improvement and others where there isn't? What is the change over time in some of these areas? If there is some improvement what factors might account for that?

We'll go in the same order.

[Doreen Parsons]

There has been some improvement but little by percentage. We're still at about 5%. It's been the same for 20 or 30 years. Certainly there are more women working in the trades and technology fields at this stage, but they're still at about 5%, which is why we need a really concerted effort to move that needle to 10%, 15%, 20% within our trades and technology fields.

[Catherine Mavriplis]

I'm going to talk about aerospace in particular because that's my field. The chair I had was supported by Pratt & Whitney Canada, which is in the aerospace field. I'll give you some numbers where it has improved.

Pratt & Whitney started a women's leadership initiative in 2007. Then they sponsored my chair from 2011 to 2016. I'll give you their numbers. In 2008, the company had 14% women executives, 9% in senior management, and 15% in management. Within five years it had risen to 19%, 22%, and 16%. There are some modest gains.

I noticed that Bombardier also has some goals on their website. I'm not sure if they are reaching them yet, but they have for instance said that they “aspire towards (i) a Board composition in which women comprise at least 30% of all directors by January 2018, and (ii) have at least 25% of management positions held by women by January 2018,” but it says, “as relevant positions become vacant and appropriately-skilled candidates are available”.

There's a bit of caution there. Their numbers right now—

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That's your time. I'm sorry.

We're going now to Ms. Vecchio for seven minutes.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Thank you very much.

Karen Ludwig, unfortunately, is not here with us today, but I'll tell you the line that she likes to use, “If you can't see it, you can't be it.” That's something I, too, fully agree with.

Catherine, I wanted to start with you. Last week we had somebody here and she was saying that young girls are very interested in science courses, and then you see a change when they start getting into more of the male teachers.

Within your own fields, as you graduate, many of the primary school teachers are young women, and then you're getting into more males. On that, Catherine, how many women would be currently teaching at the University of Ottawa in some of the STEM fields? What would the percentage be there?

[Catherine Mavriplis]

The University of Ottawa has the highest percentage of women professors in engineering, which is about 20%.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Okay.

[Catherine Mavriplis]

But in biomedical, as I mentioned, it's fifty-fifty, and in computer science, by some oddity, it also fifty-fifty, which is quite rare.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

We're also looking at education and mentorship. I think that's something we really need to see.

For anyone on the panel, do you find that it's necessary to be in a female-female mentorship situation?