Status of Women Committee on May 16th, 2017

[Danniele Livengood]

I think you hit the nail right on the head, talking about the partners seeing themselves in you and thus giving you that special treatment; we call it sponsorship. That person put specific time into sponsoring you to the position of partner; they invested extra time and effort. Until we have fifty-fifty women at that partner level, so the women see themselves in other women, I think it really comes down to those leaders to recognize what we've heard plenty about: the business case for having a diverse team, diverse leadership, and how it benefits your business. I think clients could also put a bit of pressure on organizations like this to step up their diversity. But it takes that individual decision to value this and make that intentional effort. I cited diverse succession planning being an intentional effort. If you say we're going to make sure to groom fifty-fifty, then you're going to have more people ready to step up into those positions.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Before I touch on succession planning, do you think it would be effective for the federal government to launch some kind of public education or awareness campaign to help make the business case, so that business leaders better understand that having more women at senior levels in their companies or partnerships or firms is an effective way to help their business succeed?

[Danniele Livengood]

Absolutely. I think the largest corporations in Canada are aware of this. I don't think they are really the target of that kind of educational campaign, but you'd be surprised how many medium and small businesses we still meet that need to be convinced of this.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

With respect to succession planning, I sense there's a major opportunity here. I'm from Atlantic Canada, where we have an overrepresentation of seniors per capita as compared with every other province. This means that many small and medium-sized businesses have an owner who is thinking about succession or potentially just about retiring, locking the door, and throwing it away. There's a great opportunity, if we can inspire young women to become entrepreneurial and take over these businesses, to help achieve gender equity in business.

Are there steps that you think the federal government can take to help encourage gender-balanced succession planning?

[Danniele Livengood]

Women are often really fabulous entrepreneurs, and there are plenty of them out there. I think the key to a program like that would be in making the connection, facilitating that connection space, and providing incentives for them to relocate themselves and their families. Women entrepreneurs are out there; it's just that they're not getting as much money as anyone else. Perhaps this would be a good campaign, to get them started with some funding in an established business.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Okay.

You talked as well about the importance of potentially regulating media to help break stereotypes about what a successful woman in Canadian society looks like, getting away from the prototypical depiction of success that can often be discriminatory against women.

I think it's a great idea. I am a little hesitant to have the government tell media what they should or should not do, because I think strong and independent media are an essential pillar of democracy.

Would it be possible to achieve the same end by launching a digital literacy campaign to help the consumers of media understand what they're seeing and to identify stereotypes?

[Danniele Livengood]

That's an interesting proposal. I think that people who want to be digitally literate are, and the people who aren't haven't chosen to become so. I'm not sure that kind of campaign is going to solve the problem.

It is tricky to say that government should regulate the media. I agree with what you said about there being free and independent media. I think, rather, we should look at what media the government is funding and ensure that the funding aligns with these values. Making intentional efforts to create media that support these values is a good investment, but not necessarily policing all media.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

At the opening of your remarks you talked about prior efforts that have been poured into training women. You said something that stuck with me. You said to change the system, not the women, which I think is a very interesting way to put it. I want to highlight as well, though, that we're in a time when disruptive technologies are changing industries, and individuals across Canadian society are going to need to upgrade their skills. I assume you didn't mean to exclude the possibility of training women to take advantage of new industries, rather than trying to make them fit a different mould.

Could you comment on the importance of the government's ensuring that women are beneficiaries of training to take part in 21st-century industries?

[Danniele Livengood]

Absolutely.

The main focus there was, as you said, to emphasize this “change the system, not the women” approach. We've benefited directly from the WinSETT Centre and their workshops; they're wonderful. Such things still need to happen, but it's not all that needs to happen.

To address the changing economy and the changing disruptive technologies, however, is I think not a women's issue; it's everyone's issue that is going to affect many different people across Canada. While we should make sure that whatever efforts are put forward to train people benefit women and minorities just as much everyone else, thereby making sure that there are no biases in the program, we still need to make sure that they have access to those high-paying and leadership positions.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

That was excellent. Thank you. Those are all my questions. Take care.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

Thanks a lot.

Mr. Warawa, you have five minutes.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you.

I've had the incredible honour in my life to work with amazing women. I was raised by a very strong, wonderful, intelligent mother, and I married an incredible woman. Then in my career, I worked for the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. I was an entrepreneur for many years, but I went to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia and the supervisor of my unit was an incredibly talented woman whom I was honoured to work for. Politically, I was honoured to be the parliamentary secretary for Rona Ambrose who was the minister of the environment back in 2006, and now she's our interim leader who will be stepping down over the next couple of weeks. I've been incredibly honoured to work with intelligent, strong, capable women. I really haven't experienced the discrimination against women in my life, and I've been honoured to work for talented women.

I'd like to focus on women who choose to leave their career to raise a family and now they find themselves having fulfilled that part of their life, that choice, and they want to enter back into their career. How do we help those women who need to refresh their talents and get up to speed? There are many women, and I've been honoured to be able to employ some of them in my role as a member of Parliament, who maybe didn't see themselves as being able to get back into a career, but now are back, because of encouragement. Women live longer than men. They are incredibly talented. How do we help women to get back into their career of choice? What are the barriers that they'll be facing and how can we help them?

[Prof. Tamara Franz-Odendaal]

Who are you directing the question to?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

It's for whomever would like to answer.

[Prof. Tamara Franz-Odendaal]

I'll begin, and just quickly, in the academic setting, if you have a year or two without productivity, it's very difficult for you to get a research grant to get that productivity going again. But I think within the academic setting, the challenges are a little different. There used to be a program, a university faculty award program that helped women get their first appointment, and so a program like that, which can help women who have had a family and are trying to launch their research career, would be an important one.

The other comment I wanted to make is that I know last week you heard from Women Unlimited, and it has an extremely successful program helping women get education and then go to a community college and become a tradesperson. I think we can learn a lot from that program that's been incredibly successful in Nova Scotia.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Does anyone else have something to say?

[Margaret-Ann Armour]

I could jump in on this one too. I think there's a bit of a change that's been happening, in that educational institutions are quite used to now having mature students, so often women can come back and do a master's degree, for example, which would enable them to catch up on all the technologies that have been happening while they were out with their children.

I think it's wonderful that women have this choice. I would love to see men take advantage of having the choice also of saying they're going to take a couple of years off to be with their children and allow the woman to work. We're not quite there yet, but it's coming.

The other thing is that, at universities, we're beginning to recognize that we do have a connection, a commitment to a community that is around us. We have a department of extension, which provides training for people who want to come back and do diplomas or get certificates. This allows them to renew their education, to discover what's been happening while they've been out of the education system, and to get ready to move into a job. I'd love to see more of that happening.

I think it's really important that all of the people whom you're listening to this morning and whom you've listened to over the past week make their voices heard on issues like this, so that we make it clear that we see this as something that post-secondary institutions need to have for the community, and it's not just women, but both women and men who want to come back and be retrained or pick up a new career.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

Thank you very much. That's our time. Thanks to all our witnesses for appearing and being with us today.

We're adjourned.