Status of Women Committee on May 16th, 2017

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

Thank you to the witnesses. I found it very interesting and informative.

My son is a doctor of microbiology, and he was in the position of deciding, do I continue on in academics and doing the research, or do I go to industry? It's a difficult choice. He stayed in his research, but it's very competitive, looking for those research funds and it's becoming more and more difficult. Whether it's a man or a woman, it's a difficult field to be in.

I have a question for Ms. Bakker in regard to supportive roles. You've alluded to people who are working, but unpaid, and making it possible for someone else to work and make those funds. Could you elaborate on that a bit?

[Prof. Isabella Bakker]

I think that, unfortunately, sometimes we still think of a breadwinner model, when in fact what we've seen is that most rich economies have moved towards a two-earner model. The question then is, how does one facilitate that, in terms of all of those other needs that need to be taken care of? The daily needs of feeding people, of clothing them, and of teaching them. I think that is the dimension we have to get into the picture. We have to first of all recognize that that's a key dimension, and that women do that more than men, and then that forecloses a whole series of options, which as Janet said, may skew them much more into lower paid work, often care work. I think that's a barrier we could address through various means.

It's very interesting. Ontario is now doing this minimum income study, and it'll be interesting to see the results. I know that from the Manitoba results, the effect of the policy was to encourage more young women to stay at home with their children, and the effect on young men was to encourage them to go into education, to improve their education. I think we have to trace those kinds of incentives to see whether they are serving men versus women in the long term.

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

In a family structure, one person would be staying at home, male or female, making it possible for the other person to work. In that structure, say, there's a $70,000-a-year income, as opposed to two people working and getting $70,000.... The argument, then, was for income splitting for families, showing value to the person who is staying home and providing that support. What are your thoughts on that? The previous government had income splitting for families to acknowledge the very importance of the person who provides that foundation. It's still $70,000, but you're recognizing, through income splitting, the value of that person who's providing that foundation.

[Prof. Isabella Bakker]

It's an interesting example. I don't know how many people that would speak to—the $70,000—because in terms of average family income, that's pretty high.

My sense of the research is that with more and more women getting educated or engaging in training programs, they want to move into the labour force. Equally, there are some men who wish to also spend time with their children at an early stage.

If we look at some of the policies that Larissa alluded to in some of the Nordic countries, it's actually incumbent on both men and women—or the other partner in a household relationship—to take parental leave, otherwise they will lose it. Those are incentives that could be built into social policies that will be very important in changing the social norms around child-rearing.

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

Do you agree with income splitting?

[Prof. Isabella Bakker]

I don't really, no. I think that it would be better not to use the tax system in that way.

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

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

You have 15 seconds.

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

That's fine.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

We're going to suspend while we prepare the video conference.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

We're reconvening. All our witnesses are ready.

Welcome to all three of you, and thank you for being part of our meeting today.

We will start with Danniele Livengood. Welcome, and you have seven minutes.

[Danniele Livengood, Director, Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I am here representing the Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology, SCWIST. We are honoured to be called upon to comment on your study about women's economic security and equal participation in the Canadian economy.

Based on over 35 years of supporting women in science, technology, engineering, and math, SCWIST will seek to address items (d), (e), and (f) of the study proposed pursuant to Standing Order 108(2).

Over the years, much effort has been put toward addressing the skill sets of women by providing them with training to make them effective in high-paying and leadership positions. However, skills are no longer the primary issue keeping women out of these positions. Access to these positions is the main issue.

Women are excluded from positions that could provide them with an equal measure of economic security, and in STEM fields this is largely due to gender biases against them. No amount of women's empowerment, education, or skills will increase women's presence if access is denied. Addressing women's lack of representation in key growth sectors and leadership positions requires changing the system, not the women.

We would also like to recognize that many Canadian women face additional economic challenges due to other aspects of their identity, such as race, ethnicity, religion, abilities, gender identity, sexual orientation, immigration status, and age. In recommending supportive policies for women, we hope that these other facets will be positively influenced by the improvement in our culture overall.

Access to these key positions is influenced by Canadian culture. This culture is upheld at the government level, the corporate level, the community level, and the individual level. We have made recommendations for how to influence culture at these various levels to benefit women.

First is the level of government. We recommend the implementation of non-partisan, gender-based analyses of all economic and social policies, and increased funding commitments to conduct these analyses. Ensuring that all policies are scrutinized for their short- and long-term impact on women would prevent existing policies from hindering new efforts.

We also recommend applying the “comply or explain” policies that have been enacted in the U.K., Germany, and the Netherlands. We should expect that companies in Canada meet certain pay equity and leadership diversity standards. One way for the government to do so is to amend procurement policies to require that organizations are compliant with standards that ensure the full participation of women.

We recommend that federal funding programs reward collaboration rather than competition and hold their applicants accountable for the diversity of their team and the impact their proposals will have on women.

This applies to media projects, which help shape the cultural norms in Canada. This applies to entrepreneurial or small-business funding, as women have been shown to receive significantly less investment for their small businesses than men, despite being a more secure investment. Of course, this applies to research funding, as women are less likely to participate in competitive application processes, and the competitive culture of winners versus losers only upholds the perception that singular minds are more valued than the collaboration of many diverse perspectives.

We need policies to regulate the media, especially advertising, with respect to their representations of women. Canada has developed extensive, high-quality Canadian content in both official languages. We can and should require that Canadian media respect and support diversity. Media is an essential piece of what builds our culture and, thus, our personal biases. If we want a future where more women are leaders in high-paying and male-dominated industries, we need to show Canadians that it's normal.

We need a federal policy on child care and family leave to ensure the full participation of women in the economy. This would help retain women, slow the departure of young workers, and save money on hiring and retraining. Giving women the support they need to stay in the workforce while raising a family would allow them the opportunity to compete for leadership positions and maintain their salary trajectory while not being burdened with the high cost of child care.

Next, we have actions recommended for the corporate level. As with the government level, we recommend a “comply or explain” approach for public consumers as well as stakeholders to keep companies accountable for having diverse leadership teams.

To comply with such standards, corporations will need to address their hiring, retention, and promotion practices to ensure that there are not biases inherent in these systems. Blind hiring, family-friendly policies, supportive policies for dealing with incidents of harassment, and intentionally diverse succession planning are all things that would support women's full participation in the workforce.

Third, we have a number of recommendations for the community level. We need to support and expand programs that create networks, provide role models, and ensure mentorship opportunities for women in male-dominated industries. SCWIST’s makepossible.ca, an online skill-based mentoring platform, is a result of intentional investment by Status of Women Canada that further supports women to pursue STEM careers. While we ask the government and corporate levels to explore new ways to influence culture, we must also keep up the grassroots work that has gotten us this far.

We recommend that communities actively engage in an open and ongoing conversation about the instances of behaviour that do not support a culture of inclusion. Keeping a dialogue going will allow community members to share these struggles and collaborate on how best to address systemic biases.

And finally, at the personal level, we need to come to terms with our own biases. Everyone has them. We recommend the Harvard implicit bias tests, because knowing is sometimes a surprising first step.

At each level, we need to build a culture where women are given access to these important positions. If we give them access, they will no longer be seen as the problem, but rather as the key to the innovation required to solve many problems, both global and Canadian.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to the Canadian Centre for Women in Science, Engineering, Trades and Technology, with Ms. Armour.

[Margaret-Ann Armour, President of the Board, Canadian Centre for Women in Science, Engineering, Trades and Technology]

I very much appreciate this opportunity to make a presentation in front of the standing committee on behalf of the Canadian Centre for Women in Science, Engineering, Trades and Technology. Because that's quite a mouthful, we call it the WinSETT Centre.

The centre works in partnership with people across the country, stakeholders, on the retention and advancement of women in the fields of science, engineering, trades, and technology. We've heard that there are a minority of women in these fields, so we know that a lot of work needs to be done to change this situation.

The fact that there are so few women affects the careers of the women themselves, because they're seen to be such a minority in the area and they're often working on their own with no other women around, but it also affects the careers of young women. We know, more and more, how important role models are. Often I hear young women say, “Oh yes, I saw someone who is in a leadership role in science or engineering, and that let me know that I could do it.” If we don't have women in these leadership roles, we're sending a subtle message to our young women that they don't belong in these fields, and we certainly don't want to do that.

The other problem that has been alluded to is that where there is a very marked minority of women, the culture of the workplace tends not to be very supportive of these women. Again, we know that it very much affects the retention of women in these fields.

In terms of some statistics, this, to me, was quite astonishing: in 2011, only 29% of women between 25 and 34 who had a degree in science, technology, engineering, or math were working in the natural and applied sciences. So only 29% of them were working in the field in which they had their university degree. That's compared with 52% of men with degrees in these fields who were working in the areas in which they had their education.

One of the problems we are concerned about is how it affects the economic security of women if they are not going to continue in the field of science, engineering, trades, and technology. If they feel that they cannot do so and that they have to move into another field, they're likely to take a lower-paying job. They're perhaps less likely to be economically independent. I think that particularly for women in the trades this is a problem.

We know that because of the situations they sometimes find themselves in, if they decide that they can no longer remain in their trade, it often means that they also do not have financial security and cannot leave an abusive relationship. So we're looking to encourage women into leadership, advancement, and also stability in their chosen field.

Of course, more and more we know that a management team that is diverse, not just gender diverse but culturally diverse also—but we are most concerned with gender diversity at the moment—is very good for the Canadian economy. Companies with gender diversity in their management and board teams tend to have higher productivity, greater return to shareholders, and the other thing I find interesting, a stronger philanthropic commitment to our society, which is again important.

We in the WinSETT Centre have been very active in trying to change the situation. We believe in knowing what the research says, but then very much in taking action.

We've developed a series of workshops, the titles and substance of which really have depended on what women in the SETT fields have told us they need. I've had the privilege of attending many of these workshops and seeing what they can do.

I would quickly share with you a couple of stories. One of the workshops is called Negotiating for Success. Women don't tend to negotiate in quite the same way as men. For example, in university faculty positions, if you don't negotiate your initial salary very well, then we know the women tend to have lower salaries to start with in a faculty position. That means they never catch up. They're doing just as well in promotions and incrementation of salary, but they started lower so they never catch up.

In general, women need to learn the techniques of negotiation. At one of the workshops, one of the guest speakers provided what I thought was a very valuable tip to the women there, and this was that it's often difficult for women to go and ask for a promotion. We believe it's very important that women are not forced into a style they're not comfortable with.

This woman, who was an engineer working in an engineering company, said that what she did was go to her supervisor and ask what she needed to do to get a promotion. Her supervisor said, “I'll have a look and I'll get back to you.” In a few days her supervisor came back to her and said that she should have had her promotion, that she had done everything she needed to do for a promotion. I thought the women in the group felt that this was something they would be comfortable doing, rather than demanding. It's a very small thing.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

I'm afraid that's your time.

We'll move on to Ms. Franz-Odendaal from Mount Saint Vincent University.

[Professor Tamara Franz-Odendaal, Professor and Chair for Women in Science and Engineering, Department of Biology, Mount Saint Vincent University, As an Individual]

Thank you very much. I'm honoured to be invited to present at this committee.

My name is Tamara Franz-Odendaal. I'm a full professor at Mount Saint Vincent University in the biology department. I'm also the NSERC chair for women in science and engineering for Atlantic Canada and have held this position since 2011. I serve on the boards of CCWESTT and Science Atlantic. The views I present today are my own and are based on my experience as a woman in science and through my chair position.

You heard last week from my colleague Dr. Catherine Mavriplis, the NSERC women in science and engineering chair for Ontario, so I will take this opportunity to raise points different from those raised in last week's session.

In 2011, I launched a program called WISEatlantic that aims to provide girls in grades 7 to 9 access to female role models in SETT and also to provide professional development opportunities to women in SETT, such as the ones we've just heard about from Margaret-Ann Armour. Through these activities, in just a few years we have enabled 3,000 girls to meet with 250 women in SETT and have provided professional development opportunities to almost 500 women in these fields.

Today I would like to make just four points.

The first point concerns maternity leave. I bring to your attention today the position of post-doctoral researchers. I am an immigrant to Canada and came to Canada with my husband in 2003 to complete a post-doctoral research appointment. This post-doc period is a critical and essential training period that is required after one's Ph.D. if one hopes to secure an academic position. During this period, I, like many other women, chose to start a family.

A recent national post-doctoral survey highlighted that there are currently inconsistencies in the classification of post-docs by provincial governments and institutions. Post-docs may be considered employees, trainees, students, or independent contractors. Because of the financial pressures I felt, both as a newcomer to Canada and since no EI was available to me, and because of the intense work pressures to not stop the productivity of my research career, my daughter went into full-time day care at three months of age.

The decision to start a family while on an academic track invariably takes place during the latter part of a Ph.D. during one's post-doc—typically a three- to six-year period—which is also a time when one is interviewing for jobs, or during the very early years of a faculty position. These are all periods that are extremely stressful, particularly when one feels the additional burden of needing to have a valid and continual publication record.

Not all universities have stop-the-clock policies, and not all funding agencies do either. Universities and funding agencies need clear guidelines for the options for female researchers who fall pregnant during these critical periods. At present, too many women are afraid to tell their supervisors that they are pregnant because of the responses they will receive. I have heard this first-hand from several women in the last few years. They are too afraid to reveal during the hiring process that they have a family. Post-doctoral researchers are our future researchers, and we should ensure they are treated fairly, especially with respect to maternity leave.

This brings me to my second point, which is about unconscious bias. Unconscious bias training with respect to gender in SETT is not a rigorous part of the training provided to hiring or promotion committee members within the university establishment. It's also not a rigorous part of the training provided to our future science and math teachers.

The reason I bring this up within the university setting is that at the current rates of promotion of female faculty, it will take over 800 years in some disciplines to reach equal male-female ratios. At present in Canada, fewer than 15% of STEM full professors are female. Studies have shown that having female professors in mathematics, as in the other STEM disciplines, does positively affect the female students in the class and has negligible impacts on the male students, who do not face similar stereotype threats.

Educational institutions should provide rigorous unconscious bias training to committees that ultimately make the decisions about the diversity within the departments. There are many improvements that could be made. Capturing the breadth of the candidate pool during the hiring process and requiring that institutions report the diversity of faculty in each degree program in their annual report are some examples. In addition, university and college programs are subject to periodic review, and perhaps the body that oversees the quality of SETT programs, including accreditation, should be mandated to look at the diversity of faculty within departments.

The reason I bring up unconscious bias training among our science and math teachers is that I'm still hearing from female university students that teachers are steering them away from SETT disciplines. At present, the responsibility for career awareness has been sidelined to the role of guidance counsellors, who have little time to keep up with what employers are looking for or to make themselves aware of the myriad of SETT career options that are available to youth. They do not realize the unique skill sets that women bring to these disciplines and that employers are starting to look for.

Outreach programs become all the more important when teachers and parents are not aware of the opportunities within the SETT fields for female students. If we can provide better STEM career awareness within schools, and train our teachers about unconscious bias and stereotype threat, I believe we will have more female students pursuing these careers.

I will end today by highlighting the work of NSERC's chairs for women in science and engineering program, established in 1996. At present, there are only five chairs for the whole of Canada. The work we do has a high impact. We are each serving a large geographical area, often in multiple provinces. Each discipline—science, math, engineering, computer science—faces different challenges.

There is much work that needs to be done at the grade 7 to 9 level, at the university or educational institution level, and in the workplace. If every university in Canada had a women in STEM chair who could advise on hiring and promotion and run professional development programs such as the ones I mentioned today, I'm confident that we would see significant changes in the number of female STEM researchers at our universities.

Thank you for allowing me to speak today. I'm happy share any of the studies I've referred to.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

Thanks to all of you for your presentations.

We'll now turn to Mr. Serré for the first round of questions.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My thanks to the three of you for your presentations and also for your preparation for today's meeting. I know that this must have required a lot of work on your part. Thank you very much for providing us with this information.

My first question is for Ms. Livengood.

You briefly talked about mentoring. Previous witnesses told us that there are not enough promotional videos about female scientists, not enough female scientists who visit our schools to talk about what they do, and not enough coverage on them in the media. In your presentation, you said that we need to be better informed about female scientists, and that Canadian media, in both French and English, must be encouraged to improve the way in which female scientists are represented.

Could you tell me whether you have some specific recommendations for the federal government with respect to the media and mentorships for women?

[Danniele Livengood]

Yes, absolutely I believe in mentorship, but I think that really, when we're talking about media, we're talking about role models. We're talking about making a woman scientist or CEO a normal thing to see every day.

I actually have to compliment Tamara, the NSERC chair, for the videos that they have produced of women in various STEM fields. When it comes to media, I also work for one of the other NSERC chairs, and we produce a podcast interviewing women in STEM. We need to just make that thing the norm, so that every day when you turn on a television, you don't see a woman CEO, you see a CEO who happens to be a woman, and people aren't making a big deal about it. You happen to see a woman reporting on a scientific topic, but she's not the first woman to do something, she just happens to be a woman who made her career in SETT.

That's the kind of thing that we're looking for, getting to the point where we see the people doing these things as just people. There is no qualifier. There's no, “She's a woman. Isn't that great.” We just want it to be normal. For many of us who work in STEM, it is, but when we work with the outside world, we still hear those backward ideas about how there's a difference in ability between the genders.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

My second question is for Ms. Franz-Odendaal.

It relates back to the NSERC research chairs and the targets of 30% that we're looking at as a government. Even that is low. Half the universities across Canada, it appears, can't even achieve half that target. We need some drastic measures. What do you specifically recommend that the federal government could do to change this immediately?

We heard earlier about the Ph.D.s, the tenures, and the challenges of a more corporate university that seems to impede women even further as chairs or at the Ph.D. level. What recommendations would you have specifically for the federal government to change this immediately, without imposing quotas?

[Prof. Tamara Franz-Odendaal]

I think one would be to require universities to report the diversity of the main faculty. Often universities haven't even thought about that. When you ask for a list of the female science faculty, the dean of science writes, “Oh, gee, I didn't realize I had so few.”

They're not aware because they do not have to report that data. I think that would be a major step.

Then, as I mentioned earlier, the studies that oversee and provide accreditation to programs could be mandated to look at diversity of faculty within universities. It could be pointed out to universities that they're not meeting the bar.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

My third question is for Ms. Armour.

Earlier, you indicated corporate management team diversity, or lack thereof, and you indicated the benefits of that. Are you aware of our government's Bill C-25? Do you have any comments on that bill moving forward?

[Margaret-Ann Armour]

Yes, I am aware of Bill C-25. I certainly agree that this is critical for the Canadian economy: increasing the diversity of management and board teams. There's so much evidence now of the difference that makes to the effectiveness of the company, whatever it's doing.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

My last question here is for Ms. Armour on data. What data do you believe we should be collecting, as the federal government, to help support the lines that you're talking about?

[Margaret-Ann Armour]

I agree with the kinds of comments that have been made by Tamara: that we need to collect the data so people recognize what's going on, so people recognize that there are so few female CEOs of engineering and technical-related companies, for example. That has to be made available to the public so that people know about it.

Within the universities, again I agree that the statistics need to be very clear to everyone within the science and engineering faculties. The driving forces need to come from the academic officers, the provosts, the people in positions of decision-making, the people who can really make a difference, the people who can say that this has to change. Then it influences the deans and those of us who are working on the ground, trying to actually make a difference.

It's the same kind of thing with regard to companies. We need advocates within the companies. We've noticed with our work what a huge difference that can make. Again, if government can make it clear that these figures are available and if the advocates within companies who make a difference are given the credit for so doing, that could help enormously.