Status of Women Committee on May 18th, 2017

[Marie-Claude Guérard, Chief Financial Officer, Canadian Space Agency]

Thank you.

Madam Chair, honourable committee members, let me begin by thanking you for inviting us today.

As the chief financial officer, I am pleased to present an overview of the representation of women at the Canadian Space Agency.

The agency is working hard to ensure greater representation of women, not only in our workforce as a whole, but also in all the professions related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Access to a qualified, diverse and innovative workforce is a priority for us.

Before I continue, allow me to introduce my colleague, Dominique Breden, the agency's chief audit and evaluation executive. She is also our champion for employment equity and for the Women in Science, Technology and Management Committee.

I am proud to tell you that the Canadian Space Agency is meeting its targets in terms of representation of women in scientific fields.

The work done by the CSA women in science, technology, and management committee for the past 15 years has enabled us to increase the number of women in scientific, technical, and leadership positions in the organization. In 2002, women made up 13 of the agency's scientific employees. There were no women in senior management.

The representation of women in scientific, technical and engineering positions at the Canadian Space Agency meets workforce availability, which is 14.1% for engineers. The representation of women in middle management and senior management positions also meets workforce availability.

However, in management positions in science and technology sectors, they are still under-represented. For example, at the management level in engineering, the representation of women is approximately three times lower than their workforce availability. We are, therefore, pursuing our efforts, with a particular focus on these specific sectors of the organization.

At first, the committee's initiatives were primarily aimed at raising awareness among agency employees about the difficulties women face when trying to move into management and executive-level positions.

In 2014, the terms of reference, inspired by similar initiatives in other space agencies, notably NASA and the German and other European agencies, were written and endorsed by our executive committee, which recognizes and supports the importance of the efforts being made to improve representation of women in management positions.

Our committee members continue to monitor current and emerging issues at the Canadian Space Agency and best practices in government. They organize presentations for employees on gender-related challenges and opportunities, and participate in networking activities. Finally, they develop plans to support women's careers and provide regular updates and recommendations for action to the agency's executive committee.

The efforts undertaken over the years have borne fruit. Since 2009, the number of women in the scientific and professional category has met the employment equity objectives.

Our women in science, technology, and management committee is also investing a great deal of effort in creating a national women's committee to increase this group's visibility within the federal community. The proposal to create this national committee received support from 38 government departments and agencies, and in December 2016, it was submitted to the Treasury Board Secretariat for presentation to the Clerk of the Privy Council.

In all our recruiting processes, we do everything in our power to seek out talented women who work in the Canadian STEM community, that is, in professions related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The same is true when recruiting astronauts.

A national engagement strategy has been put in place to ensure that our astronaut recruitment campaign, which is currently under way, reaches the largest possible number of Canadians. In particular, we have reached out to women and indigenous people, including through the media and online social networks.

This strategy involves seeking help from various stakeholders, including universities, professional associations, and government partners like Status of Women Canada, to connect with these women and encourage them to apply.

These efforts have resulted in significant gains. During the last recruiting campaign, in 2008-09, 18.6% of the candidates who submitted an application were women. This time, the proportion rose to 24%—which is still lower than the workforce availability of women in the targeted sectors, in other words, 32%. The recruiting process, itself, was also designed to ensure equity. The proportion of women still in the running is 29.4%, or five candidates out of a total of 17.

Our female astronaut candidates are also role models for young Canadians. Each female candidate has a unique STEM background, and all of them are ambassadors for the opportunities that exist for women in STEM fields.

We have also developed digital profiles that show the background, career, education, and exceptional skills of the 72 best astronaut candidates. Teachers and guidance counsellors even sent messages thanking us after using the profiles in class to put a human face on the possible careers open to young people in Canada.

Space has great power to inspire. When they are in Canada, our astronauts visit Canadians in various parts of the country to promote space, scientific discoveries, and the STEM fields.

Every year, spokeswomen from the agency—scientists, engineers, and so forth—participate in events intended for a variety of audiences, some specifically for women, such as The Sky's No Limit - Girls Fly Too! in British Columbia and Les filles et les sciences in Montreal.

We are continuing our communication and awareness activities in order to inspire, stimulate, encourage, and support the young scientists, explorers, and innovators of tomorrow.

Thanks to our efforts to increase the presence of women in key positions in our agency and to ensure greater availability of a qualified workforce, we are able not only to carry out the Canadian space program, but also to help Canada position itself strongly in a knowledge economy.

That concludes my opening statement.

Thank you for your attention. I would be happy to answer any questions you might have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you very much.

We're now going to begin our round of questioning with my colleague, Ms. Damoff, for seven minutes.

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

Thank you. I want to thank all of you for being with us today. It's a real pleasure to have you here and to hear your testimony. With the Space Agency here, I can't resist this question. As a federal government, how can we boldly go where no one has gone before—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

—to ensure that, moving forward, we have pay equity and gender parity in jobs like engineering and in the Space Agency where women are under-represented? You've given us some examples, but are there any specific programs that the federal government could bring in to assist you in what you're already doing?

[Marie-Claude Guérard]

Of course.

Ms. Breden, would you like to talk about our committee?

[Dominique Breden, Chief Audit and Evaluation Executive, and Senior Officer Responsible for Disclosure of Wrongdoing, Audit and Evaluation Branch, Canadian Space Agency]

To answer Ms. Damoff's question, I would say yes, definitely.

Over the past year, as Ms. Guérard mentioned, we took the initiative of creating a national women's committee. We saw that the other employment equity groups—indigenous people, visible minorities, and persons with disabilities—had formed their own national committees. Women, however, did not have a national committee.

In 2015, we asked then Clerk of the Privy Council Janice Charette a question when she was visiting the Canadian Space Agency. We asked whether it was possible to create a national women's committee, because it would help women make progress towards employment equity. We were told that, if the need existed, we could go ahead. We took the idea and ran with it, receiving the support of 38 departments. We developed a proposal for the creation of a committee because we truly believe in its power to help women government-wide, whether in science or other fields.

[Marie-Claude Guérard]

Perhaps I could add something about the new innovation program put forward by the Hon. Navdeep Bains.

A portion of the program is innovative and will encourage economic development opportunities for women and other under-represented groups. In connection with that, the Canadian Space Agency is developing a vision for the space sector. We know that accomplishments in the field of space have high visibility, so we will be able to keep promoting innovation and attracting women and young people to the sector. Those are the two areas we are focusing on right now.

[Jeanette Southwood]

Regarding pay equity, we would encourage the federal government to consider instituting strategies, policies, practices, and programs that have encountered success elsewhere. Engineers Canada is encouraged to see that the federal government has committed to pay equity legislation in its 2017 federal budget. We encourage the government to consider instituting practices that have been established internationally, such as gender audits for businesses with more than 10 employees, and subsequent fines for non-compliance, such as seen in Denmark; publishing pay data, such as seen in Belgium, Finland, and the United Kingdom; gender equality programs as part of human resources policies, as seen in Iceland; and encouraging all Canadian provinces to adopt best practices around equal pay for equal work. The federal government can use the existing model that already exists in some provinces, such as Ontario, which has requirements for both private and public employers to implement strategies to address pay equity.

Thank you.

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

Thank you.

Throughout this study we've heard about the importance of mentors to encourage young women especially to enter a career, but also to stay in that career. You've mentioned that retention is always an issue. I'm just wondering if there's anything we can do to assist that mentorship program.

I've certainly heard, in my own riding, of programs where they've partnered people together and had tremendous success in having those women who've just joined a company stay with the company and work through it. How can we assist in that type of mentorship?

[Dominique Breden]

The agency is part of the Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada portfolio. In the last year, the department introduced the Dr. Roberta Bondar career development program for young women in science and technology. The program is similar to the Jeanne Sauvé career development program, which is aimed at career women, but is for young women. The program was created by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada and is currently offered in some departments.

It might be beneficial to increase the number of departments where the program is available. Young women working in science and communications, in either the private or federal public sector, are paired with leaders in those sectors, who serve as mentors. Generally, we try to have a mix of the two.

The Canadian Space Agency is participating in the program, which is a pilot project for the time being. It would be a good idea to continue and grow the program.

[Jeanette Southwood]

I see this question as connected to the earlier discussion about research into what what attracts and retains women in the profession. Specifically, I see mentorship as a key part of that, in addition to sponsorship. We must not only provide mentoring and the coaching of young women to be able to work with them throughout their careers, but also actively to look for opportunities through sponsorship for women in that area. Through research I think we can identify the key levers that can attract and retain women. I'll use infrastructure as an example.

Within the disciplines of engineering, the discipline with the most women is civil engineering. One would think, when looking at the investments of the federal government in the infrastructure sector, that this should benefit women quite greatly. However, we've all seen the research showing that women benefit to a much lesser extent than men from infrastructure investments.

Part of that is because women are not going into the infrastructure field, where there are wonderful opportunities. We see this as just another indication of the need for research to better understand the attraction and retention piece, and how mentorship plays a part, how sponsorship plays a part, and how many other areas, such as workplace culture, play a part.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Excellent.

I'm going to use my privilege to ask some questions because, as the first female engineer in the House of Commons, I have a passion to see some action happen here.

I'm disheartened to hear the testimony today. When I started in engineering in 1980, women in engineering made up 12% of the field, and to hear that that statistic has remain unchanged is really disheartening.

One of the things that I experienced, which was very common, was that guidance counsellors did not encourage women to go into engineering, because it was a male-dominated field. In terms of retention, the chronic harassment in the environment and the systemic discrimination in promotion and pay are some of the things that were factors at that time.

Jeanette, has that changed at all or are those things still the common contributors?

[Jeanette Southwood]

Certainly. Thanks very much, Marilyn.

We have anecdotal information that the kinds of factors you describe are among the key reasons many women are leaving engineering. We've seen some great strides in women enrolling in engineering. For example, this past year at the University of Toronto, more than 40% of the entering class were women.

But what happened to all of the women like you and me, the ones who surrounded us in our first year of class? Why aren't they represented now as women in the senior parts of their career, who could be role models and reasons for women entering the profession?

The factors that you describe, Marilyn, are all of the ones that we've seen and heard about. Because there is mainly anecdotal information about those factors, it can be a challenge to identify what, in the Canadian context, is the right thing to do.

In the United States, there have been studies on how women are retained in engineering. We can draw upon those studies and also share the links and the studies themselves with the committee. We know that the Canadian context is different, and we need to understand that context.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

My second question is for the Canadian Space Agency. I noticed that when you talked about the representation of women at different levels of management, you always expressed it in terms of how it related to the workforce availability. I really liked that because we hear a lot of conversation about quotas. Having a 50% target, where workforce availability is smaller, is not a good thing.

One of the successful tactics I saw when I was in industry was that when contracts were let, they would have a certain number of women who needed to be involved. Let's say it was instrument technologists at the workplace availability rate of 30%. I'm interested to know if you would share more on that concept.

[Dominique Breden]

Yes, of course.

In the federal government, as you know, employment equity targets for the various groups are based on workforce availability. That means, then, that organizations try to achieve representation that reflects workforce availability.

Each department has to establish its own targets in relation to the available statistical data. Currently, though, all departments are using data from 2011. The numbers are updated every four years, so that means the next crop of data we will soon be using will be from 2016. We may see a change, depending on availability in the Canadian workforce. Nevertheless, at this point in time, the representation of women in management positions at the Canadian Space Agency is 36%, and workforce availability sits at 37%. The agency has worked incredibly hard in recent years to close the gaps in leadership positions across the board, and those efforts have been successful.

As Ms. Guérard mentioned earlier, a lot of work has also been done when it comes to scientific positions. As you said, in 1980, the rate stood at 12%. According to the data from 2011, current availability sits at 16%. That is the target departments are working towards, and we, at the agency, have met it, with a rate of 17%.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That's excellent.

Both of you, what do you think the federal government can do to accelerate the number and retention of women in engineering or in the space environment?

[Marie-Claude Guérard]

I think we need to inspire young kids.

Through the innovation strategy, the Canadian Space Agency really wants to make a greater investment in inspiring young people and having a presence in various fields. That won't necessarily happen at the college or university level alone; we really need to trigger that shift in young boys and girls before they get to that stage. Obviously, the bigger the critical mass of young people who register for science programs sooner, the bigger our workforce.

One way the agency encourages participation is by giving university students funding to attend international conferences. We help them connect with space professionals around the world. We also provide them with networking support and offer internships to promote continued learning. The support and assistance we provide contributes to their development.

The support is rather targeted, though, so something the federal government could really help with is inspiring young people and getting them interested in these fields as early as possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Jeanette.

[Jeanette Southwood]

I believe that inspiration is extremely important, in terms of role models and encouraging students and young people to go into all parts of STEM. For them to be prepared to take advantage of the economic security of a job in STEM is very important.

I also believe it's important for the federal government, and therefore all our stakeholders, to truly understand what is holding back women and young people from this. Here the investment in research is a key priority, and ideally should be undertaken very quickly, but then so is acting quickly on the recommendations of the research to be able to keep the momentum around this topic.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That's excellent.

I want to thank Engineers Canada for bestowing the honour of fellow upon me. I will try to model and mentor well from there.

We go now to Ms. Malcolmson for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I've got a series of questions for Engineers Canada about what we can do around infrastructure spending to make sure that we are using this opportunity to get more women into the workforce. I think we've heard testimony from other witnesses that there could be unintended consequences, that investments in traditional infrastructure might overly benefit men and not so much women, if we don't have women engineers and workers in the field.

We heard earlier at this committee from a Simon Fraser University professor about a success story in my backyard, which I'd forgotten about because it happened 25 years ago. The Vancouver Island highway was a success story in boosting the number of women employed in infrastructure projects, so I'll just read a couple of things that she said. The highway was going to “pass through first nations land, so they had to have equity initiatives there, and at the same time we had a government”—it happened to be New Democrats— “that was committed to equity.” She continued, “What it required was a considerable degree of compulsion on the part of the government initially, because neither contractors nor unions wanted this. A specific clause in the agreement saying that employment equity hiring 'shall operate in priority' over other kinds of hiring is also extremely important, as is supportive leadership at the highest level.” Furthermore, “Women went from being 2% of the labour force at the beginning to being 20% at a particular point in time.” Finally, she added, “I do want to say that this is the kind of thing that was heard at the beginning of the Vancouver Island highway, and afterward the employers and the unions were both very, very happy with what had happened. The women got hired and the company was happy to hire them afterward”.

That was testimony on February 9.

Do you have other examples of models like that, where government intervention pushed through and then created an opening for the next wave of women and where in the procurement process they said, you're not going to get the contract unless you demonstrate that you have a certain percentage of spaces open to women, to indigenous people, to apprentices?

[Jeanette Southwood]

Yes, we do, and that information is mainly out of the European countries—Iceland and Belgium for example. We have reports that we can share.

In addition to that, in the reporting that I shared earlier, I mentioned anecdotally that in the United States there have been some studies on the types of things that could increase or decrease the retention of women in the field of engineering.

I'll refer specifically to a report that was done. It's called “The Athena Factor”, which maintained that 52% of women leave science, engineering, and technology professions. It studied their career trajectories in many areas, including infrastructure, and looked at what would keep women in infrastructure.

Was it immediate actions like the ones you described, Sheila, or the ones that might require some kind of lead time, some kind of planning? It identified several key aspects whereby, no matter what kinds of compulsions were used to create roles for women, the women were still not retained. They call these “antigens”. They identified five of them and they include women being marginalized by the workplace culture. Examples include being the sole woman on a team or at a site; career paths not being clear, and women therefore being stalled; and that systems of risks and rewards in those kinds of cultures can also disadvantage women.

We very strongly support the thinking and the idea of identifying the ways in which we can pilot this. How exactly do we do this? We also are aware of the fact that the piloting needs to acknowledge the challenges in the workplace culture and how that plays a part in the retention or attraction.

Thank you.

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

Thanks. That's helpful. If you do have work that Engineers Canada has already done around procurement mechanisms, I think it would be helpful for us to get that included in our evidence collection. Thanks.

[Jeanette Southwood]

Certainly, we'll definitely do that.