Status of Women Committee on June 6th, 2017

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

That's good confirmation. We've certainly heard from other witnesses that in addition to the complexities posed by the makeup of an immigrant family, the lack of shelter space and then the lack of affordable housing to transition out of shelter space means that women have to make the impossible choice of whether to return to an abuser and an unsafe situation for themselves and their families, or to put themselves and their families into real poverty, having to live in completely inadequate housing. It's a double whammy.

I'd like to turn to Ms. van Biesen from Catalyst Canada and follow up on some of your comments about pay equity. We have been hearing a lot about this at this committee. We heard from Oxfam Canada that there are no barriers to legislating pay equity to break down the gender wage gap. This is federal legislation that we're looking at. The United Nations committee to end discrimination against women also called out this government for not having legislated federally. A year ago, a special committee of Parliament recommended that pay equity legislation be tabled in our Parliament this month, but the government's saying 2018.

Have you heard within your community whether there are any barriers to legislating now, given that Ontario and Quebec did this 20 or 30 years ago?

[Tanya van Biesen]

I haven't heard of any barriers. I think, as with everything else, you'd get push-back from the business community with further legislation. That being said, these are the kinds of issues we've been talking about for so long, and they still exist, so I do think the government needs to step in and take a harder point of view on this.

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

I appreciated your comments earlier—I think in your initial testimony—that the government should model through its own behaviour. Would you like to expand on that? It feels to me that if government's not legislating and requiring it for federal employees and federally regulated industries, there's a bit of hypocrisy. Then there's pressure on corporate Canada or small-business owners to close the gender wage gap.

[Tanya van Biesen]

This government has really set a positive tone, certainly for women within the public service. It has taken a positive step in demonstrating that women should be part of leadership roles and that their representation is very important.

I do think, though, as I've spent more time with DMs and ADMs, that there's still a need for greater representation of visible minority women, indigenous women, people with disabilities, LGBTQ communities. Those equity-seeking groups are still under-represented in the government. That needs to be acknowledged and worked on.

But once—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

Sorry, that's your time. Thank you.

Next we'll have Ms. Nassif, for seven minutes.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you.

I would like to thank our two witnesses.

My first question is for Ms. Watts.

I am an immigrant. I had a career, I was a licensed nurse in my country. I also faced obstacles, even though I was trilingual when I arrived in Canada and had a profession. After having my children—triplets—, I decided to go to university to do a bachelor's and a master's. In the end, I decided to go into politics and be involved in society. I don't think that all women do what I did.

I would like to ask you a question. In your opinion, what would help immigrant women climb the ladder? What steps could the federal government take to help immigrant or refugee women in their job search in Canada?

[Jennifer Watts]

We could continue to support the programs, for example, that many settlement organizations like ISANS are offering now, across the country. Employment workshops, job resumé workshops, language training. Specifically, it depends where you come in. In our language training, we deal with a range of people, from those who are illiterate in their own language to people who have university degrees and speak English very well but may just need a tune-up, as it were, around some of the language used in their specific profession.

Providing a wide range of opportunities for language training is important. We found English in the workplace to be really helpful, where a teacher will go into the workplace and work with the employer and either a group of employees or a specific employee, dealing with specific language issues that need to be resolved.

Certainly language is very important, as is having a variety of opportunities. Employment counselling services, which we offer, are very important. Again, they run the gamut from learning how to write your resumé to having people come in from HR departments around Halifax, for example, to give the client the opportunity to go through a job interview. There are mentors, and there are Bridge to Work programs that are very successful, giving people training in the specific skills they may need for a job and then an opportunity to have a placement in a workplace to gain that experience.

We have a whole variety of tools, so continued and enhanced support for that would be very important. Also, we can do all we do as an agency, but what is really important is that the workplace itself also changes. Resources that support us—or support workplaces in demonstrating cultural competency and learning how to deal with these issues of barriers and successful integration—are also very important.

Again, I can't underestimate the work of the international qualification recognition program, as well. For someone like you, who had specific training in your profession, being able to have that translated and moved forward when you come into the Canadian context is very important. We need to find those pathways to enable people to do that.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you.

My next question is for Ms. van Biesen.

In your opinion, what would be the best childcare strategy to help women be more independent and climb the ladder in order to secure a position on a board or move up in their jobs?

[Tanya van Biesen]

I would point to two things.

One, Canada should look at some kind of a universal child care model, whether it's the Quebec model or another.

Two, through the influence of government, companies should look at making leave mandatory for men. We need to rebalance what child care means. It is that both parents care for children. Attaching that burden to women only is preventing companies from seeing women as full partners in the workforce.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

That did not exist in my day. When I had my triplets, I looked after them. My husband was doing his doctorate and working full-time as well. For my part, I was looking after my children full time. I had to leave my career in nursing, but I don't regret it. I have good children who I raised myself with help from some people who came in to help me. When they started school, I went to university to do my bachelor's and master's. So I did not miss out. Oh, oh!

I have another question for you, Ms. van Biesen, regarding the LGBTQ community. What would you recommend to help them secure board positions, pursue their education, and take other training in order to move up in their workplace?

[Tanya van Biesen]

What our research has found is that the barriers that hold women back are many of the same barriers that hold visible minorities and people from LGBTQ communities back .

One of the first things that needs to be done, whether it's government, not-for-profits, or business, is to acknowledge that there is unconscious bias out there, that we need to be aware of it, and we need to figure out how to deal with it. We are not going to eradicate it, but we need to be trained on how to be more inclusive leaders. That kind of awareness and training needs to be put in place.

Further, I would say that, within any organization, whether it's public sector or private, we need to ensure that there is, as I mentioned earlier, an unconscious bias spotter or that kind of a role when hiring decisions are being made and promotion decisions are being made so there isn't this bias that creeps into people's opportunities to excel. I think that applies as much to LGBTQ communities as to anyone else.

I also think organizations—again, public sector or private—can leverage very strongly their own employee bases. Employee resource groups like LGBTQ communities that form pride groups end up being a fantastic window for the organization to that community of potential buyers, and they also can shed light to the organization on how these people want to feel included. Greater embracing of employee resources groups, I think, is a very positive step.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

We'll now turn to Ms. Kusie for five minutes.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'll take a moment and apologize in advance if any of the questions I'm asking reveal testimony that has been given by previous witnesses.

Thank you both very much, Ms. Watts and Ms. van Biesen, for being here today.

My first questions are for Ms. van Biesen.

What other developed nations—specifically, G7 and G20 countries—have used quota systems for executive boards, particularly corporate ones, but you can also certainly reference government as well?

[Tanya van Biesen]

The ones that are most talked about would be France and Norway. Norway has had the system in the longest, and they had quite a, I would say, draconian system in that they insisted that companies achieve 40% female representation on their boards by 2008, and if they didn't, they would be delisted. There was lots of backlash, as you can imagine. The country now has 40% female representation on boards. A couple of companies chose to delist and re-listed, and the dust has settled.

France has a similar situation with a 40% requirement.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Is there any information in regard to how this has affected national GDP performance, national indexes, for example, the equivalent of the TSE or NASDAQ, or corporate performance, specifically stock prices, etc.?

[Tanya van Biesen]

I do not know of information that looks broadly at GDP or national performance. Again, it's impossible to achieve causation. There is correlation, but not causation. My understanding is that performance has been as good, or better, certainly not worse.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

That leads into my next question, which is, are there are any metrics available, specifically tying quotas to quantitative results? When you talk about causation versus correlation, I'm guessing the answer is that presently there is no such information available in terms of specific metrics of women being on boards and the types of quantitative results that it provides for the corporations, the indexes, and the GDPs.

[Tanya van Biesen]

There is a tremendous amount of data out there. Again, it's correlation because you can't isolate women on boards and take out all the environmental factors that are happening to the company at the same time, but there is a tremendous amount of data there that shows improved financial performance, greater corporate reputation, greater ability to hire and retain talent, and greater performance in terms of corporate social responsibility, so there is certainly that information.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Having designed a multi-regressional analysis for Merck in an effort to use this as a tool for retention, metrics are certainly very important to me.

I would move on to the qualitative aspects. What qualitative aspects have we seen in terms of having women on boards? Of course, these are always difficult to measure as well, but what types of things have we seen from a qualitative perspective, in having more women involved in these executive positions?

[Tanya van Biesen]

Our research and the research of many others has shown that the quality of decision-making at the board level has gone up and the quality of discussion has gone up. We have seen a greater regard for two things: risk management and corporate social responsibility.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

That's very interesting, risk management and CSR.

Thank you, Ms. van Biesen. I really appreciate that information.

Ms. Watts, I wanted to talk about the sectors in which immigrant women are succeeding. Can you talk a little bit about the sectors, the areas of employment, where new Canadian women are having the most success?

[Jennifer Watts]

They're having success in a broad range of sectors. Certainly, we see women with many different experiences integrating into the workforce. One of the really big challenges is women who come without any language other than their own. That is probably one of the biggest struggles they are facing now. In terms of a particular sector, I'm not sure that one stands out over the others.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you both very much for your responses and your time today. It is much appreciated.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

Ms. Sidhu.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and my thanks to all the presenters. This is a very important issue for all Canadians.

Ms. Watts, I notice that your organization offers a variety of language training, including English in the workplace and in-class training. Have you noticed a difference in the number of women enrolling in different programs? I know there's a move towards credential recognition and workshop classes, and there are also bridging programs available. Do you think there is still a lack of resources? If there is a lack of resources, how would you describe it? Can you suggest what kind of bridging programs we need more of?