Oh, oh!
Evidence of meeting #77 for Status of Women in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was teachers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #77 for Status of Women in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was teachers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:45 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
12:45 p.m.
Director General, Policy and External Relations, Office of the Co-ordinator, Status of Women
As you're aware, as probably the whole committee is aware, a progressive trade agenda is a very new concept, and Canada at the moment is showing real leadership in this area.
There are some very specific and concrete things that can be achieved through a progressive trade agenda. I think about the issues of supplier diversity, about encouraging more women in STEM, about ensuring that trade in the natural resource sector does not lead to increased violence against women in trade agendas, and a whole slew of other things that the government is thinking about actively. I should add that even just collecting appropriate data and ensuring that there is good research on all of the various aspects of trade and gender would be a huge leap forward in this space.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Thank you so much, Justine. I don't know how you did it. You ended right at seven minutes. Perfect.
12:45 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Martin Shields, you're on for three minutes. Well, I'm going to give you five.
November 7th, 2017 / 12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for coming today. I really appreciate learning about it.
One of the things I do have experience in is I spent a number of years as the token male with 35 women in a work site, so I've been on the other side. The male washroom when I came in was used for a storage room.
To the manufacturing side, one of the pieces of my career was having a lot of experiences with parents of high school and junior high kids. I would be encouraging junior high and high school kids to look at apprenticeship programs and work experience starting at 16. By the time you're 20, you have your ticket. By the time you're 30, you own your own business. It's a career path to owning your own business.
My biggest challenge was the parents. In surveys we did, in talking with them, their kids were all going to university.
Have you had any experience with that?
12:45 p.m.
Chief Economist, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
Absolutely, yes. Not related to this specific study, but the work that we're doing on female representation in manufacturing is building on a national strategy, which I mentioned in passing, that we developed last year. One of the issues there was the general labour supply and shortages in the skilled trades.
One of the foundational problems that we identified through that was exactly what you mentioned, the fact that there is a social bias that leads people away from manual labour, away from the skilled trades, and towards going to university. It's social status, for better or for worse, that a university education is higher than education in the skilled trades. It shouldn't be that way. None of the labour market outcomes information that you could possibly want supports that as being necessarily true, but it's the situation we're in. That's one of the issues we're definitely looking at trying to address, but it's not an overnight process.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
No, that's a systemic problem. In a sense, we're in a position where, as we're moving forward and looking at job creation, job supply, and people to do those jobs, it's something that, whether the government takes it on in the sense of working in a partnership to promote that, we need to do something different to change that systemic problem, or we'll be facing shortages. As was said earlier, we're losing because we don't do this.
12:45 p.m.
Chief Economist, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
There are a couple of areas where we could better communicate the benefits of working in the skilled trades. One is the pay is very high. The amount of student debt that you might go into is relatively low. There's huge demand. The work that you would be doing is very flexible. You can do that kind of work, generally speaking, anywhere in the country. Yes, it's something that needs to be addressed, and it's something we're working on.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
On that last piece, mobility, there are so many challenges in the professional moving from provinces, but the tickets in the trades are so much more flexible in the sense of mobility. With our younger generation, that is something that's of interest, yet it's not something that is ever brought to their attention to any extent. The mobility, in the sense of what skilled trades bring to people, is really an advantage compared to the professional ones we have, and the barriers we have from province to province in this country.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Good.
You have done this. You're just there getting it. But if you were to say tomorrow that you had two or three strategies you would like to implement, who would you involve?
12:50 p.m.
Chief Economist, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
We had a list of five specific strategic initiatives that we wanted to be working on: high-profile female role models, exposure to manufacturing occupations, encouraging girls to enter STEM and skilled trades. That one for sure is number one. If we're looking for a long-term solution to this problem, that is a critical step. That's the number one area. There's also working on an inclusive workplace, work-life balance and flexibility, those as a group.... It's one thing to attract girls to STEM positions, which is what we're trying to do, but they also have to actually want those jobs. I think part of the issue here—and this is one of the subjects that came up in a panel discussion we had about this.... There are benefits. This has to be portrayed as a positive experience for women.
First of all, it has to actually be a positive experience, and that message has to come out. It's not about there are hardly any women working in skilled trades so they should totally go do that. That's not going to work. Nobody's going to listen to that message. But talking about it in a positive sense, such as here's what it can do for you, here's what it looks like, here's what you can get out of it and this is a rewarding career, enrolment is increasing—if it is—and pointing at those kinds of positive messages is what is needed.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Thank you, Martin.
We're going to move on. We can ask those questions after.
Emmanuella, you're on now for five minutes.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
I'm going to split my time with my colleague, Ms. Damoff.
My questions and comments are directed toward Ms. Maheu and Mr. Holden.
I feel as though sometimes one of the main barriers women have, in my view, is themselves. I know this is the worst thing to say in front of the status of women committee, but I really do believe we've reached a point at which things are pretty equal when it comes to what we're allowed to do, and when it comes to what's written down on paper.
I think the attitudes women have and men have are often the things that are the barriers. I don't want to make reference, but my colleague said before, when referring to her mom, that one of the main reasons she was always in a job was because of her male mentor. I feel we often attribute our success to males and don't take the ownership ourselves; whereas men take on that ownership. If they succeed it's because they succeeded, and it's because they did the work; whereas women are often thanking others for their success. That's one of the main issues I see.
For the women who are in the manufacturing field, is there anything in your program that addresses empowering women and making sure they feel there's a support group within their company, for example? Are there ways to have them supported in order to make it a more positive work experience for them?
12:50 p.m.
Board Member and Director, Government Affairs, 3M Canada, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
Yes.
12:50 p.m.
Board Member and Director, Government Affairs, 3M Canada, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
For the first part it's something personal. When I grew up my mother was the one who told me I could do anything I wanted. When you start from that perspective, it opens a lot of doors, but it's true that manufacturing is quite intimidating. When you get in a plant, it doesn't feel like an environment where a woman wants to be. I think that's kind of a.... For example, at 3M we have those circles, but from the survey, half of the women who have one were saying it was useful and the other half were saying it was not useful.
12:50 p.m.
Chief Economist, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
Specifically, we had a couple of questions in there about women's networking groups and about whether or not those were useful to women. We were a little bit disappointed with those results, to be honest.
First of all, a fairly large number did not have access to women's working groups, whether they were formal or informal. Those who did tended not to be active participants. For those who did participate, as Elise mentioned, about half and half was the split between seeing value.
We have to do additional work in this area to figure out what the problem is because, on the surface, it seems like the kind of thing that should help do exactly what you said, but women who have been involved in those things were not seeing results. We have to dig deeper to figure out why.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Thank you.
Bonnie, thank you for being back again.
We as a society have done an abysmal job of employing people with disabilities. We seem to think it's okay to have people living with disabilities working for free rather than working and being paid for meaningful employment. While working as a cashier may be a reality, the fact is there are women living with autism, women in a wheelchair, or women who are blind or deaf, who aren't able to use their skills or often even their education. That's another issue. One of the things we've heard is that providing subsidies to employers does not work.
Can you comment on how we could educate employers on making their workplace accessible through things like flex hours? It's not expensive for them.
You only have about 30 seconds to do that.
12:55 p.m.
National Executive Director, DAWN Canada, DisAbled Women's Network Canada
Thank you.
Wage subsidies need to be studied to better understand, because there are a lot of different types. l have seen some that I think become important levers for giving people access to employment where they haven't been given access before. Again, it's because of the kind of discrimination people and women with disabilities face in the workplace. Not getting those opportunities unless there's a wage subsidy on the table can be a reality.
The other reference made to the sheltered workshops is something we in no way support. We see this as a regressive approach that was taken around the idea that these make-work projects were better than just sitting at home. People and women with disabilities have the same skills as any other person. It is fundamentally about providing access through transportation, which is a key issue, as well as the concept of universal design, including many different contexts around different sectors. It is understanding that accommodation is a human right, and educating employers about the fact that they have an obligation to provide equal access to employment. Supporting somebody once they are in the work environment is critical.
