Status of Women committee  We've made an effort in recent years to improve representation among indigenous women, persons with disabilities, and visible minorities. This morning, we were discussing women. We worked on organizing activities and setting up committees for the visible minority network, as well

Status of Women committee  As I mentioned earlier, quotas and hiring targets are not the same thing. With hiring targets, the first thing we look for is skill. We have assessment criteria, a statement of merit criteria; in short, we define the requirements of the position very clearly. We use tools to ass

Status of Women committee  We don't really talk about quotas; instead, we talk about targets. That's the language we use in the federal government. In terms of the representation of women, as I said earlier, the targets are based on the statistics. In that sense, then, it would be helpful to rely on the

Status of Women committee  You are talking about a 50% quota. Clearly, if we were to establish a quota of 50%, which is very different from the workforce availability rates, it would be really tough to meet that quota. It is our view that the current rules and process—based on achieving targets that refle

Status of Women committee  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 establis

Status of Women committee  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 dis

Status of Women committee  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 deve