Erasing Gender Inequalities in Canada, a Step at a Time - Building Gender Balanced Business

• The Canadian town of Quispamsis is the first English-speaking municipality in New Brunswick to pay men and women the same wages for jobs of comparable value.

• Mary Schryer , the local member of the New Brunswick legislative assembly, who is also the NB minister responsible for the status of women, said, “Quispamsis will be a demonstration pilot so that other municipalities across the province can come in and see how they achieved pay equity.”

• Mayor Murray Driscoll could not say how much more Quispamsis was spending to close the wage gap.

• Schryer said a public sector pay equity act would soon be introduced in the provincial legislature.

• Two other NB localities are completing studies on how they can equalise pay.

• In nearby Nova Scotia, women account for only 39% of senior managers — and the bulk of them are in the public sector.

• In the private sector, only 18% of senior managers are women, according to the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council, and most of them work in the health sector.

• Efforts to reduce gender inequality come as the number of women in C-suite jobs in Canada surged to a record in 2008 … but that record is a mere 36, or 7.2& of the total.

• The surge is especially clear in banking, with 4 of the 5 top banks significantly increasing diversity.

• “The banks realize there is a business case being made to getting women into those top positions,” says Sue Calhoun, president of the Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs.

Telegraph-Journal article about Quispamsis

MetroNews article about Nova Scotia

Windsor Star article about pay in banking