Thank you very much for inviting me to address the committee about developing STEM talent. As the founding president of Let's Talk Science, I personally have spent the past two decades working to ensure that Canadian youth are prepared to thrive in this country, enjoy a high quality of life, and contribute as engaged citizens.

Let's Talk Science, or Parlons sciences, is a national charitable education and outreach organization that helps youth prepare for their future careers and their citizenship role through STEM engagement. I won't describe our programs in detail here, but I can deal with them during questions, if you like. Our programs support preschool through to grade 12 youth and educators. Our primary goal is to keep young people engaged in the STEM fields to the end of high school. We believe this will enable them to keep as many doors open as possible to all post-secondary pathways, including college, university, and apprenticeships.

We've reached well over 3.5 million children, youth, and educators since our inception. We annually work with about 4,000 volunteers, the majority of whom are post-secondary students in STEM disciplines. It may be of interest to the committee that over 60% of our volunteer base annually are women in STEM.

Let's Talk Science creates world-class learning resources. We connect youth with STEM volunteers, and we conduct research into our own impact as well as some of the systems-level research. It's that research that I'd really like to share with the committee here.

With that context, I'd like to share three key observations for your report. The first one is that definitions are very critical. The lack of clearly articulated visions, goals, desired outcomes, and measurement systems in place now results in a misalignment of effort and missed efficiencies. STEM is a global acronym that has little resonance with most people. While we understand that it refers to science, technology, engineering, and math, most people don't. In fact I recently asked a large group of high school students what they thought STEM was, and they thought I was going to talk to them about stem cell research.

When it comes to measuring STEM workforce issues, there is also no standard definition for what constitutes a STEM job. Research and engineering-type jobs consistently make the list of STEM occupations, but there is less agreement about whether to include such other occupations as educators, managers, technicians, and health care professionals. Let's Talk Science supports a broad definition of STEM occupations. In fact, until we have real clarity and standardization about what falls into these categories, we'll continue to question whether our engagement efforts are actually succeeding, because we're all measuring different things.

My second observation is that considerable progress has been realized, but gender differences in STEM participation continue, as this committee well knows. During my tenure at Let's Talk Science, which is actually pushing 24 years now, we've seen girls close the gap on achievement on national and international science tests, clearly demonstrating that capacity isn't the challenge. Female participation at university has overtaken male participation. Women now exceed men in life sciences and environmental sciences, and men exceed women in physical sciences and engineering disciplines, there again underscoring the importance of defining very clearly what you're talking about with STEM. Unfortunately, over those two decades little has changed regarding participation rates of women in such STEM-heavy skilled trades as welding, or in engineering technologies.

With one of our partners, Amgen Canada, Let's Talk Science has been looking at the implications of STEM learning at a macro level. We've produced several reports, one of which I've shared with the committee, called “Spotlight on Science Learning”. The reports can be accessed through the Let's Talk Science website. A copy of this most recent report was included in our submission, so all committee members should have access to it in French and English.

The study is called “Shaping Tomorrow's Workforce: What Do Canada's Teens Think About Their Futures?” We surveyed teenagers aged 13 to 17 years to understand their perceptions and interests in broadly defined STEM work. I'd like to share a few of the findings from the report.

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