The Canadian engineering profession presents endless opportunities for engineers to turn passion and commitment to making the world a better place into solutions to some of society’s biggest challenges. Yet for much of its history—and still today—some people remain underrepresented in engineering, including women, racialized people, Indigenous people, those living with disabilities, and 2SLGBTQ+ individuals.
Fortunately, that is gradually changing, as engineering employers, organizations, and higher education institutions work to improve equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in engineering. Although the political climate in the United States has recently sparked a backlash against EDI, the Canadian engineering profession remains committed to continuing and expanding EDI efforts to help open doors to a rewarding career in a profession that is inclusive and welcoming to everyone.
Why EDI matters
“I grew up in a house where girls could do anything and never really thought about any differences, and then as I went through my career and even throughout university, there were very few women,” says Marcie Cochrane, P.Eng., Strategic Partner at the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies BC “I started to see how that impacted my career and my sense of belonging.”
Cochrane went on to do her MBA thesis research on the retention of women in engineering. From 1998 to 2017, the data showed that during the first 10 years of their licensure, women engineers left the profession at nearly twice the rate that men did.
“There are these traditions and behaviours around [engineering] that are not necessarily very welcoming for women, and for other underrepresented folks too, which in time contributes to the fact that they don't stay, because they don't find a sense of belonging and they encountered diminished opportunities for career growth.”
John Gamble, P.Eng., President and CEO of the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies (ACEC-Canada), says a lack of diversity and inclusion in the engineering sector has led to blind spots in a profession whose responsibility is to serve all of society.
“Roadside curbs have existed for literally thousands of years, but it's only been in the last couple of decades that someone had the notion that this is a barrier to accessibility if you're in a wheelchair. The solution’s very easy. It's just that we did not think to have a solution, because if you are an able-bodied person, it's not on your radar.”
Gamble says harnessing the life experience that diverse people bring to engineering will improve the solutions engineers create to solve society’s problems. He adds that while progress has been made, there is certainly more work to be done to establish engineering as a profession of choice.
“Fortunately, that aligns with some of the very things we need to do to make for a more attractive, safer, more comfortable, and more rewarding workplace for people of different backgrounds.”
EDI at Canadian engineering companies
The good news is that plenty is happening at Canadian engineering companies to improve EDI.
Anna Robak, PhD, P.Eng., Executive Director of Research and Innovation at WSP Canada, says the company’s EDI work includes helping to build the next generation of diverse engineers through partnerships and sponsorships with post-secondary institutions; supporting current staff members and building an inclusive mindset through employee resource groups, EDI trainings, and partnerships with organizations representing thought leadership on EDI and equity-deserving groups; and measuring the company’s progress via robust data collection and reporting on metrics like overall workforce diversity; diversity in management positions; promotion, turnover, and hiring rates; and pay gaps.
Robak, who notes that WSP Canada’s current president is a woman, says WSP has actively worked over the past few years to assess, monitor, and improve it’s hiring, promotion, and compensation practices with the aim of achieving and sustaining equitable opportunities and inclusive experiences.
“We need to have that diversity in the engineering discipline because our diversity will bring innovation. It will bring, frankly, results.”
Erin Smith, P.Eng., P.Geo., is a Risk Assessor at Dillon Consulting Limited and Chair of Dillon’s Inclusion and Diversity Committee. Dillon founded their ‘Women in Dillon’ (WiD) initiative back in 2008 with the goal to improve the experience of women in the company and break down barriers to equity and inclusion. Smith says that work has paid off: “We have excellent representation of women at all levels of our company, right up through to our executive and our board.”
After a decade of successes and lessons learned through WiD, Dillon expanded their focus beyond binary gender into the broader EDI space. Their Inclusion and Diversity (I&D) Action Plan now outlines numerous commitments and initiatives to support EDI in the workplace. These include a mandatory training course for all new hires covering unconscious bias and other fundamentals of inclusion and diversity, and improving representation of other underrepresented groups through targeted actions in their recruitment and career management processes.
Reconciliation is another EDI priority at Dillon, one that is supported through their partnership with SOAR Professional Services, an Indigenous-owned and led firm founded by a senior Dillon Partner.
“It's mutually beneficial: we extend SOAR’s technical expertise and capacity, while their unique knowledge and experiences help us develop a better understanding of the diverse priorities and cultures of Indigenous communities,” says Smith.
Supporting EDI at the national level
Engineers Canada’s 30 by 30 initiative is working to increase the percentage of newly licensed engineers who are women to 30 per cent by the year 2030. The initiative is supported by champions across the country, an annual conference, reporting on metrics, and the creation and sharing of resources for engineers and engineering employers.
ACEC-Canada has created a diversity, equity and inclusion resource centre, publicly accessible on its website, to support smaller engineering firms that might not have a full-time human resources department equipped to manage EDI efforts. It includes information on mentoring, setting goals and measuring progress, hiring and interview practices, and making the business case for EDI, among other topics.
“We wanted to give our member firms a starting point, so they're not starting with a blank page, especially when there are so many good lessons to be learned,” Gamble says.
Visions for the future
Cochrane says it’s essential to continue amplifying the voices of under-represented people and including them in conversations about equity, diversity, and inclusion. She hopes that in the future, EDI concepts become embedded into the engineering profession.
“The goal would be that at some point in the future, inclusion is as much a part of our culture as safety—it is just built into the way companies operate.”
Robak’s dream is to begin building a stronger pipeline into engineering starting in elementary school: “In my world, everyone [at WSP] would be going out to schools, and we'd have 13,000 schools across Canada where our engineers are doing workshops with kids.”
Dillon is currently finalizing a reconciliation action plan, and continues to strengthen and grow its partnership with SOAR. They are also a gold sponsor of EngiQueers Canada and recently launched a scholarship program with the organization.
“I'm proud to work for a company that continues to hold inclusiveness as a core value, that is not going to bow to pressure, and that is, if anything, expanding and growing and continuing on this important journey,” says Smith.
