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Women should be outraged by the inherent 'unfairness' of the labour market
Editorial by Christian Saint Cyr
National Director / Canadian Job Development Network
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Yesterday was International Women's Day and as I was strolling through the social media posts, I saw empowering statements like, "March 8th is our opportunity to shine a light on the important contribution women make..." or "Today we celebrate the hard work and ingenuity of women in our workplace..," or even "International Women's Day is the day we acknowledge the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women in Canada."
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We definitely take a day to celebrate and acknowledge women, because it seems like the other 364 days we real trash them.
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I don't want to be a downer and I truly believe women are making contributions as great and greater than men in our labour market and in our economy. I just struggle that we live in a reality that is blatantly unfair and insulting, but pay lip service to the special contribution this population makes.
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I feel this way about celebrating the unique contribution of Indigenous Canadians in June while not calling out the fact that Indigenous Canadians are weighed down with a 10.1% unemployment rate while it is 6.5 per cent for the rest of the country.
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In October, we celebrate disability employment without noting that those with disabilities in Canada have a 53.6 per cent labour force participation rate, compared with 65 per cent for the rest of the country.
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It's one thing if your boss refuses to give you a raise but it's quite another if he calls together all of the staff to say how amazing you are and your wonderful contribution, but he's still going to pay you less than your colleagues and deny you opportunities for advancement.
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It is the worst kind of hypocrisy and women in Canada should be marching in the streets on March 8th to demand fair treatment from government, employers and industry. When the Prime Minister or the Premier goes online to tell women how their making a wonderful contribution, women should be replying, "oh yeah -- what are you going to do about pay, workplace, retirement inequity?"
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According to Network For Change, a nonprofit group focused on gender equity in the workforce, 93 per cent of Canadian women and gender-marginalized workers between the ages of 18 and 29 see no clear pathways to a promotion at their workplace. Additionally, 85 per cent said they do not feel professionally challenged or stimulated.
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Fifty one per cent of those surveyed reported being stuck in entry-level positions.
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Regarding the barriers to advancement, the study found that 94 per cent reported identity-based barriers to meaningful employment. Fifty-one per cent of respondents cited age as a barrier, 36 per cent cited gender, and 41 per cent cited race.
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And while the technical challenges to advancement are gaining greater recognition, as a society we just accept that women make less money, even though this runs contrary to living in a fair and free society.
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The Ontario Pay Equity Office reports, on an hourly basis, women in Ontario earned 88 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2025, leaving a 12 per cent wage gap — a slight improvement from 82 cents nearly three decades ago.
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When average annual earnings are considered — capturing bonuses, commissions and differences in hours worked — the gap widens sharply: Ontario women earned 72 cents on the dollar in 2023, a 28-per-cent gap, according to Statistics Canada. The latter figure is an improvement from 62 cents 30 years ago.
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Ontario’s wage gap is identical to Canada’s at 12 per cent, while provincially, it ranges from 18 per cent in Alberta to five per cent in New Brunswick — with Prince Edward Island the only province with women earning more than men, by four per cent.
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Can you imagine if I were running an employment centre and stated, "oh we pay Indigenous workers 12 per cent less than non-indigenous workers."
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Would this be any less shocking a statement for disabled workers, or black workers, or immigrant workers? And yet, we come to expect this for women, who do not represent a minority in the population. Women are the majority, representing 50.7 per cent of the population of Canada.
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Within the G7, Canada is only a tick below Germany’s lead, with a female participation rate of 76.4 per cent for the 15-64 age group. So the cup is more than half full, but there’s still a gap relative to male participation in Canada. The most recent Labour Force Survey revealed a labour market participation rate for core age (25-54) men of 90.6 per cent.
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While there are a multitude of factors I could note to illustrate the under-representation of women in our labour market, we are making very small improvements.
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Wage transparency in job postings is highlighting the differences between what men and women earn. Women are also achieving higher levels of education resulting in better employment opportunities.
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Globally, women are more likely than men to have post-secondary education, and that’s true in Canada to a much higher degree. This should be associated with higher productivity and therefore pay increases in the labour market.
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It’s possible that some of that impact still lies ahead, as younger women are more educated than those in their later years in the workforce. As older workers retire out of the workforce, and younger women move up the ranks, we should expect to see some narrowing of the wage gap.
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The messaging from International Women's Day in 2026 should ripple from the earliest stages. Girls, teens and young women should be told that they shouldn't just earn as much as their male counterparts, they should expect it.
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The unspoken truth in all of this is that while there are a multitude of reasons why women are underrepresented in our labour market, one of the chief reasons is that women are a more likely than men to take on child raising responsibilities. This limits career advancement, salary increases, opportunities for promotion and pension contributions.
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And when people attack diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, they are essentially saying this unfairness is totally fine and shouldn't be corrected. This is what I think should outrage women.
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For both men and women, one of the most important responsibilities our society has is caring for and raising children who ultimately go on to participate in our future labour market.
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Canada is on the cusp of having a declining birthrate with our natural population shrinking. And yet, women (as well as men) are penalized for taking time out of the workforce to have children and raise them.
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If the provinces or the federal government were to pass legislation to ensure women were to get salary increases, even during years they are off for parental leave; to have their jobs protected for multiple years; or to require employers to have an equitable mix of men and women in leadership roles, this would be decried by many as invasive 'woke' social engineering when in fact it would just correct an imbalance which runs contrary to the future needs of our society and workforce stability.
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I'm sorry I couldn't give you a more cheery International Women's Day editorial with lots of platitudes that pretend reality doesn't exist but as a son, a brother, a father, and a husband, I like every other man in Canada can see first hand the challenges women face in our labour market.
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We need to all speak up on this issue. We need to inform and build up our clients and sometimes we need to have hard, sometimes delicate conversations with employers to draw their attention to practices that they may not even be aware of which are unfair and prejudicial.
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I believe Canada is a nation that believes in fairness and justice. I believe that making pro-women statements on International Women's Day isn't intended to be insulting and I believe most of the people making these statements and reading this editorial already know about the important contribution women make. I think we just need to actively speak out about it if we want to affect long-term change.
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We’ll be discussing the valuable contribution women make to our labour market at our #MotivatingMondays meeting of the Canadian Job Development Network, Monday March 9th at 8:30am Pacific; 9:30am Mountain; 10:30am Central; 11:30am Eastern; 12:30pm Atlantic and at 1pm in Newfoundland.
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On the morning of Monday March 9th 'Click this Link' to join the session.
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