Women in Trades and Tech Timmins (WiTT) has already begun to perk the interest of local tradeswomen following their June 19 official launch at a Timmins Chamber of Commerce meeting.
“A lot of women stayed back to chat with me about future membership,” WiTT co-chair Ashley Richards-Gagnon told Northern Ontario Business.
“Currently, there’s less than five per cent women in the trades,” said Richards-Gagnon, who works as a project manager for BGIS property management. “There’s a huge demand for employment in the trades and I think it’s a great opportunity for women.”
“There’s not enough tradespeople,” said WiTT’s second co-chair Joelle Charbonneau, proprietor of JTR & Custom Works. “I think women can help fill that gap if we make it more accessible.”
The group, facilitated in partnership with the Timmins Chamber of Commerce and the Timmins Construction Organization, hopes to provide networking, career guidance, education, and mentoring to a wide range of women working in trades and technology roles, including electricians, plumbers, greenhouse technicians, welders, cooks, digital operators, hairstylists, and child development practitioners.
For a lifetime membership fee of $25, members will have access to exclusive events, industry panels, and workshops and skills training.
“They’ll have the opportunity to network and gain valuable experience from women who have already been through it, who’ve been in the industry longer and have gotten over hurdles to be where they are and have paved a path,” said Richards-Gagnon.
“We’ve all been through the same hardships, from being the only girl in shop class in high school, or being the only girl on the job site.”
The launch comes on the heels of last year’s successful launch of a local chapter of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum’s (CIM) Women in Mining program.
“The Chamber put on a great program for women in mining, so we thought it would be a great opportunity to follow suit,” said Richards-Gagnon.
Richards-Gagnon, a graduate of Fanshawe College’s Architectural Technology program, was recently named the first woman president of the Timmins Construction Association, making her an ideal mentor for other women looking to follow a similar career path.
“A lot of what we’re doing is to help young women see other women in those roles so they realize they can do these kinds of jobs,” said Richards-Gagnon.
In addition to creating a presence at local job fairs, WiTT plans to continue its efforts to reach out to high school guidance counsellors in order to make presentations to trades classes.
They also plan to increase outreach to local postsecondary students.
The group has already done an event at the Northern College’s Timmins campus, where high school students were offered the opportunity to tour the shops and ask questions.
WiTT will also focus on procuring government and private funding to assist local companies and employers looking to provide mentorship opportunities and training — something that will be key to exposing more women to hands-on job experience, said Charbonneau.
“We want to be the vehicle of opportunity and experience for young women. We want to put it all in a nice box that’s embedded in the schooling system and local companies,” said Charbonneau.
The group has already attracted the sponsorship of Fountain Tire, Ontario Power Generation, and the Infrastructure Health and Safety Association. They’ve also received interest for possible future support from TD Bank, which hosts a Women in Enterprise program.
“The community is reaching out to help. They understand how important it is. We’re very excited about where this is going to go,” said Charbonneau.
When the Chamber of Commerce asked if she would be interested in co-chairing the group, Charbonneau knew it would be a great opportunity to help inspire young women who face barriers to joining the trades.
“I believe that women don’t have an equal opportunity or equal access to jobs in mining,” said Charbonneau.
“One of the causes we’re trying to figure out is how to get the mines and the government to make child care more accessible for women in mining so more women can access these jobs and opportunities.”
Charbonneau started working in mining in her teens as a summer student. She went to college to receive certification in geographic information systems, and then got a job working in the excavation department at Detour Gold in Cochrane. She later received a certification in welding and an apprenticeship as a millwright from Northern College.
From there, she transitioned to being a health and safety coordinator for her father’s growing company. When her father retired, she purchased the company from him and now runs it herself.
Charbonneau hopes WiTT will help remove the stigma that the trades are a closed-off, male-dominated environment where women can’t thrive.
“Exposing more women to trades like mining will help get rid of the stigma. It’s actually very fun and rewarding, and the trades provide a very good quality of life. You make a good living,” said Charbonneau.
In addition to grappling with the stigma of trades work, women are typically worried about how they can fit in on job sites, said Richards-Gagnon.
“You’re worried about things like how you do your hair. You kind of want to dress down to fit in, and you want to avoid wearing pink to avoid being a target. We shouldn’t have to think about that.”
For the future, Richards-Gagnon said she hopes WiTT will help women gain an increased representation and presence at the job sites she frequents as a project manager.
She also hopes to increase interest and enrollment in trades schooling to see more construction programs come back to local colleges.
Charbonneau said she hopes the group will become a permanent part of the footprint of the Timmins trades community.
“We want to listen to women to learn what the barriers are so we can try to bring them down,” said Charbonneau.
