New group aims to get more women involved in construction on P.E.I.

A new committee aimed at getting more women working in construction on P.E.I. met for the first time Tuesday.

The 10-member committee, mostly made up of women who work in the industry, was formed by the Construction Association of P.E.I.

The Island's construction industry has been facing a major labour shortage.

"There is all kinds of roles that are played in building anything in construction," saidJessie Champion, who is a member of the group and a second-year construction technology student at Holland College.

"And I think that women could challenge those ideas more often and not just think about the pigeonhole of manual labour that comes into construction."

Champion said there are a lot of jobsin construction outside of manual labour like doing estimates, site inspections and design.

With the committee starting to meet, Champion said she hopes more women will consider construction as a career.

Traditionally 'male-dominated industry'

She said she came to P.E.I. from Alberta to study construction, and noticed there weren't any other women in her classes.

"I noticed first thing, first year of my construction program, I was the only female," she said.

Being the only woman out of 18 students was "eye-opening,"Champion said.

"Traditionally it has been definitely a male-dominated industry, it still kind of is, but it is nice to see those barriers starting to be broken down."

Nationally, just five per cent of construction workers are women and P.E.I. isabout on par with that, said Sam Sanderson, general manager of the Construction Association of P.E.I.

He said he hopes the committee is able to turn that around and get more women into the sector.

"We have an industry looking for people," Sanderson said.

"We are looking for ways to create opportunities to get people in there and, you know, women, newcomers, Indigenous, youth are the four areas where we are working diligently to try and create those opportunities."

Sanderson said numbers are up for women entering trade programs, with 11 women taking part this year compared to six in 2018.

The committee will meet every couple of months to brainstorm ideas on how to attract more women to the profession.

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