Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much to all of our witnesses for being with us this afternoon.
What I'd like to do, at least in the first part of my time, is focus on the issue of unpaid labour and how best to ensure that women—or men, but mainly women—in such positions receive an adequate retirement income.
Perhaps this could be done through the Canada Pension Plan, on the theory that women should be compensated for time spent caring for young children or older people. My understanding is that right now Canadians can exclude 15% of the years of lowest earnings when the CPP pension is calculated.
My first question is to Ms. Smith. Perhaps 15% is not enough, but do you think increasing that percentage might be part of a solution, so that if a woman, for example, had a substantial number of years as a caregiver, the percentage could be—I don't know—35%, 40%? Would that improve the situation significantly?