Status of Women committee  It's what I was saying before to Ms. Ludwig's question. There are numerous studies that show that's simply not true. This idea that the market just dictates everything as if there's no interference as it stands, or that the values that exist right now in people's wages are absent or separate from all sorts of other historical discrimination and assumptions about what types of work are more valuable than others, is simply untrue.

Status of Women committee  Right.

Status of Women committee  You would still be able to receive the EI benefits for a full year or whatever. It has now been extended to 18 months. Whatever the period is now, it would cause a reform in the EI-based system, so you would need fewer hours but still have access to the full leave.

Status of Women committee  There have been numerous studies on this that show the overall impact. There is often an argument from employer groups that they would have to lay people off and so on, but the increased demand that comes from people having more disposable income actually tends to offset any sort of increased demand on employers to pay their workers more.

Status of Women committee  We also support a living wage. We also support the expansion of union organizing, union rights, and collective bargaining, workers determining and having the ability to bargain with their employers so that if $15 is not enough they can actually have the ability to collectively bargain for higher wages.

Status of Women committee  We're always pushing for everybody to be unionized, but for those who aren't we call for a $15 minimum wage. It's a baseline. It's not necessarily as high as we would like it to be, but it would immediately bring a lot of people out of poverty who are making $4 less per hour now.

Status of Women committee  We didn't address that in our submission. We do recommend general reforms to EI, so there would be a lower eligibility period for that as well, but this actually just addresses the special benefits.

Status of Women committee  I echo that. Women face a lot of discrimination. It goes deeper than that to the unexplained wage gap, which goes into stereotypes and assumptions about women's and men's abilities, and things like that. That starts from a very young age. Just getting girls in school interested in those fields....

Status of Women committee  When we're looking at creating a universal child care program—and the provinces would create programs—ideally it would also provide child care for hours that are not just nine to five. That is one of the things that we recommend. I didn't say it explicitly in the report, but generally, when we are talking about a child care system that is accessible for everybody, that includes women who work all shifts.

Status of Women committee  Thank you. I'd like to thank everybody for the opportunity to speak today. I'm here from the United Steelworkers union. We represent about 220,000 active members in Canada. USW members are men and women of every social, cultural, and ethnic background, and virtually every industry and job.