Status of Women committee  Do I have any time?

Status of Women committee  Yes. The second point is that there was an Auditor General's report on the extent to which the government is not, in fact, conducting gender-based analysis of the impacts of its programs. Although there's been an action plan put in place in response to that, the only thing that's been documented subsequently is the number of trainings conducted in gender-based analysis.

Status of Women committee  Sure. At the risk of repeating what Alex has said, I think one of the things that unions, and indeed any employer, can do to close the wage gap is to actually track what's happening rather than relying on anecdotal evidence. This happens to be something that unions and public sector employers do well, because they have pay equity policies in place.

Status of Women committee  Good question. That was the median employment incomes for elementary school teachers, so it's not taking into account differences in the number of hours worked. What I would suspect is that the reason for the $10,000-a-year gap in salaries would have to do with that problem of rates of promotion, so, say, you see more men going into school administrator positions, which are higher paid.

Status of Women committee  I think there are a number of reasons. One is that even earlier than the university level, at the secondary level, in high school, we see girls tending to move away from the math and science classes that they would need as prerequisites to go into those male-dominated fields like engineering and the technology sector.

Status of Women committee  Income splitting is not something that is going to benefit the families that need it most. It is essentially an upside-down benefit, so the wealthiest families reap the greatest rewards. I think there are many ways that we could better spend the billions of dollars that an income-splitting program would cost, not least on a federal child care program, which would itself yield great rewards, as I've said before, for our economy and for families across the country.

Status of Women committee  Absolutely. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is a public policy think tank. We have a national office, as well as several provincial offices. I joined the national office a little over a year ago as part of this new initiative called Making Women Count, which is aimed at conducting research that examines the public policy challenges and solutions to the problem of gender inequality.

Status of Women committee  Sure. Briefly looking at Calgary and Edmonton, what we see is a very segregated workforce. Not only do women tend to work in education, health care, and the service sector, but in those Alberta cities, women tend to work in the lowest paid of those female-dominated sectors, which is the service sector.

Status of Women committee  One of the things I hear about from industries, from women working across the country, and indeed, from economists is the need for affordable child care. This is a huge barrier for women in every sector across the country. We have, happily, in Quebec's program, an example of how this can work for the economy and for women in Canada.

Status of Women committee  Thank you. In addition to child care, I would echo what Alex has said about the fact that we need to keep track of how we're paying and promoting men and women. It is clear, as Alex's examples demonstrated, that we cannot address, for example, inequities in pay if we don't know that they're there.

Status of Women committee  Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to speak to this committee today about the economic leadership and prosperity of women in Canada. My name is Kate McInturff. I am a senior researcher at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Today more women than ever are attending university and college.