Status of Women committee  Yes.

Status of Women committee  They're saying that it's because of the gender wage gap. We still have a gender wage gap. There's also the democratic participation factor. Women's participation in the democratic life of Canada is much lower. I think it was countries like.... Correct me if I'm wrong, but Afghanistan was one of the countries—

Status of Women committee  Yes, Rwanda is an example in terms of women in democratic institutions. There are variables that these indices look at, and they weigh them. Those were the two that were cited for our drop.

Status of Women committee  We know that the women who are working—and we know there are more women than ever in the workforce—are going into the lower-paying jobs, and they're also at lower levels in an organization, so that contributes to the wage gap, which contributes to our lowered standing internationally as well.

Status of Women committee  That's a great question. Thank you. What we've done, as I said earlier, is create a theme for this International Women's Day. We have material on our website that people can download. We've got a campaign on, basically, that is saying, “Tag a woman who empowers you.” If all of you were to do that and spread the message to all your contacts to basically get the word out, because we know that empowerment really does....

Status of Women committee  To clarify, on the private sector boards, it depends on whether you look at the FP500 or the TSX, which I think is at around 17%, or if you look at other companies, where it's at almost 20%. It's around that mark. A few years ago, it was about 14%, so it's inching up by 2% at a time, very slowly.

Status of Women committee  I'm not quite sure if it's higher or lower. I think it might be higher than it is for the women on boards. One of the studies that just came out last week is a global study that said the impact on profitability—you've probably seen this—is not necessarily connected to having a woman CEO or having a board where women make up 30% of the membership.

Status of Women committee  Yes, exactly.

Status of Women committee  Yes.

Status of Women committee  Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It's a real pleasure to be here with you. I know the committee is just getting going, so it's a real privilege to be able to come and tell you a little bit about what we do at Status of Women Canada. As you said, we're the agency in the bureaucracy that supports Minister Hajdu, who is the Status of Women minister.

Status of Women committee  Sure.

Status of Women committee  Yes.

Status of Women committee  I think the terms and conditions of the program have been established for a few years now, and the path chosen has been not to fund service delivery and core programming. What we're trying to do, as the minister and Linda were saying earlier, is to have systemic change and to provide two-to-three year funding, so that it's sustained in the communities by all the partners who then own it.

Status of Women committee  I'm not sure if we have data on that specific issue, but I know that in the Stats Canada Women in Canada publication that we're working on, the next edition and the various chapters that are going to be coming out.... But I could look into whether the Women in Canada—

Status of Women committee  It's on our website and anybody can access it. Even international communities, whoever wants to, can access it. It takes about 2 1/2 hours. I did it on my iPad at home, sitting on my porch, and it was really fantastic. When you finish the course, you can request a certificate that we would sign and send to you, and so far around 1,500 certificates have been sent.