Status of Women committee  Okay. As a woman who has 35 years with the federal government, I will tell you what we experience, overall. There is harassment in the workplace. There is undue stress in the workplace. This government, through Treasury Board, is now looking at mental health issues within the wo

Status of Women committee  I would assume they do, sir, but I'm telling what information I have from my membership with respect to the undue stress, the downsizing that is putting more work onto them. It is predominantly a female s workforce that is now, for the most part, in the sandwich generation, I wou

Status of Women committee  I guess then we will have to agree to disagree because your own employee survey says it is not—

Status of Women committee  No, sir, I cannot—

Status of Women committee  I think we would disagree with you. Certainly what we have right now is—

Status of Women committee  I will tell you right now that this government is in the midst of downsizing. Over 20,000 positions have been cut—

Status of Women committee  Yes, and I'm just trying to explain to you about—

Status of Women committee  Yes, well that might be what they said, but we have probably about 120,000 or so that would be in Treasury Board agencies, and 60% of those individuals were women. But I can't speak for the rest of the workforce—

Status of Women committee  —within that armed forces, RCMP, etc., that would be government, if you will.

Status of Women committee  Well, certainly from our perspective, our number one issue right now is child care and universal child care. The reality is that our young women workers are having a very difficult time. We had to go to the court, and it was the Johnstone case. I'm not sure which court it was, bu

Status of Women committee  It would be women.

Status of Women committee  In some areas there is not a wage gap, because we won a pay equity complaint. It took many years—I think it was 15 years or more—and we won it through the courts. So certainly as I said in my remarks, there are some areas, the administrative areas, in which those individuals woul

Status of Women committee  I'll just add something, because as I said, many years ago there was a committee. It received a lot of lip service, but there was nothing concrete. As Seema said, there are three committees currently, so the fourth would bode well for the Treasury Board.

Status of Women committee  —racially visible.

Status of Women committee  Yes.