Status of Women committee  I think it's an opportunity at the same time, because you get to be placed. But the reality is that there aren't fewer women than men. That's the reality. Even though it's two-sided, even though it's an opportunity to be somewhere, I believe you don't just put them there. You have to educate and graduate them through the process so they can contribute.

Status of Women committee  Absolutely. I do believe that you need to train, educate, and mentor people for certain jobs whether they be men or women so that people can be good at their jobs and competent. They don't want to be benchwarmers, though I do believe, yes, that you need to have representation of ethnic minorities, women, and all of them, in government and the private sector.

Status of Women committee  Yes. I graduated from Carleton University. I studied criminology and criminal justice, and I was lucky enough to do a one-year internship at Correctional Service Canada, which hired me when I finished my field placement. That's what it was called back then. I worked in a department called CORCAN, which has five lines of business: farming, services, manufacturing....

Status of Women committee  Absolutely. In my own work—and I can only state this from my experience and from that of other women I have met, in telecommunications in the the voice and messaging and data industry—I have been in the 1%. Now there are more women in our industry, but I'm still at a senior level and I'm a minority.

Status of Women committee  Thank you for having me here today. The economic security of women cannot be addressed unless we look at three factors: education, employment, and entrepreneurship. What I'll do is go backward and start with entrepreneurship. I've looked at a study conducted by the OECD in 2014, named “Enhancing Women's Economic Empowerment Through Entrepreneurship and Business Leadership in OECD Countries”.