Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses here today. I'm very glad to see us taking on this study.
I was very fortunate in being an RCMP officer in the early 1960s and 1970s. I worked in an organization that was totally male-dominant for a while, and then we got female recruitment in 1975. It took us about 25 years in that organization to bring some of the female members to the highest ranks. Bev Busson became the commanding officer for British Columbia. It took us 33 years to bring one to the top now, which is great. It's a great appointment and I'm glad to see that.
I have three questions for each of the groups here.
I'll start with you at Hoskin. You're more industry-related than you are with the arts and that stuff. I think you mentioned that earlier. You mention in your report that 63% of companies now have at least one woman on their board of directors, and you think we should be pushing that further ahead. Do you find that part of the problem, especially in the mining industry, I'll say, or maybe in manufacturing or construction, is that because there's a lack of female populations in those working groups, they may have a hard time drawing upon the expertise? Is that one of the problems you're seeing?