Sure. On the procurement side, very quickly, if we think about the government as a consumer of goods and services, it's an enormous potential client base. Obviously, the government needs to purchase the right goods from the firms that can provide the products and services that it needs. In terms of leveraging procurement, however, that can be used strategically where it makes sense.
When we think about small and medium-sized businesses, we have a lot of evidence to show that in terms of gazelles—these are small businesses that are rapidly growing—when we compare Canada with the United States, we actually have, proportionally, about the same number of gazelles. Canada isn't behind. But when you get to around the five-year mark in terms of the lifespan of a business, all of a sudden the number of gazelles in Canada collapses. Basically, this is a signal that says that it's pretty good to open a business in Canada, and we rank very well in the ease of opening, but the challenge is scaling up.
Using a small portion of government procurement towards small and medium-sized businesses could actually have an enormous leveraging effect to help those businesses. Moreover, you could even use the procurement narrowly. For example, if you want to promote fast-growing small and medium-sized businesses that are led by women, you could target procurement towards firms that have those characteristics. There's an opportunity. It can't be used for 100% of the procurement. It has to be done sensibly, but even a small portion of government procurement, used strategically, can actually serve goals.
In terms of women in the labour force, the outcomes women are having have improved enormously over the years, but clearly there are still barriers. One of the barriers is lack of willingness to go into some of the non-traditional areas that can have very gainful employment with good income. Some of it has to do with overcoming stereotypes.
Some of the push-back you often get on issues related to gender economics that involve women being promoted onto boards is the view that a particular industry just doesn't have as many women who reach the executive levels. That means you actually need more women in those industries who can rise through the ranks, so that you help to address some of that issue.
There are a lot of barriers that can be used, and I think that the focus on improving gender outcomes actually has enormous merit.