Since I took on this mandate, I made it very clear that I would work to increase the representation of women, indigenous peoples, those with disabilities, and other under-represented groups. If you look at the numbers in Canada, you see that young women now earn close to a half of the undergraduate STEM degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math; and they earn about a quarter of the engineering degrees. But as you go up to the graduate degrees, there are fewer. By the time you get to the Ph.D.s, they're 33% of the Ph.D.s in science, compared to 49% in the U.K. and 46% in the U.S.
I just want to mention the workforce. In 1987, women accounted for 20% of the STEM workforce; today it's only 22%. In 2016, surely we can do better.