Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the committee for having me today.
It's great to see Mr. Austin here. It's nice to see a bit of Saskatchewan in Ottawa. I appreciate that. I'm on the western side of the province. I've come across many people who work in Cigar Lake, who travel and commute there.
Companies, especially in the field you are in, sometimes get a bad rap. It's great to hear how your company cares enough about the community in northern Saskatchewan to temporarily halt production for safety during this time. I want to give a shout-out for that. Sometimes you guys don't get enough credit where credit is due on that aspect.
There has been a lot of conversation here about exploring, developing, producing and refining. Canadians have a vast skill set. We have the skills, the talent, the ability, and the people to do a lot of that work here in Canada.
The Mining Association of Canada said that in 2018 only 15% of the workforce were women, and that it had actually gone down since 2011.
Could anybody mention why that might be? Why are we actually seeing a decline? This was before COVID, obviously. This was in 2018. Why was there a drop in women's participation in the workforce when it comes to mining?
Does anybody want to take this question?