Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to our panel this afternoon for sharing your insights on this important subject.
I was quite interested to hear the different remarks we've heard this afternoon, and particularly to hear the good news that, looking back at 10 or 15 years ago, and in some cases even more recently than that, we can see that the gaps have in fact closed. When you look back and consider the trend lines for where we've come since the early 1990s, and when you look at the incidence and uptake of higher levels of education--again this is for the women--and the higher level of workforce participation, all of these things seem to be converging. The outcomes seem to be projecting a trend line that in fact is very positive, or at least it seems so statistically.
I'll direct this to the Statistics Canada witnesses who are here today. I know you might have been asked this question in earlier questions from the committee, but where do we see this trend line going? Are we going to see a continued closing of this gap? We're seeing the wage rate gap, as has been clarified, sitting at about 85.7%, and a whole host of other positive outcomes here. Is it reasonable to suggest at this point that we're going to continue to see improvements? Get your crystal ball out here.