Ms. Townson, you mentioned a report. I would like you to tell us which report that was, especially since it will be useful for our work, we believe. I would also like to know why it will not be published.
I find it a bit ironic the way we are talking about poverty among seniors. We know very well from personal experience that age comes with time. People who are poor when they are young will be poor when they are older for the simple reason that there are no real measures in place to reduce poverty. We are told that women are among the poorest, in particular immigrant women, disabled women and aboriginal women. Nothing is really being done to deal systematically with that poverty. There are just band-aid solutions. That is what was done when these women were young and it is what people are continuing to do now. There are new measures; funding is being cut left and right. The same people always lose out.
A lot of emphasis has been put on education. In your report—and here I believe I am speaking particularly to Ms. Glover—you say that women now hold jobs or are studying in areas that used to be male-dominated and that this will change the situation. Of course, it will do so to some extent. Nonetheless, women will always have to struggle to achieve work-life balance and provide help to family members. Things are changing, but women's incomes continue to be lower.
In Quebec, 60% of those going into medicine are women. They tend to take salaried positions, and therefore earn less, rather than becoming specialists. That is due to systemic factors. Until those factors are taken into account, there will always be a gap. It will tend to be narrower for women with higher levels of education, but it will still be there. So we will be carrying this burden all our lives, with the result that, generally speaking, women will never have the same status as men. I would like to hear your comments on that.
Once it is clear what the statistics show, I would like to know what measures are being taken. Are there programs or projects aimed at making young women more aware of this reality? Are they being encouraged in a particular way to develop personal strategies so that they will be able, even later on, to compete with men in this area? If not, will we have the same situation generation after generation, with people being the victims of this approach?