Thank you, Madam Chair.
I was a teacher in Ontario for 25 years and I think I could answer that question about why men make more. If you look at the promotion of teachers to department heads, to vice-principals, to principals, to superintendents, to directors of education, I would venture to guess that there are very few female directors of education in this country, and they would certainly make three to four times what a classroom teacher would make. In 1985 I was a secondary teacher and a female vice-principal was an anomaly, a rarity. People actually went into her office to look at this incredible and strange aberration.
So perhaps that helps.
I have a couple of questions, and I want to begin with something that's become of real concern to me. In my constituency, single moms are in difficulty with Canada Revenue Agency because they have to prove that they are single, that they aren't cohabiting, and their child tax credit is at risk. It's clawed back. They're threatened with having it clawed back. Senior women are experiencing difficulty in terms of dealing with various agencies.
Would it make a difference if certain government departments, like HRSDC and CRA, had an advocate right in the ministry, right within the institution, for vulnerable people? Is that something that makes sense?