Mr. Stanton, there's no question that there has been progress made in introducing analysis. And I would also suggest that some of the work that Status of Women Canada has begun doing with respect to introducing gender equality indicators and trying to get an evidence base for what is happening to women in Canada has also been good progress.
I think you've made a very important distinction between the mechanics of getting there, where I think there has been significant progress, and the outcome to be achieved. I would personally say that it is up to each government to say what outcomes it believes are important for Canadians.
We, as a committee, looked at the evidence of the position of many women in Canada and concluded, for example, that notwithstanding much of the progress that has been made by many women, there are still significant issues affecting aboriginal women, who face higher rates of poverty; there is a much higher risk of women leading lone-parent families; there are specific issues faced by immigrant women, and I think there is an attempt to build an evidence base around that.
Whether a government in power chooses to address those issues or believe it's within its mandate is clearly very much up to that government. And I would differentiate very much between the mechanics of doing the analysis generating the indicators and then a government deciding what the issues are that those indicators are generating, and whether that government wishes to address them.