I would have to agree, but I actually do think there's progress.
I need to clarify. We began work on this in 2005. There were other efforts made prior to 2005 to get gender budgeting, or forms of gender budgeting, on the table. I think there is progress. What I began to say before is that Canada has always claimed a really high level of gender budgeting without doing it. They relied on the strength of their gender-based analysis. I think they've often claimed that within the Department of Finance GBA was being done to a greater extent than it was being done. In fact, I don't have evidence that it was being done at all on budgetary measures pre-2005. I think there is progress, but I think it's modest.
If you don't want the progress to be glacial in future years, I think you need civil servants and leadership at the cabinet level to set priorities in terms of women's equality and to recognize the ways in which women are again located differently in the economy, in their communities, and in their families. That's what I would strongly recommend.
In terms of these recommendations from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, they were issued in 2003. I remain convinced that they provide a very good template in terms of starting points to address particular equality gaps. Many of them have financial or budgetary implications. I think Parliament and the Minister of Finance would do very well to incorporate them into the gender budgeting exercises currently under way.