Living in a rural area, I'm never opposed to good roads. I just have to say that.
However, having said that, what has happened in our rural communities with the loss of social infrastructure, as I said earlier, is that we've really lost the kinds of jobs that support women. So when we're moving out our schools, our small health clinics, our grocery stores, when we're moving out so many of those essential supports—our community services workers, EI offices, etc., many of which are staffed by women and many of which are decent paying jobs—we're really removing some of those opportunities for women.
Investing in social infrastructure is one of the best ways to bring women into a labour market at decent fair wages and to enable women to support their families. I absolutely agree that a good house has a good foundation. The foundations of most houses I know are the women who live in them. So we really need to absolutely support women and support women where they are in their communities.
If we want to talk about stimulation, one other thing we could really do is eliminate student debt or at least reduce student debt. Why not $5,000 per degree, maximum? That way we're really freeing our young people up to be able to stay in their communities. One of the reasons we're seeing the out-migration of our youth is that they have to go where they can afford to pay off their student debt, if they've been able to access education. That hasn't been rural Nova Scotia for sure, or probably other rural communities either. So all that will enable women and youth to stay and build.
With respect to lenses, yes, I think we need a number of different lenses. Gender impacts everybody, and if you're a woman with disabilities you're more severely impacted, and it's the same with immigrants. It's the same across the board. That's why that's an overarching piece.