I can tell you about the most visible group that has benefited from it in Quebec, namely the 300,000 or so women working in Quebec's public sector. We often hear that, in the public sector, there have been negotiations for years and that there isn't any more discrimination. But the evening of the regulation, it was noted that 97% of the categories with a predominance of women were subject to adjustments, some of them very significant. Overall, $2 billion was redistributed to the women of Quebec–which is not nothing. The impact was such that it had an impact on government statistics, the economy and the gross domestic product.
We know that the public sector employs a lot of staff in precarious situations. For some, this regulation has made the difference between living in poverty and more living more decently. Beyond the results in monetary terms, one of the great sources of satisfaction is feeling that one's work is being recognized at its fair value. This is a fundamental matter of dignity and respect. These results were not exclusive to the public sector. Many workplaces in the private sector also had good results and the same level of satisfaction among women.
The area where the results have not been so good, where the enforcement of equity is always harder, is that of non-unionized workplaces. It is a complex process and they need to be able to rely on...