Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I just want to say thank you, as well, to our witnesses. It's good to have you here and to be able to count on your expertise on this matter.
I wonder, Ms. Fraser, if you could comment on the challenges you may have faced in determining if gender-based analysis occurred, given that women really are made up of much more than just our gender, and our interests are made up of much more than our gender.
I understand that many policy-makers and academics around the world are recommending moving toward more of an intersectional analysis of how policy affects women. And it's interesting, because we have faced that challenge right here at this committee, where we're mandated to look at how policy affects women. We recently studied EI and the effects that has on women, and yet we really failed, I believe, to address small business owners, and that area of growth is happening with women. If someone were to look at the work we did, in one sense we were looking at women and how EI affects women, but it was quite a narrow look at it.
I wonder if that was a challenge for you--for example, if the government was providing infrastructure spending, and that was benefiting women, directly and maybe indirectly, by their occupation or where they lived or their culture. It's very hard to determine how gender-based analysis occurred, I would think, even given the committee work we have done. Did you find that to be a challenge?
And then I also wonder if Ms. Beckton can comment on that and what kind of progress we can make in representing all women and their interests when we do these analyses.