Thank you very much for your questions.
I think in response to your first one, a national child care system that was more flexible.... I think at this point we would be happy with a national child care system that functioned from 9 to 5. Obviously we don't have that in this country, but if we had one, that would be terrific.
You're absolutely right. We need to have a more flexible system where the child care facility opens at 7 in the morning or stays open until 7 at night, for women to be doing these jobs where they are actually working shift work. So absolutely, that's definitely a possibility.
In answer to the second question, I haven't looked at the statistics lately in terms of access to capital for women business owners. I know that in the past it was definitely a challenge for women to get access to capital to start businesses. I think the environment has changed a bit around that, but what I don't know is, if I'm a welder and I want to start my own welding company, will the bank or Community Futures think I can actually do it--because I'm a woman and I'm a welder. I think that would be a good area to research.
I'd like to go back to your first comment. I had mentioned in my statement Canada's economic action plan and this investment of $40 million per year in a new apprenticeship completion grant, where the idea is to encourage people to finish their programs and get their red seals. When I looked at the website, I tried to find something that said that women are being encouraged to access this as well, or that non-traditional trades areas are a good thing for women, or something that would make me think the government really wants women to have some take-up in this program. I couldn't find anything.
If the government really thinks that non-traditional jobs should be more accessible for women, then we need to be proactive. It's like the picture in the paper, right? We need to show the women's faces. We need to say something that convinces women they might actually receive one of these grants.
I think there's a lens missing. If we're serious and we want to do it, we need a lens where we say skilled trades, IT, and all the other traditionally male jobs.... What's the lens that's going to help women get into those?