I just have to make a comment. It seems like you can't win. Our government is often accused of being “anti” the arts. As a musician who supports the arts on a regular basis, I find it odd that here we are supporting the arts and you get accused of not using the money properly, when you're supporting something that is an artistic endeavour--doing the ballet. It doesn't seem to matter what project you fund, it's always going to be the wrong one.
I have a couple of comments.
First of all, I was really impressed to read the portion where you talk about other federal departments being involved in reviewing applications. There seems to be a far more collaborative attitude in getting things done, and from a whole of government.... Rather than having silos, a single set of eyes on things, we're looking at how these things impact across the spectrum. I find that a very positive statement, so thank you for that.
One comment from page 4.... With all of this information on women in non-traditional jobs, I'm assuming this would have been information that would have been available to the committee, but essentially what you're telling us here is that the government has been very proactive. We've already looked at these things, we've already made an assessment of those roles, and we are acting proactively on these things to ensure that women do have equal access.
However, my question really comes from page 5 of your opening statement. You say here that “This year's World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report ranks Canada 20th out of 134 countries, compared to 25th in 2009.” I wonder if you could talk about what initiatives have specifically moved us forward. A movement of five countries--it would seem insurmountable to me that we've moved that far that quickly. I wonder if you can comment on how quickly the progress has been made in the past. Are there other countries that have done the same thing? And what specifically has Canada done to see us move forward that quickly in one year?
Hopefully, it has some reflection on the year you've just spent.