Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you very much, ladies, for being here. There's a great deal of information that we can learn.
Ms. Weymouth, particularly, I've really enjoyed your presentation.
My first question is, do we have a value for men's unpaid work? If I were to look at the amount of work my husband does around our house--he probably does dishes more often than I do.... Is there a value that has also been put on the unpaid work that men do? I'd be interested to know that.
I just spent this past weekend with the Newmarket Chamber of Commerce. They had their home show, and I had a booth there. I met an extraordinary number of enterprising women who own their own businesses. I like to use the example of Ingrid, who started a chocolate company called Fraktals, and if any of you have not tasted Fraktals, you've not had chocolate, believe me. She started her own business out of her home, and knocked on doors to sell these chocolates. She has made a phenomenally successful business.
I know that 47% of the new businesses started today are started by women. In fact, I met with Mark Adler last week, who has the Economic Club of Toronto, and he commented on the number of very enterprising women who are now part of the economic club because they're just becoming so successful.
I think of two twins from Newmarket, Heather and Beth. Heather went into mechanical engineering, and actually graduated from Queen's University. She's now working as a quality control engineer for a company that provides parts for the nuclear industry. Her sister, Beth, who is a technician for pianos, has started her own business. She has worked for people in the past, but now has her own very successful business in Toronto.
Theresa, my question to you is, first of all, how many women who come out of these programs are starting their own businesses, because there are extraordinary opportunities for success and really good money when they finish? Or are they more risk-averse, so they look for jobs on the line where security is more the issue they have?
Professor Lahey, you talked about larger student debt for women. Can you provide the committee proof of this? In my experience, women pay the same for tuition as men do. Young women who go to university are paying exactly the same amount in tuition when choosing courses, so I don't understand why student debt is higher at the end. I've hired young women and I've hired young men, and for the same job I pay them the same amount as university students. So I'd like to see proof of that, if you can provide that to the committee.
If you could both comment, please....