Good.
I've read some of the evidence from your previous meetings, and I thought I wouldn't repeat a lot of what has been said. You have some very good evidence. I was particularly impressed by the evidence from Coast Capital about education, financial literacy, internships, and business leadership being important to the prosperity of young girls. I agree wholeheartedly with that.
I thought I would share my own personal story about my career, and maybe we can draw some conclusions from that and make some recommendations.
It really was not a slam dunk that I was going to end up having a successful career, but I can think of several things that made a difference to me.
First I'll give you a little bit of background. I was born in Petrolia, Ontario, which is a tiny town of about 3,000 people, an hour southwest of London, Ontario. My father was a teacher and my mother was a nurse. My grandmother was actually the first woman to be elected to the board of education. She and my grandfather worked together in a small business.
When I look at that, I certainly realize I had great role models who were working women. In my entire life growing up I looked to a mother and a grandmother who were working. I had a father who I guess in this day and age would be called gender blind. He certainly believed that we could do anything we wanted to do—and there were two girls in the family.
I nearly didn't go to university, but my father encouraged me to try it for one year, and said if I didn't like it I could do something else. So of course I continued with university. It made me realize that a lot of choices are made by young girls at various points in their lives, and the environment in which you grow up is important. As I said, I was fortunate to have good role models.
I was also raised in a very frugal environment. My parents were products of the Depression, so they grew up during the Depression. I certainly wasn't used to having things handed to me. I worked from the time I was about 15 years old. I always had a summer job and worked to support myself.
So I went to university and thought I wanted to have a career in social work. I decided in my fourth year that I wasn't going to do that. I had been working as a telephone operator part-time while going to university to help pay for my tuition. I was offered a job by Bell Canada in a management training program, so I kind of fell into business. It was back to making choices.
I did that and had quite a wonderful career, but some obstacles were occasionally put in my way. I remember being offered a job, and I was one of the first women to be offered this job. It was a very non-traditional job for women. It was working in a plant. For those of you who aren't familiar with a plant in telecommunications, it's one of those buildings with no windows. That's where all the equipment is, so you can switch calls around the world.
My friends told me, “You have to be out of your mind to take that job. It's a career-ender. You don't have the technical skills.” However, I made the choice and decided I would try it. I thought the worst that could happen was that I would get fired, and that was not life-threatening; it would just mean another choice. So I did that job.
My first week was pretty horrendous. My boss wouldn't talk to me. He was one of those crusty old plant managers, if you can picture him, and he did not believe that women belonged in this department. So finally after a week he called me and said, “Well, I guess we'd better talk.” He went on to tell me that he did not agree that I should be working there, he was forced to take me, but out of a bad lot I was probably the best. So I saw a little window of opportunity, and we ended up having a great working relationship. In fact, he ended up promoting me. So I think that teaches a lesson about resilience and persistence.
Again, I could have made a choice and said, I'm not going to put up with this, I'm going to go off and do something else, but I didn't. With Bell, I had over 13 moves, so again choices were made. I chose to relocate, which helped my career, but you make sacrifices when you do that. I had friends everywhere, but when you move to another city, you start again.
I found it a great career, but finally I reached a point where I had done just about every job in that company, and I had an opportunity to go to Lucent, which was a global company, another telecommunications company. I was in Ottawa at that time. It meant leaving Ottawa, moving again to Toronto, and I remember debating it, because had I stayed, I would have had a great pension at Bell. I remember a good friend of mine said, “I think it's a case of follow your passion or follow your pension, and knowing you, you're going to follow your passion.” So, I did. I moved to Toronto and did that job, and then in 2003 I was called and asked to lead the Richard Ivey School of Business, which again was another move and a totally different direction for me, something that I hadn't contemplated, but I made that move and am tremendously happy that I made it. I hope I can help many young women at the business school make those right choices.
So I'm just going to sum up here in terms of my own personal experience. I was thinking about the question you posed to us: what can government do?
I think a lot of what happens is about your own environment as you're growing up. It's about the personal choices you make. It is a balance. You have to make some sacrifices in some of these decisions you make. I think it's about resilience and persistence. Those are all the things that I think government can't help us with—those are the choices we make. But in terms of the things I think government can do, other than the things that you've already talked about around education and financial literacy and whatnot, I think that celebrating some of the successes of girls is really important. When I look back on my career, I do remember times where I was a little shaky in my confidence, and I was fortunate enough to have people who helped me along, or who boosted my confidence.
I think government can play a role in celebrating some of the successes of women, and I think you do. It makes a big difference to young girls to know that their accomplishments are being appreciated, and it helps build their confidence. Scholarships for women is another area. We have some private donors who have provided scholarships for women at the business school. I think that is a great incentive for women—and especially those who have affordability issues—to go on and pursue a business career, which is probably what I'm the most familiar with.
Then I think the last thing—this sounds like trying to solve all the troubles of the world here—government has a huge role to play in keeping the economy strong. When I think back and I think of friends who made choices and decisions, if the economy is strong some of those choices are actually easier to make. Women will have more choices if the economy is strong. We were talking earlier between the two of us, while you were in camera, about entry-level jobs. A strong economy gets young girls into the economy.
So I guess my advice would be keep doing what you're doing around the status of women, and particularly encouraging young girls. Then, secondly, the job of keeping the economy strong is so important I think to the success of young girls. In the business school, at the undergraduate level, we have 50% women. I see a lot of young, bright women, who I think are going to do very well, but it is continual work to keep encouraging them.
Should I end there? I think my 10 minutes might be close to—