Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would like to continue along the same lines as MP Murray, with regard to some of the information we're getting from statistics.
At the beginning of our study we were all given the book, the sixth edition of “Women in Canada: A Gender-based Statistical Report”. Every year the Government of Canada publishes this report, so we received this big thick stack. I wish I had it with me here today, but I have a couple of quotations from it and a few statistics I'd like to ask our witnesses about.
Maybe I missed it because I was chatting, but MP Murray mentioned some statistics on charities. I'm not sure where they came from. Perhaps they came from the same book, but if you could let us know at some point when it's your turn, I would appreciate that.
As for this sixth edition, let me just read to you a couple of sentences about labour market statistics. I quote:
Women in nearly all age groups were affected by the recent downturn in the labour market. Women aged 15 to 24 were particularly hard hit: their employment rate fell from 60.3% in 2008 to 57.1% in 2009. Even with this decline, they fared better than young men, whose employment rate dropped from 58.9% to 53.6% over the same period....
Certainly it’s a pattern of concern.
Madam Côté, is this the type of data that would be helpful to you when looking at these issues?