The first big problem with having a wage gap like that is that it means women are not working full time, full year, permanently, but are in much more precarious positions. We're not taking full advantage, as an economy, as a society, of all of the talent that has been so laboriously identified, developed, and then made available through the wage force.
The second big loss is that as those wages are not paid and those incomes are not earned, governments are not earning revenues on their human capital investments, which they should be expecting to reap as a consequence of that.
Thirdly, they are then part of the shrinking cohort of women who are available to be the role models, which we're now hearing from these very small, localized programs are actually what are needed.
The whole problem could be addressed much more efficiently by simply stepping up and enforcing the Canadian human rights code, enforcing the federal contractors program. It could be addressed by getting the kinds of regulatory reporting, monitoring, and investigative mechanisms in place that would make it possible to bring the profound shift that has taken place in the educational and employment sectors into visibility, so that the public at large is aware that this is a new problem, a growing problem.
It's like trying to put a forest fire out with a teacup. It is just not capable of turning things around.