First of all, I want to thank you for your testimony. I've learned some interesting statistics.
I agree with you, Professor, that even though there may be only 1% of the female population that may be interested in politics, that still amounts to a lot of women. I've talked to so many who love politics and want to run and who ask about how to get involved and how to run a nomination. I think we, as politicians ourselves, are great resources to new candidates. We can be that pack for them to give them the guidance they need along the way. A lot of them have questions. What is the work-life balance like? Do you have concerns over your safety? Have you had somebody attack you? A lot of those types of questions go through their mind because of things that do occur and things they've heard. Quite honestly, sometimes I have to tell them the truth about things I have gone through, but sometimes I hesitate a little bit, not wanting to be too honest and too truthful, because I don't want to scare them into not running. I want them to run, and I want to encourage them, but there's also a lot of stuff that I see. We have a gender-balanced cabinet, but after having that gender-balanced cabinet, we saw a lot of the media and even the opposition often criticizing the women who have stepped into those roles, saying they were just there as pawns. The language that I just heard from Ms. Leitch is “didn't earn it”.
What would you say about that? I feel as though we're self-destructive in our way in Parliament, where we're calling each other out for not having earned it yet. We have ministers like Chrystia Freeland who are definitely earning it and doing a fantastic job on an international scale.