Thank you. I appreciate your advocacy and research, because we need to break through this plateau that we've reached.
I'm going to switch my focus to Dr. Lumpkin. Thank you for being here today.
I want to start with a university-related story, just in response to my colleague MP Falk's comments about women entering construction. The university in my riding is Vancouver Island University. I've been hearing from the people who are training the heavy equipment operators—which are increasingly expensive and high-tech. This whole generation grew up on computer games. They say in my region, with its mining and forestry companies, that they're biasing their hiring towards women because they are more respectful of this extremely expensive equipment. They have a more subtle touch, so they have fewer equipment rollovers and so on.
But I'll leave that with you in your work, both on the university side and leadership.
I'd like to hear a bit more about the work you've done in Halifax, especially with YWCA. Perhaps you can offer the committee some reflections on the kinds of economic struggles of some of the women you've been personally mentoring, and especially the effects of poverty on their even entering the workplace in the first place.