Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to the Status of Women panel.
We had witness testimony a couple of weeks ago by Kate McInturff from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. She talked about different ways of categorizing voluntary versus involuntary work, and we were looking at the Statistics Canada table that lists caring for children as a voluntary reason for a woman taking part-time work. The witness said her information was that last year more than 700,000 women in Canada were working part time for what they called involuntary reasons, and 275,000 of them cited the lack of access to child care as a reason. They considered that to be involuntary. If there had been child care, then they would have been able to work full time. Because they didn't have access to universal child care, they had to work part time, and as we know, this has compounding effects on a woman's place in the economy.
I'd like to hear whether the department, along with Statistics Canada, is reconsidering that approach so we can get good data on the reasons women get pushed into part-time and precarious work.