This is a heads-up for the other committee members for our discussion at the end of April about changes in witnesses, just to give you a bit of the flavour for what I'm seeing from my seat and for some of the witnesses who we might propose.
My sense is that the first part of our motion on the economic insecurity of women hasn't been fully fleshed out by the witnesses that I, as well as other committee members, had proposed around the higher incidence of poverty among women and the factors that contribute to it. I'm also seeing that we have seven panels that are dedicated to trade, STEM, and entrepreneurship, but only one meeting devoted to indigenous women, one meeting for women with economic challenges, which includes women with different abilities, and no meetings about young women, elderly women, or immigrant women. I would urge committee members to think about that to get us ready for our deadline at the end of April.
I will be proposing paring down some of the seven panels that we have now, and I'll be proposing some other suggestions. For example, there's CARP, the Canadian Association of Retired Persons. They've done a lot of analysis. They might be helpful for us to call on. Also, there's B.C.'s Federation of Students. I have only a local organization on immigrant women, but maybe other people have an idea of a national group that might talk about how we might be able to remove barriers.
