Part of it is looking around at corporate boards. When only one in five seats is filled by a woman in a country like Canada, we have a problem, and we're working to address that.
Bill C-25, which is in the Senate right now, adopts a “comply or explain” approach. With that, in the new budget there is an opportunity to incentivize and recognize corporations that are doing well around gender and overall diversity in their corporations.
On International Women's Day I also announced $858,000 in funding for the Global Compact, which is an arm of the UN. They'll be working with some 20 champions in the private sector who are demonstrating this kind of leadership—folks like IKEA, for example. They'll be working on determining a blueprint, essentially, for what the barriers are to ensuring greater diversity in workplaces and how the private sector can be part of this work.
In terms of representation of women in under-represented fields—science, trades, technology, engineering, mathematics—there's funding in the budget to address that. There's up to $6,000 in grants for women studying trades, to be able to pay for equipment, for example. That's one barrier removed, to get them to high-wage fields. We also know that pre-apprenticeship training is important; getting that interest early on will be critical. Then there's $1.6 billion to a women's entrepreneurship strategy. When women are able to determine their destinies and create jobs for others, it's better for everyone.
These are just some of the ways we're working to address some of those contributors to the wage gap.