Status of Women committee  I would agree. The issue tends to be about accessibility, timing, coordination, flexibility, and so on, and not so much the cost.

Status of Women committee  Yes.

Status of Women committee  I can certainly get you that breakdown. I don't have it in front of me. My first instinct would be to say they are younger than the average age in the industry. We've seen a significant number of female hires in the last decade compared to what there was three decades ago.

Status of Women committee  In the industry today, I believe it is 46 or 47 years old. And about a third of our industry today will be eligible to retire in the next five years.

Status of Women committee  That's right.

Status of Women committee  It depends how you quantify the mining industry. The way we do it, there are about 220,000 people who work in the mining industry today, and that's primarily in mineral exploration, mine construction, extraction, and land reclamation. It doesn't include all of the ancillary occup

Status of Women committee  There are a number of mining-specific programs in place for minority groups. We have a lot more in the area of aboriginal work readiness and essential skills training. We work with a number of community colleges and universities around that. Not a lot of female-specific mining p

Status of Women committee  We do a lot to promote that and we're doing it on a relatively modest budget. We have a number of career resources and career profile cards on which we profile women and different under-represented groups. We hold big sessions. We bring about 6,000 kids a year into what we call

Status of Women committee  So it's giving them that exposure to the industry. We reach youth in a number of different ways, through social media, Facebook, and so on, but I'd say it's done on a relatively modest budget.

Status of Women committee  We went through the same thing. A number of mining companies have tried either to set up daycare in the community in which they operate or to support those daycare centres financially or in other ways. What was interesting was that, for small communities in which both spouses o

Status of Women committee  I agree. Hearing stories like that is just horrible. I think in our sector when we surveyed women they did identify parental leave as a major barrier to upward mobility. When we asked employers the same question, they didn't. So there is a disconnect.

Status of Women committee  Exactly. But I think it speaks to the point that there is a disconnect between what female employees perceive to be issues and what employers perceive to be issues. I think even raising that disconnect to employers, hopefully, will help them to address some of it.

Status of Women committee  We have, absolutely, about what matters most. The number one factor is not compensation. The number one factor is all about applying the skills you've learned and about professional development and training along the way. Compensation and benefits are usually second or third on

Status of Women committee  I agree. For sure we see the same thing in our sector. I think what also contributes to that attrition are the conditions that in our case, in the mining sector, are specific to our industry, things like the rural and remote nature of the industry. You can do that for a few year

Status of Women committee  Sure. It's a question we've been grappling with for quite some time. We looked at the motivators for an individual to select a career. We've studied this for both males and females and tried to find what drives career choices. Obviously salary is up there. If it was only a matter