Status of Women committee  I, too, am the mother of a daughter, who is 28. She's a manager of a bank branch. It's quite fun when she phones me for some management advice these days. So I'm getting a bit smarter as it goes. My advice to her was what I talked about earlier, which is that—and I think, Ms. Day, you also mentioned it—in this day and age she has choices, and she shouldn't go for equality.

Status of Women committee  I think you're quite right. I think our natural inclination is, as Ms. Day also mentioned, to want to be advisers, to want to support. I think it's a bit of who we are. I will say that for companies that do make a point of putting females in leadership roles, it's extraordinary what happens, really.

Status of Women committee  I think in several ways. First I would say that any group that has diversity will make better decisions because they bring different perspectives. Certainly any group that I've been part of with different cultures and different genders has always made better decisions. I think the research supports that, so I think there is that piece.

Status of Women committee  That is correct.

Status of Women committee  I'm absolutely aware of any number of circumstances on the data around salaries for women being significantly less than those for men, but I would say that when you're working in a resource sector, which is a heavily unionized environment and a very structured salary environment, there's no room for that.

Status of Women committee  It's actually quite half and half. The first half of my career were all line roles. They were all either foreman roles or very much in the field in the operations and the plant roles. The second half of my career has been more administrative. I actually have considered it to be development.

Status of Women committee  It's a very good point about women in the trades, and it's really a missed opportunity to date. I do think that one of the best ways is actually to get into the high school system. Around junior high school age is the age where the research shows that young women start to differentiate themselves from the sciences and also some of the more practical nature of work.

Status of Women committee  One of the earliest barriers actually comes when you want to apply for a job. Right away, you look at a resumé. In the case of the resource sector, certainly in the earlier days it would be a man reading the resumé and he would look for experience that was very clear to him, very mine-focused, that type of thing.

Status of Women committee  I think so. I think the policy around understanding the importance of child care, I think is a critical one that we have spoken of already. I think there are tools that can be provided at Canada job centres and other places that really assist in making resumés that are, perhaps, more well-rounded, that really assist in terms of the interview process to put them through their paces in a relatively safe environment, so they have a much better chance of success.

Status of Women committee  Maybe Ms. Day would be better to answer that. I personally never worked from home because I could never do it. I could never focus. Maybe your suggestion is a very good one.

Status of Women committee  I would just add that I use an expression—it's a Tony Robbins expression—that talks about “dancing with fear”. I think one of the barriers for women is to actually be bold enough to dance with fear. To move from where you are today to being an empowered senior leader in the resource sector, there's going to be some very scary moments for you.

Status of Women committee  I would absolutely support what Ms. Day says. At Suncor, we follow two models. The first is at our head office in Calgary, where we provide a day care called the Pumpkin Patch, and so for employees located there, it's physically available to them. We've taken a different approach, as you can imagine, in many of our remote sites in Fort McMurray or farther away.

Status of Women committee  I could go first. I'm not qualified to answer the question on the merits of a national child care program. As my own personal experience, I actually was in a mining town that did not have child care and I had to sort of be on my own when my children were very young. It's very important, though, that we have a federal look at child care and the best choices.

Status of Women committee  Thank you. I think you land a little by accident. I went to engineering school and I didn't actually realize, back in 1976, that there weren't a lot of female engineers. Frankly, when you're 17 and you're a young woman and you're in a class with three women and 50 guys, it's not all bad.

Status of Women committee  Thank you very much. It is really a pleasure to be here this afternoon. Can you hear me?