Government Operations committee  That's really the key observation here. The decision moment at which gender equity is struck or not is the selection of the cabinet itself, and that's a prime ministerial power and competency, and that's where commitment to gender equity tells, who you put into finance and so on.

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  I think there were some opportunities taken, and some obviously missed. We haven't ended up after those cabinet shuffles with a cabinet that, in terms of power profile, is gender equal, so you could say they didn't address that. The real point is also how we talk about what we'

Government Operations committee  No, I wouldn't. I would look at what particular ministries women were occupying. There is a hierarchy of ministries that is important and profiled more heavily, and we've had some—

Government Operations committee  I would say it's dishonest. We spend a lot of time in law thinking about what kinds of arrangements constitute equality in the world. A notion of substantive equality is juxtaposed with the idea of formal equality. Formal equality is a hollow shell of form, where you can cast a

Government Operations committee  It's not the sense of gender equality that anybody who's an expert in the area would say—

Government Operations committee  The danger—and I keep coming back to this—is that if we shut off conversations by pointing to form and ignoring substance, we're not going to change the world. We're going to just cement it in its current unequal cast and foreclose the kind of conversation we need to have.

Government Operations committee  My heart is still at UVic.

Government Operations committee  Well, that's a leading question because of course that's a real concern.

Government Operations committee  I think a very important point to make is that the substance of gender equity is going to take much harder work and some redistribution of who has power and who gets access to resources in these positions of leadership. To claim that you've reached gender equity when it's observa

Government Operations committee  Well, my understanding was that some of the material in the press release mentioned this as a gender equity measure. It's really that framing of the bill that I'm assuming the government did purposefully. That's what I'm speaking to.

Government Operations committee  I can be brief. First, I'll mention pay equity legislation: move it up on the legislative agenda. Second, there are real problems with employment insurance in terms of access to parental and maternity leave and basic unemployment insurance benefits for women because of the way t

Government Operations committee  Thanks. You've definitely opened the conversation up, and I'm going to take a piece of that opportunity, but not a whole chunk of it. I did think about what we would want the federal government to do. I want to reiterate the point that it's critical to be clear about what is or

Government Operations committee  It's a pleasure to be here. I really have three simple points to make. I'll make those quickly and then I'm happy to have a conversation in more depth. The first point I want to make is that this particular piece of legislation really doesn't, as far as I can see, have much to d

Status of Women committee  I concur. I think the methods we're employing clearly aren't working, and it is time to think about quotas. There are a variety of different ways to implement quotas. With a sensitive and structured sort of approach, we can do much better at getting the kind of outcomes that we