A few months ago, I hired an equally qualified woman for less money than I offered a man for the same position.

This is a story about unconscious bias.

#sktech #womenintech #womeninstem #EqualPayDay #cdnpoli #skpoli #Equalpay for equal labour continues to plague every economy and corporation around the world, with the median pay for women remaining stubbornly 15-20% lower than men, even in countries working hard to do better with legislation, education, and systemic interventions.

For #InternationalWomensDay, I got asked by @Siemens what I thought was the biggest thing we could do to improve the participation and experience of women in the workplace.

I said #childcare.

Flexible, affordable, accessible, quality childcare. Women struggle in the workplace because of the real effects of raising a family in a society structurally-based on stay-at-home mothers AND the perception of employers who feel the need to 'manage the risk' that women will become pregnant.

academic.oup.com/occmed/article…

An employee came to me last week and asked to move to 80% time. Her husband, she said, was taking on some extra responsibility and they were having trouble keeping the kids on track during remote learning.

I said no.

#sktech #skpoli #cdnpoli #COVID19SK #covid19 Women in the workplace have been disproportionately affected by COVID, erasing decades of gains. And it's easy to see why when women typically earn less (even for the same jobs) than their partners. forbes.com/sites/advisor/…

Clear, cogent communication is a critical component of crisis management. I realised today that my mental health is poor in large part because of a cognitive dissonance I experience between what is happening and what I hear from our leaders. #covid19sk This is what I would like to hear:

Saskatchewan, I know this is scary. We went through most of the pandemic with very little exposure to COVID. Although most of us struggled with the financial costs and mental & physical health toll of the pandemic, very few of us got sick.

Today is the #yxe election, again, so I'm going to talk about one of my favourite subjects: taxes.

In particular, "why are my taxes going up every year faster than inflation in Saskatoon?"

The short answer? Because your parents made poor decisions. The long answer is a bit harder. We're suffering from an infrastructure debt common to many cities our size and age that's the result of rapid growth in the 50's-70's, a false assumption that low taxes increased competitiveness, poor density planning up until the last decade,

Over a year ago, our neighbour's wife and kids escaped him. We and a few community members facilitated this, including finding a place for them to stay while they waited for a shelter, funding them in spending money, paying for the divorce lawyer, and much more. In addition to a civil divorce creeping forward, there are criminal proceedings. The police officer responsible for the case described it as among the worst cases of abuse he'd seen in his lengthy career.

We've been continuing to support this family, since.