the charts on gender issues. Not anymore. Now, we're at number 21, according to the latest figures from the World Economic Forum's annual gender gap ranking! Over orange juice, we listened to her explain how things have gradually shifted so that despite positive changes including women's increasing participation in the workforce and growing presence in academia, overall conditions have not improved. For example, while more women went to work between 1997 and 2007, the total income they were taking home wasn't matching the trend.  In fact, they were working more hours, with the same level of unpaid work, with only some growth in incomes, somehow getting "stalled." The lack of an adequate childcare strategy helped explain part of that stall. So did the slashing of public programs and what Professor Lahey referred to as de-taxation (all of this before 10a.m., no joke). And since the mid-1980s, women's incomes have continually failed to keep up with men's. But the real zinger in her lecture was when she pointed out that public tax expenditures, which she described as "a giant machine running in the background," leads to 60 per cent financial rewards for men, and only 40 per cent for women. She argued that if Canadian laws were "100 per cent equal, men would be $8.4 billion poorer, and women $4 billion richer." Did I mention she's an expert on taxation and tax policy? The future isn't much rosier, concluded Professor Lahey, suggesting that Conservative plans on income-splitting will be devastating for