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The problem is that he’s not trying hard enough.

Trudeau doesn’t see it that way, of course. “We have to drive this change,” he said in Davos. “We know what needs to be done. It is well past time that we listen, learn, and finally, lead.”

The prime minister’s favourite example of what he’s done to get more women working is the Canada Child Benefit, the Harper-era family tax credit that the Liberal government overhauled to better target poorer parents. Trudeau said 90 per cent of the single mothers that qualify for a payment earn less than $60,000 per year, and receive $9,000 in tax-free benefits.

Trudeau’s child benefit may work as a socio-economic leveler, and it probably provides some economic stimulus, but it won’t do much to narrow the gender gap in the labour force.

Study after study by the IMF and others show that if a country really wants to unleash the economic potential of its women, then it must do something to reduce the burden of child care.

The child benefit obviously will help some families with those costs, but it’s not big enough to make a material difference in places such as Vancouver and Toronto, where the median cost of childcare each month is $1,360 and $1,758, respectively, according to the Centre for Policy Alternatives.

By comparison, the median monthly cost of child care in Montreal is a mere $168. Quebec heavily subsidizes daycare fees. To be sure, that comes at a cost: the province has some of the country’s highest tax rates in the country. But if the goal is to get more women working, the province is without equal; almost 87 per cent of Quebec women between 25 and 54 worked in 2017, compared with about 91 percent of men, according to Statistics Canada.