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Surely that’s a pillow to rest on in these fractious times for the oil and gas industry. Amid all the distractions about pipelines — getting Canada’s oil and gas to world markets, breaking the land lock around Alberta’s No. 1 industry — it’s more than encouraging to know that the really more pressing, more fundamental issues of the oil patch are not being sidelined.

Taking note that “Canada’s energy industry is gender-imbalanced” (than which there can be no darker stain on a nation’s social justice conscience) Natural Resources Canada issued a statement that Canada’s prime minister, the Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, “has made gender equality a priority for Canada’s G7 Presidency.” It will be dedicating one of its five main themes to Advancing Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in the energy industry.

Canada is leading by example to address the issue of gender equality in the G7 energy agenda. We will continue to engage key private sector and public sector leaders on this important issue and take actions to improve gender equality, particularly in the energy sector

Following such assurances it is surely no surprise that they are lighting bonfires of celebration and relief in Fort McMurray as I type.

As the true poet-laureate of this country, the late and genuinely lamented Leonard Cohen so insightfully observed, “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” Knowing that at present female representation in the energy industry is at an abysmal 24 per cent, there was a nugget of comfort in the news of the 8,000 jobs lost to the Trans Mountain court decision. At least most of the laid off, 76 per cent in all, were men!

In these days of progressive and enlightened government, under the aegis of a male-feminist prime minister this must be — I hesitate to call it good news — welcome as a signal of retributive social justice.