i'm going to make terence's point for him, because he doesn't seem able to make it himself. there's a good possibility that he doesn't understand what he's throwing around, either; the tactic here is merely to cast doubt on the results, not to actually explain why they're being misapplied.

there's three issues, here, not one.

1) equal pay for equal work. that is, increasing the salaries of women that already have jobs so that they match those of their male counterparts, for the same work. i can't think of any way to articulate opposition to this point that isn't chauvinist, so let's assume this is something everybody agrees with, in principle. this would, indeed, produce an instant boost to gdp, by definition, although i'm not going to pull numbers out of my rear. this can and really should be legislated relatively easily, although enforcement might be a bit rough, at least at first.....i think if they pass the law, the culture will adjust, because who honestly disagrees with this? it has potential to be a systemic change in how people, women, are compensated for their labour.

2) making full use of women in the labour market. that is, finding jobs for all the women that don't currently have one. this wouldn't just create an instant boost in gdp, but would even create an instant multiplier, as a good percentage of these women will now require child care of some sort, and perhaps new cars, as well. this number should be higher than the last one. but, this pre-supposes that enough jobs exist for full employment across both genders, and that's basically pre-supposing the growth that the policy would produce. if we could create enough jobs to do this, one wouldn't need a gender policy to enforce, because the market would, indeed, adjust.

3) increasing diversity in the workplace. if we're talking about replacing people, rather than creating new jobs, as we are, then there is really no reason to think this will have any effect on gdp, save for changes in talent, and there's not any reason to think those changes in talent will be positive, if the hiring strategy is purely ethnic.

what terence wants to say here, but can't put together, is that trudeau is kind of merging these ideas together, and mixing them up in a sort of confusing way that is designed more as a pr strategy than a policy proposal. he's presenting (1) and (3) as ways to achieve (2), and then arguing that investing in women, by itself, will increase gdp. maybe trudeau is, himself, legitimately dazed by the numbers, but i doubt the party is.

so, is a policy of increasing diversity going to increase gdp? well that's not what the studies say. what the studies say is that,

1) if you increase salaries for 40% of the workforce, or whatever it is nowadays, then gdp will go up. this is tautological.
2) if enough jobs were created so that women increase their participation levels to that of men, then gdp would increase by x amount. again: i'm not weighing in on the value of x. but, a substantial increase, here, is tautological: more jobs means more demand exists which means higher gdp. that does not require further study, that's a definition. and, that definition unquestionably implies diminishing returns, as the participation numbers balance out. what requires further study is epsilon, where x +/- e is the corrected range for the gdp numbers.

what do i think?

well, the tautologies are what they are. and, as mentioned, equal pay for equal work is really not controversial, is it? but, the rest of it is muddled up.

no diversity policy will create jobs. you need to find ways to increase aggregate demand, for that.

so, the end goals will mostly not follow from the proposed policy.

but, as is often the case with these wonky policies that the liberals have brought in under this government, i don't find myself all that opposed. i don't know if they plan on inserting quotas, or what. my take on affirmative action is that it was something that was worth a try, but that it always ought to have been temporary, until the workforce balances out a little. it should have come with a kind of sunset clause that was meant to evaluate the success of the program. by any metric, affirmative action has not succeeded in it's stated intent. at this point, i don't see any point in repeating failed approaches. i'd like to try something else.

but, i have to ask the question: how necessary is this, really? and, i'm not convinced it's nearly as necessary as some would claim. i want to look at things like trendlines. are companies becoming more diverse, as the country goes through changes? are more second generation immigrants getting hired? my understanding is that second generation canadians are really the most successful segment of society at this point, and that they're doing just fine in outcompeting everybody else - although some of them may still be dragging around cultural attitudes about women that white canadians largely dropped in the last generation, or the one before it.

i mean, if you want to talk about intersectionality, ask yourself this question: would businesses that have strong influences by men reared in other cultures be more likely or maybe less likely to hire minority women?

so, not only are we getting a false solution to an actual problem, but the more important data required to get to a real solution isn't being analysed at all.

but, terence at least knows that trudeau's feminist strategy is about politics, and not about policy. so, maybe i'm the one who missed the point, after all.

http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/terence-corcoran-the-dodgy-studies-behind-trudeaus-radical-experiment-to-socially-engineer-canadian-businesses

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.