Women and men are rallying across the province to bring attention to Ontario's gender wage gap.
Monday marks equal pay day, or the day when women in Ontario will finally earn when men did the previous year.
Statistics show there is still a 31.5% wage gap between what men and women earn.
"People often will say 'I thought we solved that? I didn't realize there was still a wage gap' and the problem is that because there is a lack of awareness we still have a wage gap. In fact, the wage gap went backwards, it used to be 28% and now it's at 31.5%," says Linda Davis with the Business and Professional Women's Organization of Ontario. "Women tend to work more with people and men tend to work more with things. Is it a societal thing that we value things more than we value people? We need to look at that and get that conversation started."
Davis has been appointed to a new provincial steering committee focused on minimizing the wage gap in Ontario. She was also a part of a demonstration in downtown London at King St. and Talbot St. Monday afternoon.
The steering committee will meet with groups across the province to take a look at women's roles in the workforce, in the families and in the community. Following the year of consultations the committee will make recommendations to the government on how to bridge the gender wage gap.
