Tina Strehlke, the CEO of the Minerva Foundation for B.C. Women, describes the policy as a "nudge" for parents aimed at normalizing the societal change that it's not just women who take leave. "It can help to normalize and neutralize for women that they are not seen as the worker who is going to leave, take time out or suffer those consequences of being out of the labour market for a long period of time."

Forty-seven per cent of undergraduate students and more than half of graduate students in the forest program are now women, and a third of the faculty are female, she told CBC Early Edition host Rick Cluff, . "We see a big change in the numbers of women receiving professional degrees that relate to forestry," Aitken said. "We're now at about gender balance in terms of our educational programs.