It would be useful if the G&M had printed the entire story instead of the condensed version so there would be a better understanding of what was said. I personally don't think this was an attack on women or their math skills. It's more like a comment on the simplistic Conservative idea that every problem can be solved by tax cuts,

The reality of this story is that all Canadian cities are under-funded thanks to an outmoded tax system that sees huge amounts of revenue, in the form of income and excise taxes, go to the the federal government while cities have to scrape by on property taxes. For our cities to thrive and be internationally competitive we need to overhaul this broken system to ensure cities have adequate, stable funding.