Thank you.
Evidence of meeting #19 for Status of Women in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was bdc.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #19 for Status of Women in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was bdc.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:50 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, HCMWorks Inc., Business Development Bank of Canada
—for companies owned on the TSX is too low.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc
Thank you very much.
We got the point and that was a very important point to make.
4:50 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, HCMWorks Inc., Business Development Bank of Canada
Good, excellent.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
Madam Chair, I'll be splitting my time with my colleague Ms. Sellah.
I just wanted to put on the record, and perhaps I didn't make it clear, that the report I was raising was actually a BDC report from 2004 called “Best Practices for Women Entrepreneurs in Canada”. Child care was something that was outlined as being necessary, and it's something that we hear about time and time again from women, so I certainly wanted to clarify the record on that front.
In terms of SSHRC, I just want to finish my question. I realize it was at the very end of my time.
A number of years ago, we were very concerned about the earmarking of funds by the Government of Canada for business-related studies in particular, which was a departure from previous ways that SSHRC had stated its funding. There's no question that for many women, innovation and leadership are gained through the schools of management and finance and business, but these are also overwhelmingly male schools. I'm wondering, with regard to the research funding that SSHRC gives, whether it's to students or to professors or to research chairs in those schools, whether you have a gender breakdown of who that funding is going to.
4:50 p.m.
Executive Director, Canada Research Chairs Program, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
That's a good question. I don't have the numbers off the top of my head for all SSHRC funding.
I manage the Canada research chairs program, so I can talk about those numbers. We do have the funding broken down by gender and by disciplines and subdisciplines. I could provide the numbers, but my sense from anecdotal evidence is that the proportion of female chairholders in the management disciplines is equivalent to their proportion as faculty members, and it is one of the highest in all disciplines.
4:55 p.m.
NDP
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
Great. If you had those numbers in terms of chairs as well as professors and students—
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Canada Research Chairs Program, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Yes.
4:55 p.m.
NDP
4:55 p.m.
NDP
Djaouida Sellah NDP Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
My question is for Ms. Benzvy Miller.
In 2005, the OECD conducted a study on the labour force participation of women. That study found that public assistance to help with child care tended to increase the participation of women. I assume that this is still the case.
I have friends who are young female entrepreneurs who are highly educated and have started small businesses. They have told me that they find it really difficult to achieve a good work-life balance. The same problem has been noted among young women who want to enter politics.
I would like to know if the Department of Industry has introduced any measures to help women entrepreneurs with child care. Is there a national strategy in that area?
4:55 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Small Business, Tourism and Marketplace Services, Department of Industry
The short answer is no. I don't know of any such program at this time. If there were such a program, it would not necessarily fall under the Department of Industry, since we don't offer those kinds of direct assistance programs.
Do you know, John, if there was one?
No, there isn't.
John was there before I arrived. I have been with the Department of Industry since last summer. I don't think there has ever been one in the history of the department.
4:55 p.m.
NDP
Djaouida Sellah NDP Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Although I was not able to get Ms. Fournier's document, I did a little research of my own in the Distinctive Women magazine. I learned that you began working from home, while caring for your young twins.
Would you not agree that developing child care programs would allow women to be more successful faster and easier in their chosen career?
4:55 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, HCMWorks Inc., Business Development Bank of Canada
May I respond in English?
4:55 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, HCMWorks Inc., Business Development Bank of Canada
When I had my children it was incredibly difficult, and that's one of the reasons that I started a business. That's one of the reasons that I needed to start a business. If my children were sick, not going to an office wasn't too tolerated in business, and I knew I was being disadvantaged as a result. My kids were probably three and four and running around on the floor, and I was working on my laptop at the time. I was living in Quebec and there was really no available day care, even though there was a subsidy of $5.00 a day, or something to that effect. There was nothing available at the time. So I struggled with it from the moment they were born until they were in grade 1.
4:55 p.m.
NDP
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
Thank you so much for being here today.
I really regret the limited amount of time that we have. Certainly, it would be my request that we perhaps bring some of you back at some future point in time in this study, because I know that you have a wealth of information to share with us and we'd like to capture that.
My comments are going to be based primarily on digging a little bit deeper in terms of what you've already provided, and to ask you also to perhaps provide us with some written comments after some reflection after today. We are open to that, and of course accept comments and thoughts or research, any of those things. If you are twigged by anything today in terms of what we've been talking about, please feel free to do that.
Given how much our demographics in Canada have changed, I would like to ask each of you to do some thinking around immigrants and newcomers to Canada. What has changed in the last 10 years? Our country,s demographics have certainly changed. In terms of your programs and the programs that the Government of Canada offers in all the different areas that we've been talking about, as well as obviously in academia, what has changed in terms of the way you are providing your programs and services, primarily, I guess, to immigrants, but also in terms of outreach to them? Specifically, do you market your programs to immigrant groups? If so, I wonder if you do that in the first language of those groups, because their English may be at 60% or 70%, and they would feel more comfortable using their first language.
The second question I would ask is around our global markets action plan which the Government of Canada announced in February to turn our 150 consular offices around the world into trade offices. Have you thought about tapping into that? With the notion that we have a huge diaspora in Canada from all different countries, how can you turn your programs and services into feeders for increasing trade for Canadians around the world? That would be my second question.
Now for my third question. Ms. Boutin—and perhaps, Professor Konrad, you can feed into this—are you aware of where in SSHRC programs or the chairs in academia researchers at their top levels have become entrepreneurs, or where in programs where we have funded research at the top levels, they're transforming into entrepreneurs or getting into the marketplace? For example, I recently toured the University of British Columbia with the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology. They are developing an incredible amount of new product. How are we doing that in Canada? How are women specifically doing that in Canada? I'd be very interested, and I think the committee would be in that whole area as well.
Finally, there's an incredible amount of expertise and knowledge in this room and beyond. I would like to know, for the purposes of this study and for our government, what you would recommend, going back into your respective areas and sectors, to us as a government? Where is the low-hanging fruit? What are the things that we can do to tweak programs, to increase application criteria? For example, where Ms. Gale is concerned with the federal Business Development Bank, where can we really tweak some small things in order to encourage more growth in this area, more prosperity for the women in Canada, etc.? I think we've touched on a whole number of different things. It would be great to spend an hour with each of you, but I don't think we have that time.
How much more time do we have, Ms. Chair?
5 p.m.
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
Thirty seconds. Oh dear.
Maybe what I would like to say in the 30 seconds is that I'm also a single mother of twins. I was also a foster parent of seven children, as well as being a stepmother. Nobody in this room, I think, has more children than I have had. I ran my own consulting business nationally for 18 years. So I completely understand some of the challenges that are in front of women, the notion that it certainly takes a village to raise your children. Having said that, some of us are of a different brand, or maybe we just want to succeed and we will do whatever it takes.
Thank you so much for your time.