Status of Women Committee on Nov. 18th, 2014

[Jill Earthy]

Great.

The federal government is doing quite a bit right now, which is wonderful to see. With Futurpreneur Canada's position as a national organization, one of our big pieces is that we really like to partner with other organizations, certainly within each province. We have about 250 partners across the country, other non-profit organizations or entrepreneurial support organizations, some of which are also funded by the federal government. One suggestion even is helping to solidify or make those connections more solid.

One example I would say is the women's enterprise initiative networks. I believe there are four across the country. We work very closely with the Women's Enterprise Centre in British Columbia. It is funded primarily by Western Economic Diversification. We're always looking at ways that we can do more with less and partner and leverage, so any additional ideas or observations that the federal government has are great.

I think also continuing to support a lot of these initiatives and looking at what is going on across the country and how we can support.... I think funding existing programs and leveraging those is a huge thing. We certainly appreciate the support of the government on that.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Thank you very much.

My next question is for Hodan.

I was wondering what different challenges, if any, children born in Canada to immigrant and refugee parents face compared to children of Canadian parents.

[Hodan Nalayeh]

Very interesting. It's very diverse. A lot of times the children are facing a situation where they're coming from two different cultures. So they have one culture at home where it's the foreign country, and then one culture is the Canadian society. There may be some issues of balancing the two worlds and figuring out where a person fits in.

Also, a lot of it has to do with opportunity. Children, I believe, see and do. If children are not seeing opportunities outside of where they live, whether that's a lower economic area or not, they're not exposed to different cultural things, they're not exposed to seeing different opportunities in life, then their mindset is not going to be growing in that direction.

I think that's the biggest challenge for them.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

What is the single most important reason for your success, do you think? I know you certainly have accomplished a lot and I'm wondering what you would say is the most important reason that you have been as successful as you have been.

[Hodan Nalayeh]

I think part of it is the fact that my parents came early. We were one of the first Somali families in Canada. We arrived here in 1984 in Edmonton, Alberta, when there were no Somalis there.

I think part of it is that we had a little bit of a leg-up on integrating into society. Most Somalis have been here less than 30 years, so they're still catching up on how to figure the society out, how to blend in. I think many people don't understand that we're actually refugees. We come here as people coming from war. So there's a lot of trauma in the community, and I think that my parents coming early allowed us to integrate a little bit more and learn the system a little bit more.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Good. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

The floor now goes to Ms. Duncan. You have seven minutes.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I'd like to thank all our witnesses for their very powerful and important testimony.

I'm going to try to ask questions to each of you. I'm going to begin with Ms. Nalayeh.

What do you think are the challenges to women's prosperity in the Somali community? What is needed to overcome them? How can we best support the community?

[Hodan Nalayeh]

The community has a lot of barriers. As I said, the barrier that I see us facing is that we're not invited to the table. I think inclusion promotes diversity and it also promotes somebody feeling proud to also be part of Canadian society. One of the things that I'm always trying to push is that diversity is a two-way street. We all can learn from each other, and the problems that Somali women face in this society.... Obviously, there's a different culture and a lot of them may have come with large families. Some of them lost their husbands during the war, so they came as single mothers who are protected refugees in this country.

How do you work when you have eight children at home? How do you start a business if you have six children at home? That could be a huge barrier. If we give people the skills, the opportunity to see how things are done, how you get out of poverty, how you start a business, how you can have the mindset and grow so that you can take yourself from a low income to middle class, or to buying a home, I think that's our biggest challenge. It's reaching out. We don't see enough reaching out to our communities.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you so much, Ms. Nalayeh.

I'm now going to turn to Ms. Earthy. We know a pay gap exists between men and women. Does the pay gap exist for entrepreneurs?

[Jill Earthy]

Sorry, my apologies. Was that directed...? We are having a little bit of trouble hearing.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Ms. Earthy, yes, this is for you. Did you hear the question?

[Jill Earthy]

Okay, thank you.

So a pay gap, and are we seeing that for entrepreneurs as well.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Entrepreneurs, yes.

[Jill Earthy]

As was mentioned, what we're seeing is that more women are starting businesses, but fewer women are growing businesses. Therefore, they aren't maybe realizing the economic benefits of a larger business.

I know one thing that we certainly focus on through our work at Futurpreneur Canada and through our mentorship programs and other resources is helping women, in particular, but all people to understand how best to grow a business and make it viable, so that we can employ more people and stimulate the economy.

There's still more work to be done there.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thanks. Does data exist showing average...? It would be difficult to do.

If you could make three specific recommendations to this committee that you would like to see in the report, what would they be?

[Jill Earthy]

Certainly for me one recommendation is further support of our national MoMENTum program. We are seeing more and more people coming to us, particularly women, just seeking the mentorship piece. That is essential. I think we are well positioned because we do partner with other organizations within each province, so there is definitely a way to leverage that opportunity. I do think investing in mentorship is an excellent solution.

Another thing is funding, women investing in women. We've looked at a women-only fund or women-led investment funds.

The other piece that we are exploring is innovation. To speak further to Fariba's comment, we do need more women in innovation. We do need more women in science and technology. There is a need to look at women-led incubators or accelerators working with men, because as we indicated, this is such a key piece as well. The culture within those environments is not always conducive to women, so we need to look at different ways around that.

However, my number one recommendation absolutely would be to focus on increasing mentorship support for women across the country.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you so much.

Now I'm going to turn to Ms. Pacheleh.

It seems that securities regulators across the country are increasingly adopting or considering comply or explain. Do you think this is the first step or the last step in terms of women on boards?

[Fariba Pacheleh]

I'm not sure I understand the first part of your question.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Do you think explain or comply...?

[Fariba Pacheleh]

Oh yes. For women on boards, I think it's important to create that diversity in different ways, not just awards and pillories, but a change of the culture. To change the culture, you need to have some force at the beginning or it doesn't change.

I have an example for you. If you want to hire someone for your organization, whom do you hire? You hire someone you can connect with, someone you feel more comfortable working with. If you look at the boardrooms, most of the people are white males. It is definitely more difficult for them to connect with someone with an accent, a woman who doesn't have the same culture that they grew up with. You are living in Canada with so many women, especially in the STEM fields, in science, technology and engineering, who are immigrants and have accents. They don't know the culture.

The first step, I would say, is to have that comply or explain in the boardroom as a starting point to secure the future.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I appreciate that.

Can you speak to the pay inequity, the pay gap between men and women in the STEM fields, and what we can do to overcome it?

[Fariba Pacheleh]

That's a very good question, Kirsty.

There has been a lot of research in the last few years. It is totally known to everyone that this inequity exists. At this point the question is: what are the steps, solutions, and action items? What are the steps that we can take to overcome those issues?

I would recommend and request from this committee that it pay very close attention to the outcome of the B.C. Economic Forum, which was held in B.C. on October 24, 2014. It was about women as catalysts for growth. It had all those three tracks: women entrepreneurs, women in STEM, and women in diversity. The outcome was very focused on the solutions and action items. One specific area of that was the government.

I would definitely love to see that happening, and we are going to pay attention to the outcome of that, which is going to come up—

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you.

[Fariba Pacheleh]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you, Ms. Duncan.

Ms. Young, you have the floor for five minutes.