Status of Women committee  Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to speak to you today about economic leadership and prosperity for women in Canada. My name is Janice McDonald and I am a serial entrepreneur in the music and apparel industry. I'm delighted to contribute to the

Status of Women committee  I've done more than that.

Status of Women committee  I think that mentorship can start immediately. I echo Ms. Roy's comments in regard to agitating and moving forward. I think it's really important for women, particularly young women, to look around for mentors. It doesn't have to be in a formal program. The one I mentioned, women

Status of Women committee  In my experience, the relationship is rich because it's two ways. The mentee is benefiting from the expertise of the mentor, but similarly the mentor has the opportunity to learn new things from the mentee. It is a very...I wouldn't say it's a universal approach. The mentee wants

Status of Women committee  In the formal setting of WCT, as an example, that would be women in the communications and technology industry who are typically interested in moving their career forward, but forward could also be laterally to a different aspect of the industry, etc. In an informal way, which I

Status of Women committee  That's the Cherie Blair Foundation.

Status of Women committee  Yes, out of the U.K.

Status of Women committee  I'm not aware of anything similar in Canada. The strength of that program is that they use technology to allow mentors and mentees to get together across distances and time zones. It often is women who have very modest businesses and they're trying to really grow their business

Status of Women committee  Absolutely.

Status of Women committee  Sure. Thank you. I finished grad school and opened my first business with my partner straight out of grad school. I would say it was the beauty of youth and that we didn't realize things couldn't work out. We just thought it would work. Fortunately we were lucky. We picked an in

Status of Women committee  We were lucky because we had friends and family who supported us in a financial way to launch our business. That was exceptionally wonderful but it is not necessarily the typical path. I think access to capital is a critical issue for business in general, but for women in particu

Status of Women committee  I'd like to say that it's vastly improved, but it's still a challenge. The research will show that it's harder for women. It's harder for women start-ups. I think Ms. Roy made the comment that we have to do more and be better just to be equal. I think that's also true, even in th

Status of Women committee  I think education is critical. Business is so complex now, and I think tremendous resources are available online, even if you're not in a position necessarily to go through a traditional institution. A lot of amazing information is available. Also the whole focus is different. Th

Status of Women committee  As I mentioned, in 1992 when I originally wrote on this, we considered women one of the two genders. Obviously, things have changed now, and needed to in a whole bunch of ways, but we weren't a diversity. Change has been slow. I go back and forth because change has been slow, but

Status of Women committee  I think that benefit corporations are tremendous. Conscious capitalism says the triple bottom line is people, profit, and planet, although lately purpose is being added to that as well. I think where benefit corporations are interesting to me is they change the legal framework an