Status of Women committee  Use whatever power you have to influence the education that young women are getting. Look at all of the platforms you have for telling and celebrating the stories of women entrepreneurs and helping them get access to federal buying power, whatever kind of procurement it is. Also

Status of Women committee  You're absolutely right that child care is a huge issue, but all of self-employment or employment benefits are an issue for women entrepreneurs as well. The more we can extend those to women who are in unconventional career roles, the better because we're going to see more of the

Status of Women committee  One thing we haven't talked about is retiring business owners. We know that there's a huge number of Canadians who are going to retire and leave their small businesses without any leadership. That's going to have a huge effect on small towns. Encouraging retiring business owners

Status of Women committee  I agree with Ms. Altner. It's tricky to pick an area where women are most successful. The thing that worries me more is that we're not seeing women in growth businesses. Many women are in businesses that are creating jobs for themselves, maybe for one or two other people, but the

Status of Women committee  Absolutely. Sandra, go ahead.

Status of Women committee  I think there are a couple of things. The first is telling the stories. You hear that there's so much storytelling, but there is nothing like a young woman seeing a woman and saying, “That could be me”. Also, it makes a huge difference when they don't see those faces. The second

Status of Women committee  I understood your question in French, but with permission I will answer in English.

Status of Women committee  No, I understood it for sure. I believe your question is, why do we not see more women investing in women? For sure, one of the first reasons is that we don't have as many women with money to invest in other women's businesses, and we don't have women necessarily leading the ven

Status of Women committee  Pardon me, but could you repeat your question?

Status of Women committee  As a start, I think that ensuring that women, wherever they are in the country, have access to support to create jobs for themselves and for others is tremendous. I often say that in Toronto or in Vancouver or in Ottawa, we're in the land of plenty. There's lots happening. But if

Status of Women committee  It can be any gender to any gender. We spend maybe 15 to 20 hours with a young person in getting them ready to come into our program. Before they get our loans, we “hand-match” them with a mentor. Seventy per cent of our mentors are entrepreneurs themselves. That's the primary th

Status of Women committee  It's steadily increasing. I think we're quite attractive to young women because we're out there in the community, we have a lot of young staff, we're really active on social media, we're very approachable, and we're very non-judgmental in saying, “We can help you figure out what

Status of Women committee  I'm sorry, I don't know what that term is.

Status of Women committee  Oh, absolutely. It varies, of course, as it does across different groups, so I wouldn't want to generalize too much. Some are a lot more experienced with entrepreneurship. I think Métis women probably are more exposed to entrepreneurship, and that's a more accepted pathway. No, t

Status of Women committee  There are four simple answers. Confidence: they don't see role models; they have parents who've said, “You're not going to be an entrepreneur because it's a terrible thing to do” or “I was and it was awful, so I don't want you to do it”. Competence: a lot of kids get through scho