Status of Women committee  When women face gender-based violence, stability is a huge issue. When a woman is stable, she can generate an income. She can go back to school. She can contribute to the economy. However, when a woman is literally homeless, it doesn't affect only her. It's all levels—the entire

Status of Women committee  Yes. Either for women's entrepreneurship or to go back to the workforce, housing is a fundamental thing to invest in. It's critical. We cannot ask women to start a business, especially survivors, without that. Of course, the universal livable income is critical for women if we r

Status of Women committee  Thank you so much. One of the most important things I would like to propose is this: There should be a regulation on coerced debts. As you know, when women leave abusive relationships, one huge problem is that they have a lot of debt in their name. This debt affects her...eithe

Status of Women committee  For those who are in business, definitely the pandemic affected them, but we have seen very good support from the government. For those women who want to start a business, that's a problem. There is the presence of rigorous credit checks, and then the spousal coerced debt has r

Status of Women committee  No, I didn't have any. There wasn't any justification. I was very surprised. That's my lived experience. I don't have any answer for that. I didn't receive anything. They told me I'm not qualified, so I have to look for another business opportunity.

Status of Women committee  It's the financial institutions—that's what I would like to refer to again. Especially when you need to access a loan, that's one of the challenges. I was rejected many times, in three banks, when simply trying to access a small loan. I don't even know the reason, so I feel tha

Status of Women committee  Yes, definitely. Yes, that would be very helpful. As you know, especially in the context of gender-based violence, poverty is a huge barrier for a woman to either go back into the workforce or start a business. As you know, many women spend 50% of their income on housing. As yo

Status of Women committee  First, we need to invest in aggregated data and research. Research is very important in shaping our public policy because, when you talk about the issue of gender-based violence, it's very complex. We don't even know how many women there are who would love to start a business, so

Status of Women committee  As you know, when women have a layered identity, especially if they are women of colour—plus if they are also impacted by gender-based violence—unfortunately, our system is not designed for those specific target groups. For example, one of the barriers that I mentioned in my poli

Status of Women committee  Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Meseret Haileyesus, and I am the founder and executive director of the Canadian Center for Women's Empowerment, CCFWE. We are the only Canadian non-profit organization that focuses on addressing economic abuse and injustice through system ch

Status of Women committee  Thank you so much. Good afternoon. My name is Meseret Haileyesus, a founder and the executive director of the Canadian Center for Women's Empowerment, CCFWE. We are the only Canadian not-for-profit organization that focuses on addressing economic abuse and injustice through syst

Status of Women committee  Thank you so much. One of the gaps right now is that there is no educational material that speaks about economic and financial abuse. That's a huge gap not only for survivors and frontline workers. As I mentioned, there are also experts out there for whom an understanding of the

Status of Women committee  Yes. One of the reasons for economic abuse is their living conditions. Definitely, if we could have the infrastructure and support for our women, it would also be very important.

Status of Women committee  Right now, our national task force, actually, in 2022, has a plan to review a universal income benefit. We'll come up with some policy recommendations, and maybe we can pass it before the House sometime soon.

Status of Women committee  I can probably answer the first question. Definitely yes, if we could make coercive control an offence, definitely it would really help women. Economic abuse is a behaviour that is in line with coercive control. I think that's very helpful, so we'll continue advocating. Maybe