I do not think that we need to reinvent initiatives. What has been introduced over the past five years has paid off with amazing results.
We often talk about funding, but I believe there is a discrepancy between investing in funding and investing in support for businesses. For instance, businesses are often a blind spot for the government. Large businesses get a lot of support, and maybe they need it, but let us not forget that today's small businesses are tomorrow's big corporations. Because they are small, their needs often go unnoticed. Calculations are based on dollars rather than numbers. I would like to tell the government to let us work based on numbers so that today's small businesses can grow into tomorrow's big corporations.
The last time I did the math, I believe that $18 million was set aside for women entrepreneurs. We have to keep in mind that these women, often small business owners, are facing growth issues because they do not have the contracts. In those cases, it is obviously more difficult to fund a small business and meet its needs.
One of my recommendations would be the following.
If the government invested a bit more to help women access the market, they could then show up to the bank with a contract in hand. Their projects would therefore be more likely to benefit from bank advances, which is not the case at this time.