Evidence of meeting #124 for International Trade in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was entrepreneurs.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Christine Nakamura  Vice-President, Central Canada Office, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada
Sonya Shorey  President and Chief Executive Officer, Invest Ottawa
Nancy Wilson  Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Women's Chamber of Commerce
Valérie Fortier  President, Fédération des agricultrices du Québec
Nathalie Bradbury  President, OWIT Ottawa, Organization of Women in International Trade

4:50 p.m.

Vice-President, Central Canada Office, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada

Christine Nakamura

As I mentioned, the project we're doing is primarily to introduce women entrepreneurs to growth markets in Asia. Because of our foundation, we are focused on the Asia-Pacific, so we know that in the thriving markets of Southeast Asia, in particular, as a bloc, there are tons of opportunities for women entrepreneurs.

The women we've been helping are primarily in tech and health tech, ICT, and clean technology. Those three areas are the main sectors that we've been able to introduce to growth markets in Asia.

Quite frankly, on the opportunities in Asia, if we hadn't talked to these women and started this project, lots of women entrepreneurs wouldn't even have thought to try to access or do market entry in those areas. This is why we're doing this project, because, as I mentioned, the two in-person missions we've conducted so far have already resulted in almost 22 million dollars' worth of deals. That is something they wouldn't have had if they were here in Canada.

That's one thing, but I can tell you that there is a lot of non-dilutive, early-stage funding in Canada, as I mentioned, but when they get to series A or series B, they have a lot of trouble. They have to look outside Canada. We really have to, as a group, work together to try to improve that situation.

Another project that we're working on is an investor session. We've been networking with investors throughout Asia, and in February 2024, at the Canada and Asia conference in Singapore that we held, we brought together 40 investors from throughout Asia to come together as a group. We pitched five women entrepreneurs from Canada, but we also want to do B2Bs with these investors, with Canadian VCs, equity funds and angel investors, because they're interested in investing in Canadian venture capital or investment funds. I think that will also help to get more opportunities for Canadian women entrepreneurs.

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Thank you very much.

We'll move on to Ms. Fortier for six minutes, please.

Mona Fortier Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to both of you for being here today.

I'm glad to see that we have Sonya Shorey here from Invest Ottawa, someone I've worked with in the past and still collaborate with as the member of Parliament for Ottawa—Vanier. The work that Invest Ottawa is doing, I think, is a game-changer for our community.

I also want to thank Christine Nakamura for being here today. I'm glad to meet you, and I'm sure you're a leader, also, in what you do.

In 2018, the Government of Canada established the women entrepreneurship fund and allocated $20 million in the federal budget to finance more than 200 projects, and then an additional $10 million, including $2.5 million for indigenous women entrepreneurs, to help fund approximately 100 projects.

It has been a fund that gave the opportunity for women entrepreneurs and their businesses to receive a value of approximately $7 billion.

I want to talk about the women entrepreneurship strategy. First of all, are you aware of it? Second, what is working and what is not working? How can the government look at keeping what's working and maybe look at what needs to be done? This is where I'm hoping you can share with us how this women entrepreneurship fund is supporting women in business.

I'll start with Sonya, and then Christine.

4:55 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Invest Ottawa

Sonya Shorey

Excellent. I'm certainly very aware of the women entrepreneurship strategy and have collaborated with many organizations on several shared goals, several projects.

I think one of the most important things in Canada is the power of critical mass collaboration—individuals, individual communities or organizations, for all of their best efforts and the difference that certainly every individual and every step makes; the harnessing of all of our collaboration together; and all of the resources, the learnings, the opportunities. It's not just one project that will help to drive this kind of dial with 131 years to parity. It's the consistent collaboration, sharing of lessons learned, harnessing the power of the Canadian and the global network so that it's not limited to a single point of contact, a single project, but is something that we invest in continuously, creating new avenues, new opportunities, together.

When I look at some of the women I identified in the opening of my speech, they have benefited from the women entrepreneurship strategy, from organizations like Futurpreneur, Invest Ottawa, the Capital Angel Network, and so many others, and likely including the one that Christine represents.

Depending upon the target markets that you're looking at and the specific sectors, the challenges can be very different. When we look at the period that you described, MP Fortier, we think about the pandemic and the disproportionate impact that had on women. It was devastating to many businesses. You had many women founders who were managing small children, elder care and health issues in the home while trying to fundraise and get access to these global markets.

Consistent, continuous effort, sharing of lessons learned, powerful sharing of those networks so that we're creating dozens and multiples of opportunities, and not just one.... That's what I would encourage to be built upon from the women entrepreneurship strategy.

Mona Fortier Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON

Thank you very much.

Madam Nakamura, do you have a response to that question also?

4:55 p.m.

Vice-President, Central Canada Office, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada

Christine Nakamura

Absolutely. We are a proud recipient of WES funding. I have to thank the Government of Canada for seeing the value in our project. Without that funding we wouldn't have been able to reach out to the many stand-alone organizations throughout Canada that are helping, in their own way, to support women entrepreneurs. Now that, with the funding, we have met these people, we're able to bring them together, and we're working as a team as much as possible.

Some places were very remote and difficult to get to—we never would have made it there. We did a round table specifically for indigenous women entrepreneurs in Yukon, for example, where we brought together 25 indigenous women entrepreneurs. One of them succeeded in competing and getting on to one of our delegations to South Korea and Thailand, and she found partners for her green hydrogen technology in South Korea.

As I mentioned earlier in my remarks, for the amount of money that we received, we already helped women entrepreneurs achieve $21.5 million in deals, and there are 70 negotiations ongoing right now. We still have stories and outcomes coming out of our 2019 pilot trade mission to Japan, for example. Without the funding from WES we couldn't have done this.

In fact, as I said, we've been able to reach out to so many different minority groups. We've had indigenous women, women of colour, women who identify as women or who are from the LGBTQ+ community. We have very diverse delegations, but they are stellar. Without that funding, we couldn't have made this happen.

Mona Fortier Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON

Thank you very much.

For the last 30 seconds of my time, I say, simply, that this is a study for which we want to make sure we have recommendations. As you hear the conversation we're having today and the questions we're asking, you might have more ideas afterwards, so you are welcome to submit other recommendations on what we should be working on and, maybe, what we should not be doing—sometimes it's good to have both. I believe that, in this study, we want to make sure we increase the participation of women. We're at 16%, and we want to increase that to much more. I think you understand exactly where we're going, so please don't hesitate to submit more recommendations to the committee.

5 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Thank you very much.

5 p.m.

Vice-President, Central Canada Office, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada

Christine Nakamura

Madame Fortier—

5 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Not at this moment.... Ms. Fortier took the 30 seconds she had left and opened the door for another whole session.

Voices

Oh, oh!

5 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

We move to Monsieur Savard-Tremblay for six minutes, please.

Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank both witnesses.

During the October 7 meeting, witnesses proposed the introduction of a tax incentive that would encourage larger companies to buy from women-managed or women-owned businesses. It would work a bit like what is done in the United States, that is, based on certain quotas.

My question to you both is whether you think this is a good way to help women entrepreneurs.

5 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Invest Ottawa

Sonya Shorey

We did a lot of work, with respect to our collaborators in Canada, on understanding better the attributes of the SBIR program in the United States. We put forward a series of recommendations that certainly encourage the concept of thresholds, with proper terms and conditions that create new avenues for accessibility and encourage risk-taking within the Government of Canada and other governments...not to simply have the opportunity to demonstrate new technologies or products that are founded by women, but to encourage that pathway to actual procurement.

One of the best ways we see this work is at one of our sites, Area X.O. It's hosted by Invest Ottawa, supported by all three levels of government and five multinationals, and leveraged by dozens of start-ups, scale-ups and SMEs. We actually bring Transport Canada together with small to medium-sized companies, start-ups and scale-ups, including women in tech. We do pilot tests of different technologies that advance their commercialization, getting them closer to market with feedback from our regulator in this country, so that they are not only getting exposure and a first customer but also the opportunity to take in all kinds of insights from those partners and potential customers on that project. It is collaborative in serving a particular challenge or doing a particular task or performance, together with the Government of Canada, that's required for a certain type of implementation—keeping city streets and vulnerable road users safe while things like connected and autonomous vehicles, low-speed automated shuttles, drones and other technologies are implemented in novel ways.

Encouraging that opportunity to create greater pathways as an emergence and an outcome from those projects would be very helpful. Creating thresholds similar to what they have in SBIR in the United States is something we are certainly recommending. We put forth a paper on it and are meeting with ISED on it next week. We would be very delighted to share that with you. It encompasses a carve-out for women and marginalized founders to encourage breaking down barriers and to create more opportunity for those who would not otherwise have that potential.

Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC

What do you think, Ms. Nakamura?

5 p.m.

Vice-President, Central Canada Office, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada

Christine Nakamura

I apologize.

The French translation isn't coming into my headphones. I didn't hear the translation.

5 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Ms. Nakamura, at the bottom of the screen you can select the language.

5 p.m.

Vice-President, Central Canada Office, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada

Christine Nakamura

Thank you.

I'm so sorry. I missed the question.

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Go ahead, Monsieur Savard-Tremblay.

Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC

I'll ask my question again.

As I mentioned, some witnesses have told us about the idea of introducing a tax incentive that would encourage larger businesses to buy from businesses whose managers or owners are women, as is done in the United States, based on certain quotas.

Do you think that's the right path to follow?

5 p.m.

Vice-President, Central Canada Office, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada

Christine Nakamura

To be frank, because we're dealing mainly with start-ups and smaller companies, some of them pre-revenue but a majority of them revenue-making companies, the tax issue has not come into play too much as yet. These are women founders who are raising funds right now up to the series A level. There has not been much chatter or much discussion with our groups on the tax incentives, but I think as the companies scale, there will be much more focus coming forward.

Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC

Should Canada in particular be proposing changes in general that would put more focus on women entrepreneurs who export or wish to export? The question is really about exporting.

What suggestions would you make to the representatives who will soon be at the CUSMA negotiating table, for example, in 2025? Should changes be made to encourage women exporters?

My question is for both witnesses.

5:05 p.m.

Vice-President, Central Canada Office, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada

Christine Nakamura

I think that is why our team is focused on increasing the number of women who export. While the businesses may thrive in Canada, our population is very small in comparison with some of the larger populations, even south of the border. Definitely there's a huge market down there, but it's also in other parts of the world. I think companies that want to grow have to think big, which means export.

That is what our team does. We encourage women and talk about the markets. We're focused on Asia, but we talk about the markets and the potential that these markets offer to women who have viable products or services that match and align with the markets we are introducing them to.

Indeed, I think it's very important to get more women interested in exporting if they're at the stage of being internationally market-ready.

5:05 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Invest Ottawa

Sonya Shorey

I would certainly build on that and echo that.

We have worked together with the Capital Angels Network at Invest Ottawa to encourage and help equip women founders to be investment-ready through SheBoot. We have seen that $25 million in follow-on investment include the period during the pandemic. I have to tell you that the number is actually higher; it's just that we're not permitted to share under NDA.

If we can create similar programs that look at export readiness for companies out there at the appropriate stage, where they have scaled—we certainly have those companies in our region being led by women—and we create curated programs with industry experts on international trade exports, including organizations like Christine's, we can create that collaboration and a program that specifically brings that lens, so that all training, education and supports are specifically around that targeted goal of export readiness.

When I think about what we've done in our community with Invest Ottawa, we have overhauled, end to end, in the last six years, every single step in our venture development program. It has led to a significant increase in the number of women founders and diverse women founders. In the SheBoot program, similarly, 50% of the women founders are from diverse backgrounds—self-selected, self-identified and with intention. If you don't bring intention and put the right investment resources and experts surrounding them with that single goal, then it becomes diluted. I believe, with this type of focus, any accelerator, incubator, innovation hub and all of these organizations that bring this expertise, working together, can deliver it. That is exactly how we built SheBoot.

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Thank you very much.

Mr. Desjarlais.