International Trade Committee on Nov. 25th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Next is Ms. Fortier for five minutes, please.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you all for being here today to contribute to this very important study that will allow us to make very clear recommendations. You've already made several of them.

I'd like to ask Ms. Bobiwash a few questions.

First, I'd like to say that I found your testimony impressive. I'd like to know more about your experience and that of other women you know who need support or who have had success.

Could you tell us about the importance of indigenous women's contribution to economic development and share some success stories, if you have any?

[Helen Bobiwash]

Indigenous women have a really important role in the communities. It is a care-giving role, but it's more than that. When we do become successful, we are seen as role models in the community, and that inspires other people to want to achieve that success in business as well, and they do become leaders in their communities.

I think that's really important, not only to the indigenous community but also to Canada, because, if we have more indigenous people who are successful and prospering, that makes an impact nationwide.

There have been some really cool examples that I've seen in speaking with indigenous women. Even locally, in the region where I am, in northern Ontario, I just learned this weekend that Kathryn Corbiere is a welder on Manitoulin Island. It's a very male-dominated trade. She designed and created the new trophy cup for the National Lacrosse League. The National Lacrosse League is located in Pennsylvania. She was there over the weekend to deliver the cup, and she was there when the cup was presented on the national lacrosse field. She's combining creativity with the skills she has as a welder. She's really bringing that across Canada, and now she's also going into the U.S.

There's another woman who is also on Manitoulin Island. Her name is Ann Beam, and she comes from a family of artists. She now makes non-toxic watercolour paints, and it's in plastic-free packaging, so it's sustainable. Hers was the first indigenous product in Indigo. She's now shipping across the world.

She's overcome a lot of financial adversity and adversity in relationships. I've spoken with her, and she went into a lot of detail about some of the adversity that she's overcome, so I'm really proud to share some of the experiences that she shared with me. She's really successful. She's still a small business in the eyes of the government's assessment of business sizes, but she's making a really big difference in her community and showing people that you can have paints that are non-toxic and sustainable.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

That's great. Thank you.

Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada, I'm really glad I get to hear from you today. I work closely with Inuit women in my riding of Ottawa—Vanier, where there's a large population, especially in arts and culture. Do you by any chance have any examples of Inuit women being successful and receiving support from the government to be able to export their products?

[Kim Oliver]

There are many household businesses that women work out of. Some women sell their artistry. I reside in Newfoundland and Labrador, and I know of a woman who lives in Nunatsiavut who has expanded her business very well. She has two hotels and three grocery stores in three different communities. In Nunatsiavut there are five communities.

As for support from the government, I'm not sure if she received any to build up her business. She has slowly expanded over time. It's amazing to witness and watch her grow.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Monsieur Savard-Tremblay, you have two and a half minutes.

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

Is Ms. Dickinson still with us?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

She's still with us. Until she says she's exiting, we'll keep asking her questions.

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

Perfect.

According to a report by Global Affairs Canada, the biggest obstacle for SMEs exporting their products is logistics. We're talking about distance, transportation costs and brokerage fees. As we know, this is more of an issue for women-owned exporters. Border barriers constitute the second major category of obstacles with a significant gender gap.

Why do you think these barriers affect women-owned businesses more? How could they be mitigated?

[Arlene Dickinson]

I probably need to give that some thought. I haven't seen that report, so I would like to read that report. I will definitely come back to you with some thoughts on that specific question, if I may, after feeling a bit more educated about the challenge.

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

Is it the inequality between male and female-owned businesses that you were unaware of, or is it more the details of the rest of the report?

In other words, based on your own observations, and without having seen the demonstration and conclusions of the report, did you come to similar conclusions? If so, how do you explain them?

[Arlene Dickinson]

Yes. I mean, if you're talking in general about the differences in terms of the....

Again, I think I'm coming back to my original answer around the opportunities and the relationships and the doors that are opened and why they're opened or not opened. I can only speak to bias as being the biggest challenge that is being faced here. I don't have any other answer for it. I can't imagine why there would be any other reason that there would be more difficulty for a woman-led business to be able to do...or not to be able to have the same opportunities that a male-led business does, other than bias. Too much evidence points to women-owned businesses being incredibly successful, and in fact generally more successful, so I don't have an answer other than societal bias.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Desjarlais, you have two and a half minutes.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

This idea of an industrial strategy, I think, is one that has both curiosity but also perhaps a very high level of innovative potential, should the country organize its significant natural resources along with its significant amount of skilled labour towards a common goal that would signal to, for example, investors, trade unions and, perhaps, indigenous businesses in the far Arctic how they could be involved in something that could champion a product here in Canada.

An example is maple syrup, which was one of the largest commercial but also national advertising priorities we had throughout the sixties, seventies and eighties. This product, being so simple, was actually designed by the country. The government used significant resources to align what was a traditional skill set of harvesting maple into a very highly valuable, highly developed, innovative and exportable product.

This kind of industrial strategy is something that really interests me, as a scholar: We can create incentives for both workers and our country to maybe take a national approach to the products and championing our national exportability.

Maybe I can spend a moment with Helen Bobiwash to speak about how we can reproduce that level of innovation, advertising and market power towards an indigenous-led product. The Jolly Jumper, for example, was an indigenous women-made product that is now exported across the globe. I'm so proud of it. It's something we don't champion enough in our country. We should be proud of the fact that we invented things. Women who are indigenous invented something that's the most recognizable aid for children.

Ms. Bobiwash, what's another innovative solution or innovative product that you think could propel indigenous women to that level of national and international prestige?

[Helen Bobiwash]

You're speaking my language when you talk about maple syrup, because I've spent a lot of time in the bush, gathering syrup and helping people to get it ready.

One thing I have noticed since COVID was declared a pandemic is that the beadwork artists across Canada are really thriving because of their access to social media now. I feel like that industrial type of strategy could really benefit the beadwork artists to have something that's more planned and thought-out for the larger industry of beadwork artists. Those artists are really all over Canada. They're in the north; they're in the south; they're urban, they're rural and they're remote. It could create a lot of change and prosperity for those beadwork artists.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Martel, you have five minutes, please.

[Richard Martel, Conservative, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being with us today.

Ms. Dickinson, thank you for agreeing to stay a little longer. My first question is for you.

The Liberal government has put in place costly initiatives, such as the Women Entrepreneurship Strategy. However, when it comes to business longevity, the data shows that gender gaps persist.

I'd like to know why you think these programs haven't closed these gaps. What changes could be made?

[Arlene Dickinson]

Partly, I believe they have not made up for the gaps because the bureaucrats who created the programs were themselves not entrepreneurs. You need to involve entrepreneurs in the development and shaping of the programs themselves, not just in the input into the programs. That's partly what happened: The shaping of the programs themselves has not been led by entrepreneurs, and the actual implementation has created barriers to participation.

Why has it not been successful? It's difficult to navigate; it's difficult to understand, and it has too many rules and regulations around access—what applies and what doesn't apply, how you apply, when you apply and where you apply.

There's that, and also, it doesn't acknowledge exactly what you've heard from all of us today, which is that women have a different reality. The reason they don't stay in businesses longer is that it is very difficult to manage all of the things that fall on a woman's shoulders. We saw this through COVID, when women were taking on the responsibilities of child care, child education, home and parent care and dealing with the home itself. They gave up their careers and businesses in exchange for helping deal with the family, the home and everything going on in the home while their husbands were still working.

There is a trade-off that happens in many relationships where women are the ones who pay the price, and they give up their abilities and their opportunities in exchange for what is expected of them. There are some women who are making these choices because that's what they believe, but if you had asked me about the women's strategy, it does not acknowledge that there is another aspect to our lives that we have to deal with. Women are burdened; they're overworked; they have a lot of pressure on them and a lot of other challenges they're dealing with, and that's not reflected in the strategy.

The strategy was not written by an entrepreneur, and it's not necessarily written for a woman entrepreneur.

[Richard Martel, Conservative, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Ms. Dickinson, we know that the Liberals promised billions of dollars to support small and medium-sized businesses. However, allegations of mismanagement or favouritism have emerged, particularly regarding the allocation of funds.

As an investor, how would you assess the transparency and effectiveness of public funds in supporting women's businesses? What accountability mechanism should be put in place to counter this?

[Arlene Dickinson]

I can tell you that my fund has invested in about 35 businesses, and we've seen too many of them, many of them female-led, go out of business because they could not access funding. You have to ask yourself how effective the program is if these businesses that are starting to get traction have done all the hard work and heavy lifting of innovation and creating a product or a service and have taken it to market and found product-market fit. They have been able to scrape their way through by using their credit cards or however they've gotten to a place where they finally get some traction, and they can't get funding. They're either too small or don't have the right strategy. They're measured by the wrong metrics, so they don't get funding.

We are seeing in the market today many companies that are going out of business because they cannot find funding, yet at the same time we know there are billions of dollars available for funding. How is that possible? We do not have that big a population; we have that many in need, but we don't have that many getting money. Where is the capital going? Where is the accountability on the capital, and where is the accountability to the results on the capital?

I believe that, again, we have too many of the wrong measures and too many of the wrong people looking at whether these programs are successful or not. There doesn't seem to be reporting on the success. The success metrics are not printed that I'm aware of.

It's a problem. We have a serious problem in this country. Businesses are going out of business because they can't raise capital, and they can't get it from the financial institutions that the government has established to provide capital. That doesn't make sense to me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We're way over time, Mr. Martel.

[Arlene Dickinson]

I'm sorry. I got passionate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you, Ms. Dickinson. I understand you have to leave, but thank you very much.

We'll move on to Mr. Sheehan, please, for five minutes.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Arlene, before you go, I want to thank you for your testimony.

I know you have to leave, but you touched on a mild criticism about entrepreneurship programs being uncoordinated between the federal, provincial and, perhaps, local governments. If you have time, because I know you have to leave, could you write out your thoughts on that?

It's critically important, because when people go knocking on the wrong door when they have limited time, as all our presenters have said, whether it's because of a caregiving role or a safety issue, they can't be knocking on the wrong doors when they actually have that time. If you have an opportunity to write that out based on your expertise, it would be so welcome.

Thank you.