Status of Women Committee on Nov. 18th, 2014

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Good morning, everyone. My BlackBerry tells me that it is 8:45 a.m. So let us begin the meeting. We have quite a full schedule today and I am very pleased to see that.

Welcome.

This is the 35th meeting of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

This is our last meeting on the economic leadership and prosperity of Canadian women. Without further delay, I will introduce the witnesses who will be appearing before us today. I will proceed in the same order as on the notice of meeting.

We have Danièle Chouinard, who is the director general of the organization known as Com'Femme. We have Harriett McLachlan, who is president of the board of directors of the organization known as Canada Without Poverty, and Hodan Nalayeh, who is appearing as an individual and as executive producer of Integration TV. Welcome.

By videoconference, we are in contact with Jill Earthy, who is the British Columbia and Yukon director for Futurpreneur Canada and with Fariba Pacheleh, the president of the Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology. Welcome to you too.

Each of you will have ten minutes for your presentation. That will be followed by a period for questions.

Let us start with Ms. Chouinard, from Com'Femme.

[Danièle Chouinard, Director General, Com'Femme]

Good morning. It is a pleasure to be here with you today.

I would first like to describe what Com'Femme is. It is a not-for-profit organization made up of a group of women. It is based in the Montérégie region of Quebec, with its main offices located in Brossard. It is a generalist organization that welcomes women of 18 years of age and older, whatever their situation in life. The matters we discuss can just as easily be about citizen involvement as about sexual assault, criminalization or breast-feeding. It really does not matter because we consider all areas of women's lives. We try to make sure that something is going on at every precious moment we spend at our Com'Femme day centre.

Montérégie is a large area. We have a number of partners with backgrounds in community and women's issues. So people often look to us in matters of governance, parity and equality. As I prepared for this morning's session, I tried to determine what seemed pertinent to tell you and what the major issues in our region are. Montérégie has an urban aspect and a rural aspect. For Com'Femme, dealing with women living in both those environments is a major challenge. How can we talk about equity, parity and prosperity when the issues facing the region are so significant?

I am also part of the Réseau québécois d'action pour la santé des femmes. Through proposed legislation, Quebec is currently in the process of reforming its health and social services. This often brings up quite specific questions in terms of women's health. As we know, every woman is someone's daughter, mother, grandmother or wife at the same time. They are natural caregivers, and are also to be found in the workforce and in governance. Women really are everywhere.

What does the health network mean for a woman? If we consider how she is involved, either for herself or for others, we understand how complicated it is to talk about prosperity. It is really important to study the issues of equity. I thought about everything happening in the area, according to the latest research, at least. Two young researchers conducted a study called "Pauvreté et précarité: Une approche inspirée de l'intersectionnalité" [Poor and precarious: an intersectionality approach]. This dealt with recognizing everyone across the board, men and women alike, in all the phases and all the situations of their lives, with all the social determinants imaginable.

The study says that women are getting poorer. Who are the poorest of the poor? They are elderly women who, in many cases, have immigrated to Canada. They are most impoverished, the most disadvantaged, the most isolated. In our area, we have quite a major immigration issue. I should point out that the study is available if you want to consult it. It talks specifically about women who arrive in Canada, are overqualified compared to us and who, despite that, find themselves in a state of isolation. They lack the means to become integrated.

We throw open our doors to them and we try to work with them so that they can make a place for themselves in our society and achieve prosperity here. We are always working in mixed contexts, including Canadian women, of course. That means that buddy systems and sponsorships are possible. With the few resources we have, we try to develop a sense of ownership and belonging.

Women make up 51% of the population.

I still ask myself the question that we all ask ourselves: why are we so under-represented in economic and governance structures? Certainly not because we do not want to be. I am here this morning and a lot of other women around the table are here to say that we have a place. Why can we not take that place?

I will leave you with that question. I am looking forward to hearing from the other witnesses.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much, Ms. Chouinard.

Could you send the link to the study you mentioned to the clerk? Then we can send it to all the members of the committee.

Thank you very much for your testimony.

Ms. McLachlan, you have 10 minutes for your presentation.

[Harriett McLachlan, President, Board of Directors, Canada Without Poverty]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak here today. My name is Harriett McLachlan. I'm the president of the board of directors of Canada Without Poverty, a non-partisan, charitable organization that was founded in 1971 and has representation from coast to coast to coast from people with the lived experience of poverty.

I'm here today to speak to you about my professional and personal experiences as they relate to women's leadership and economic prosperity.

I have a Master of Social Work degree from Carleton University. I've worked in the non-profit sector in community development for over 20 years. I've worked as a director of a community organization and was employed in other leadership roles across the community sector.

I was involved in many exciting projects, such as being instrumental in the transformation of Benny Farm, a project that saw old, abandoned, dilapidated housing units—created originally for WW II veterans—transformed to renovated and newly built mixed private and social housing units, and a vibrant community.

When I think of women's leadership in economic prosperity, especially in the not-for-profit sector, I think of wage discrepancies, health benefits, and working conditions. I distinctly recall, when I was a director, examining the salary differences between a social worker in the not-for-profit sector and that of my counterparts in hospitals and CLSCs, which are the Quebec form of health and social service organizations under the ministry of health. There was a $20,000 a year difference with respect to those who worked in CLSCs and a $30,000 difference with respect to those social workers who worked in hospitals and those who had just a bachelor's degree with social work and not in an employment position of director, like myself.

There were many times where I worked 70 or 80 hours a week—I'm sure you can attest to that—in order to get the basic job done, since there was inadequate funding to allow for more employees. This compared to my colleagues within hospitals and CLSCs who worked 40 hours a week. They also had work insurance, health plans, dental plans, and retirement agreements, which I had none of. These discrepancies would suggest that my work as a director in the non-profit sector was of less value.

I might add, as many of us already know, it is women who are mainly employed in the not-for-profit sector. With these realities, we are creating a pool of poor women who have no retirement benefits as a result of their working environments. I report to you these realities in the not-for-profit sector.

I have worked with other women who were paid less than me, who struggled with not having enough to eat, and who lived in their cars for five months. I would take the initiative to use the very services I was providing for the community. These are not exceptional cases. It's exceptional in that we live in a wealthy country, but they were common place situations where women who were working in the non-profit sector could not make ends meet.

It's been 15 years that I've been a regular speaker at Dawson College's social service technology program in Montreal. Part of my presentation to students is a description of the organigram with the Ministry of Health and the Social Services network. What I find interesting and deplorable is that while CLSCs and community organizations are featured on par, salaries and working conditions are not.

I also have to say that there's scant funding from the federal level to support community initiatives, projects, and development. There needs to be a greater role for the federal government within communities.

I remember Industry Canada taking the initiative of providing computer equipment for public access and enabling people across Canada to have access to the internet, especially those who couldn't afford computers themselves. This is just a small example.

That is something I wanted to highlight from my professional experience. Let's shift to my personal experience.

I want you to know that I have lived in poverty for 34 years, even as a director holding a Master's degree. There were many desperate times in those years that I did not eat. I was not able to buy food, or I would let my children eat instead. I had hard choices of buying food, paying rent, or paying my electricity or heating bill.

For over 10 years I lived in deplorable housing conditions with sewer rats living in my living space and even in the beds of my children.

I never had a bedroom; I slept on the sofa in the living room. I could not afford anything more.

I want you to know that poverty has cost me a great deal and it's taken a heavy toll on my physical and mental health. The toll of poverty, poor salary, and working conditions has cut my career short. At the age of 50 I was no longer able to sustain the demands of poverty while working as an underpaid professional. I envisioned working in my field until the age of retirement, a good 15 years or more, but without a retirement package. This is a loss of human capital. I am the example of leadership without economic prosperity.

It's always amazing to me that here I was working as a professional, helping others with better housing, food security, and other projects and programs to help meet their basic needs, yet I was struggling so desperately. What would have made the difference for me and many like me? Maybe better labour standards for one. I would also say better housing, affordable and accessible housing. Had both or even one been the case, I could have continued in my professional career and not borne the loss that I do now.

What Canada seriously lacks is a national anti-poverty plan. That includes a national housing strategy and food security measures. There needs to be a strategy that has national standards and sees the collaboration between various levels of government and sectors of civil society. A housing strategy, for example, would be one that's comprehensive and has measurable goals and timelines. It would not be one that would be a patchwork, where there would be one project here or there where we can sit on our laurels and say, “Well look, we've done this”. It has to be much more than that. It needs collaboration and it needs to be comprehensive so that people like myself and many like me don't have to live with rats.

Benny Farm is an excellent example of this. It's a housing project for seniors so that people may stay in their homes as long as possible. There's a project for young single mothers who are out on their own for the first time. There's subsidized housing for single mothers seeking post-secondary education. It's called Project Chance, and they have a 99% success rate helping women get out of poverty and launching them into professional careers where there can be economic prosperity for them and their families.

What I also like about Benny Farm is that they have created a mixed community with mixed housing projects. They have cooperatives, they have rent-to-buy, and they have mainstream condos for purchase. It has created a mixed and vibrant community. It took collaboration, and this is why I'm bringing up this point. A national housing strategy takes collaboration from all levels of government and all sectors of society. Benny Farm took the collaboration of the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the City of Montreal, la Société d'Habitation du Québec, and community organizations to make it happen. It is successful and very doable.

The Canada Lands Company, the CLC, organized a round table, a discussion on how we can get this done—simple—that brought these and various players together so that we can move forward on common measurable goals and timelines. This is one example. There can be many when there's collaboration across the country.

As you well know, Canada is the only G-8 country without a national housing strategy. We desperately need one for people like myself and 4.4 million other poor Canadians. It is a responsibility of this federal government to develop frameworks and legislation, and it is imperative that they do so, since we may well remember that it was in 1976 that Canada ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Here is what also amazes me. We live in a wealthy country, yet my personal and professional reality would likely describe a much poorer and dysfunctional one. Our priorities show that we spend 5% to 6% of our GDP maintaining poverty in this country. A wealthy country would see that women have what is necessary to move forward in successful careers, one where women would not have to struggle with deplorable housing conditions and other desperate realities. Surely when we are looking at women's leadership and economic prosperity, we need to look to better priorities.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.

The floor now goes to Hodan Nalayeh, executive producer of Integration TV.

[Hodan Nalayeh, Executive Producer, Integration TV, As an Individual]

Good morning. Thank you for inviting me.

My name is Hodan Nalayeh and I'm a woman entrepreneur, a journalist, independent television producer, and a television host. In fact, I'm the first Somali media owner in the world who is a woman.

I created and developed Integration TV, the first-ever television show regarding the Somali community here in Canada. Integration TV tells positive stories of the community so Canadians can come to know our beautiful community.

We came to Canada 30 years ago from the war-torn country of Somalia. We are the first English television program for Somalis worldwide. Most recently I was invited by the United Nations to Wales, along with 25 other Somali journalists from around the world, to speak on how to tell the stories of Somali people.

What I want to tell you this morning is that women, and particularly women from minority communities, need support. While we know from the data that women make an average of 81¢ for every dollar a man earns, women from minority communities still make less. According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, university-educated visible minority workers take home 20% less than their non-visible minority counterparts. In the public sector, their wage gap is 12%. This information was just released last month in a study.

Although I was born in Somalia, my father, who was a diplomat, brought our family to Canada when I was six years old. We were taught from an early age that we could do anything, but I have experienced barriers, as has my family, my friends, and our community—barriers of integration, lack of understanding of our culture and religion, lack of acceptance, lack of support for university and college entrance.

You have to understand we are still a recent community here in Canada. Many of our parents are former diplomats. They're doctors, research scientists, but they have been forced to take whatever job they can to support their families, which means there's often not enough money for education. Other barriers include lack of support in transitioning from higher education to meaningful employment and attaining positions that are commensurate with our training.

I was never taught in school that being an entrepreneur was possible. I was never taught the skills to make it possible. We have to get to students early. My first recommendation, therefore, would be that we make entrepreneurship and skill sets part of the school curriculum. Why not even have national competitions?

Our community has great entrepreneurial spirit. After all, we have survived two decades of civil war and built some of the largest businesses in Africa, but where we have struggled in Canada is expanding our businesses to mainstream society outside of our community. One of the greatest challenges is lack of funding to support small businesses, so my second recommendation is that we need more grants and that they be tailored to the needs of minority communities.

Let me explain. Many Somali and more broadly Muslim communities are often uncomfortable applying for loans because it includes interest. Paying interest goes against Islamic faith, so is there a way to come up with another novel approach? My third recommendation is that there needs to be an outreach to the community to support businesses, to let them know the requirements in Canada, what funding is available and how to apply.

Women in Somali communities often own hair salons, restaurants, and traditional clothing stores. Many women are single parents. How do we help these strong women look after their children, run a business, and succeed? Women need financial training and information on how to grow a business. My fourth recommendation, therefore, would be to have the government come to listen, do round tables in our community, and hear directly what our needs are.

It is my understanding that you have been doing round tables around the country. How many were focused on minority communities? Was there a round table for the Somali community?

We all know that when you support a woman to succeed, you can change a community.

I will briefly tell you now a little bit of my story. I worked in the banking industry for seven years. After working with many small business clients, I knew my only opportunity to better my family was to own my own business. So at the age of 37, I went back to school to learn a new trade, namely television arts. lt was very scary. I was a new mom with two children under the age of four, and I was going back to school.

Tuition was expensive. I had a mortgage to pay. I had no one to look after my children, no grant, no loan, and I had to work long hours. After graduation, it was impossible to find a job in television, so instead of looking for someone to give me a job, I created a job for myself.

But it was not easy. There was no funding. It was expensive to start a business. But having the necessary business skills, I set to work finding the start-up costs. I funded 26 episodes of Integration TV, which aired on City TV in Toronto and nationally in Canada and which is now on YouTube with over 400,000 views.

But still I struggle. I have done the funding searches. I do not qualify because the networks want programs to be general enough to reach all Canadians, and to get multicultural funds the program has to be in the cultural language, in our case Somali.

We are proud Canadians. The second generation of Somalis speak only English or have limited understanding of the Somali language. There are over 200,000 of us in Canada, but 80% of us are under the age of 30. Moreover, my goal has always been to celebrate the diverse nature of Canada, and in order for Canadians to know Somali Canadians, the show needs to be in English.

My fifth recommendation is therefore that media grants need to be reviewed. We must ensure that they are in fact meeting the needs of all Canadians including members of diverse communities. I have used television to raise awareness and education of the Somali community in Canada. I would like to see more access for media, the encouragement of more diverse voices in Canada, and more support for start-ups and growing businesses for diverse communities.

The Somali people are strong, resilient people, and we are succeeding and will continue to succeed in Canada.

My last recommendation to the committee is for the government to start not only a dialogue on entrepreneurship with our community but a real dialogue with the Somali Canadian community to break down barriers. Somali Canadians want a discussion on more than crime and immigration. We are Canadian. We are proudly Canadian, and just like you, we want our children to be successful in school, in the workforce, in entrepreneurship, and in Canadian society.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much for that great testimony.

I now give the floor to Jill Earthy, from Futurpreneur Canada.

You may speak for 10 minutes.

[Jill Earthy, Director, British Columbia and Yukon, Futurpreneur Canada]

Thank you, Madame Chair.

Good morning. My name is Jill Earthy and I am the regional director of Futurpreneur Canada for B.C. and the Yukon, the only national non-profit organization that helps young Canadian entrepreneurs launch successful businesses. I am also the co-chair and co-founder of the WEB Alliance, a collective of over 25 women's business networks in B.C., and I'm formerly the CEO of the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs.

ln addition, I serve on the board of the Women's Enterprise Centre here in B.C. and at Simon Fraser University. I'm passionate about supporting entrepreneurship, women in business, and the economic benefits that come from doing so.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. Before I speak about the collaboration that is occurring in B.C. to better support women in business, and particularly the results from the recent B.C. Economic Forum's “Women as a catalyst for growth” event, I would like to share some information about Futurpreneur Canada and its important work to support young entrepreneurs and women entrepreneurs, as the two topics are interconnected.

For those of you not familiar with Futurpreneur Canada, we help 18 to 39-year-old entrepreneurs with no security and no track record launch and grow businesses. We do this by providing loan financing of up to $45,000 from Futurpreneur Canada and the BDC. Our loans are based on character, not collateral, and the strength of the young person's business case. We also equip them with mentors and we have more than 2,800 volunteer mentors across Canada.

ln addition, we offer a stand-alone mentoring program called MoMENTum to help young people who do not require financing. Plus of course we give them business resources, counselling, and networks to help them navigate the initial years of their businesses. We also support new immigrants and ex-military. This combination gives young entrepreneurs the confidence, competence, capital, and connections they need for business success.

Since we were founded in 1996 we've invested in 6,740 Canadian entrepreneurs, and last year alone we helped launch 800 new businesses, almost 40% more than the previous year. These businesses have created 26,000 jobs and $191 million in tax revenues. Plus we've seen a significant increase in the number of women entrepreneurs served by Futurpreneur Canada over the past five years.

This corresponds to recent Global Entrepreneurship Monitor research showing that the ratio of Canadian women to male entrepreneurs has improved from 2:1 to 3:2 since 2002. Last year, we helped 353 young women. That's over 40% of our clients, and here in B.C. 44% of the clients we served were women. We've helped them launch businesses across a variety of different sectors, including non-traditional areas such as the skilled trades. We've had an opportunity to seize on this momentum and provide more aspiring young entrepreneurs with the investment and programs they need to launch their businesses.

To help meet the growing demand for Futurpreneur Canada's services and to increase the number of youth-led businesses launched by 10% each year, we have respectfully requested a Government of Canada contribution through Industry Canada of $37.5 million over five years to support our full start-up program plus an additional $2 million to support the expansion of our stand-alone mentoring program with a focus on women entrepreneurs. This is a reduced annual contribution but Futurpreneur is proposing to do better with less.

We are currently helping about 2% to 3% of the potential youth entrepreneur market and our goal is to double that in the next five years. With this requested government support, 5,600 young people will benefit from our full start-up program and 2,000 more people will benefit from our expanded stand-alone mentoring program, MoMENTum.

Futurpreneur Canada's internationally respected mentoring program is truly one of a kind. Research from a 2014 Ryerson University report found that in Canada, a new firm has a 77% chance of surviving its first year, only a 36% chance of surviving its first five years, and less than a 20% chance of surviving its first 10. The Futurpreneur entrepreneur five-year survival rate is between 50% and 60% and our repayment rate is 80% to 90%. We believe this is due to the strength of our mentoring program and our comprehensive business resources. We have a proven track record of advancing economic growth by supporting emerging entrepreneurs and their growing businesses.

Building further on this, through my role I am able to engage in collaborative and progressive work taking place in B.C. to create solutions and recommendations to better support women in business, and to stimulate economic growth. For the past six years, representatives from over 25 women's business networks, including those focused on supporting professional women, entrepreneurial women, women in finance, women in law, women in mining, my colleague, Fariba here, from SCWIST, Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology, and the list goes on. We have been meeting to share ideas and explore ways to leverage resources to reach and support more women and to collaborate on events and initiatives focused on the economic benefits of supporting women.

This group, now representing more than 10,000 women in the Lower Mainland, and now growing to reach other regions of the province, is called the WEB Alliance. I am honoured to be a co-founder and co-chair of this group, along with Laurel Douglas, CEO of the Women's Enterprise Centre in B.C. ln February of 2013, the representatives of the WEB Alliance had the chance to meet with our premier, the Honourable Christy Clark, and to suggest the creation of a premier's women's economic council. This was meant to be a means, a connection point, within the provincial government to influence policies and address ways to grow the economy by supporting women in business. We were thrilled, when in February of this year the premier did announce the creation of this council representing 16 women, from throughout the province, in a variety of sectors and roles.

With this council now in place, the WEB Alliance saw an opportunity to bring a large group of community leaders and influencers together from throughout B.C. to participate in a working forum to create realistic solutions and recommendations—in other words, an action plan—to be presented to all levels of government, to corporations and organizations, and for us, as individuals, to have clear tasks to take away and implement.

The issues are clear and the business case exists but what we felt was needed was an opportunity to share best practices, brainstorm new ideas, and increase awareness and accountability on this topic. A pre-read document highlighting key research was created and circulated in advance to all participants to ensure we were building on the research and not just revisiting it. I will be happy to share this document with you.

We were told that it was the first time in Canada that such a diverse group of individuals participated in one place to address the three topics on how to grow women in senior leadership with a focus on boards and executives; how to grow women entrepreneurs, looking at inspiring women to be entrepreneurs and how they can grow their businesses; and how to grow women in non-traditional and emerging sectors, including areas such as the trades, science, high tech, and LNG. Four hundred and fifty participants spent the day focused on one of these three tracks, working through a facilitated format to create solutions. We were honoured that Minister Leitch attended the events and shared some opening remarks along with Premier Clark, Minister Bond, and Minister Yamamoto, as well as Alex Johnston, executive director of Catalyst Canada.

We are now in the process of putting together a comprehensive report in the form of an action plan that we will share in the coming months, and we would be honoured to have the opportunity to present it to you in 2015. Some preliminary recommendations include the need to activate men. The economic forum sold out well in advance demonstrating a strong interest in this topic, but what we were missing were the men in the room. Engaging men and having them participate in and contribute to the conversation is a key piece in order to affect change.

We have a number of recommendations moving forward that we will share shortly.

On the need to elevate the conversation and to increase accountability among all of us, as individuals and leaders, to do our part, the proposed legislation being discussed in Ontario around boards explaining or complying is a great example. Simply by exploring this option, more awareness is being raised on this topic across the country—

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Ms. Earthy, you have one minute left, just briefly summarize.

[Jill Earthy]

I'll summarize, perfect.

The B.C. Economic Forum's “Women as a catalyst for growth” event was a large collaborative effort in partnership with multiple organizations with some incredible outcomes. It demonstrated the importance of bringing different groups of people together to address this issue. We now have 450 ambassadors committed to the cause. We want to use this as a model in other parts of Canada.

I also want to offer the WEB Alliance as a resource to all of you. We want to work collaboratively with government. If you are seeking input on issues and want the collective voice of a diverse group of women, use this network as a resource to access information.

I also want to acknowledge that this week is Global Entrepreneurship Week and Futurpreneur Canada is the Canadian host.

Just to wrap up, the next wave of momentum is building. The time is now to affect change. We need to take action by investing in these opportunities. We need to support existing programs such as Futurpreneur Canada as well as focus on new solutions and action plans for individuals, corporations, and government at all levels through constructive and collaborative initiatives that include men. Your support of these initiatives across the country will start to shift the dial, so that Canada can truly leverage its full economic potential.

Support of women in business is not a women's issue, it's an economic opportunity.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much, Ms. Earthy.

We now move to Ms. Pacheleh. You have 10 minutes for your presentation.

Go ahead.

[Fariba Pacheleh, President, Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology]

Thank you and good morning, Madam Chair and honourable members.

My name is Fariba Pacheleh. I am an engineer and the current president of the Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology, or as we like to call it, SCWIST.

For the past 30 years, SCWIST has been supporting and empowering women in science, technology, mathematics, and engineering, which are STEM fields. We know that for women, changes are needed. As the old Chinese proverb says, women hold up half the sky.

The issues of inequity, and the reasons for them, are well documented in many articles, such as the 2010 “Why So Few?” report, which identifies systemic barriers to women in the scientific workplace; the B.C. Women in Engineering and Geoscience Task Force on continuing gender inequity in the engineering and geoscience professions; the Harvard Business Review of September 2013 on women in general, “Women Rising: The Unseen Barriers”; and many others.

These studies and articles describe what we should change. There are also studies that suggest solving these problems may be a good thing, not just a make-work exercise. The Dell study shows that the companies with more women on the board of directors outperform those with the fewest, up to 66%. Deloitte's “global perspective” states that diversity is a business issue. Spencer Stuart found that diversity in the boardroom results in increased value for shareholders.

So the facts are difficult to ignore. We know that diversity, especially gender diversity, is of paramount economic importance. It's no longer just an equity issue. It's proven that having women aboard makes good economic sense. As well, you can't forget that women are half of your electorate. As Danièle mentioned at the beginning, they are your mothers, sisters, daughters, and spouses. That's why we should change.

Women want to contribute to the economy. They are well educated and eminently capable. There are many of them poised, yet few have breached the practical and cultural barriers that prevent them from reaching their potential. It is not a minority issue. Women are not minorities. This is a historical and cultural issue. Women do not speak with a uniform voice. Women are as diverse as Canada itself.

I think the question is how do we change? The usual first step is to identify the problem. We have been doing this for the past 30 years. I will not list all of the problems we are dealing with. We know about them. Instead, I want to provide you with some solutions and action items, or at least ideas to ponder on a number of levels—the governmental level, the corporate level, the community, and the individual.

First are the action items, the action steps at the government level. We need a task force to scrutinize all bias in policies to determine their impact on Canadian women—thank you, Right Honourable Kim Campbell—one that takes into consideration the solution and action items for the B.C. Economic Forum's “Women as catalyst for growth”, which my friend Jill was talking about here. The outcome will be presented in 2015.

We need increased funding for science, scientific research, and STEM education—as mentioned, STEM is science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—because in a knowledge-based economy, that is the source of future ideas. We need support for specific education of new immigrants to transform their imported cultural biases and histories, to cement Canadian values.

We need public policy, as in Europe, that is directed at the companies to comply or explain the gender distribution of their boards and C-suites, and we should create relevant rewards and pillories. We need government-sponsored round table events with men who are leaders of industry and academia and with predominantly male participation to prioritize the specific strategies for implementation.

We need policies to regulate the media, and especially advertising, with respect to their presentation of women as objects. In the face of the U.S. media onslaught, we have achieved Canadian and bilingual content. We can achieve the media's respect and support on this subject as well for diversity. Here again is a need to comply and explain.

Finally, we really need to address the issue of child care at the public policy level to facilitate families' participation in improving the economy.

Now, that was the government level. The second is the corporate level.

There needs to be compliance or explanation, this time to the shareholders, if the workplace policies and the C-suites are not sufficiently diverse. Those involved in the hiring process should be required to work through the Harvard implicit bias test to identify their biases and mitigate them. We need new hiring policies and practices, so that applicants are selected based on their skills from diversity-neutral applications.

Corporations need to collaborate with unions to support employees by providing flexibility and by providing day care. There is a need for C-suites well populated by women to provide role models for other women climbing the corporate ladder. Corporations need succession planning and active sponsorship of women that will enhance diversity.

The last item on the corporation list is the need to create a work climate that not only hires women but retains them through clear workplace policies in inclusion and collegiality, work flexibility, active sponsorship, and access to role models and mentors.

Those were the levels of governments and companies. Now, speaking about the community, the grassroots level, these are the action items we suggest.

They need programs that create networks, provide role models, and provide mentorship opportunities such as SCWIST makes possible through an online program of skill-based mentoring for women funded through Status of Women Canada. Thank you very much for that opportunity. We are proud of this program and invite you to participate.

We must create a wide variety of programming that supports children's education and understanding of a diverse workplace and the subjects that ensure their future.

At the personal level, what we need to do is come to terms with our own biases. Again, I recommend the Harvard implicit bias test, because knowing is surprisingly the first step. We need to scrutinize the personal values and cultural context in the home that prevent progress and to review how girls are socialized and how cultural expectations place limitations on them and their futures.

Women know this. Status of Women Canada is tackling this in many ways, but we find ourselves preaching to the choir. The moment the word “women” escapes someone's lips or appears in a title or discussion, our male colleagues tune out.

Now, I want to know whether the male people here tuned out there. This was not a message to the women in the room; this list is for men.

As the movie title says, we need a few good men who have the smarts to recognize a good thing when they see it, to act on the economic imperative, and thereby to create opportunities for all Canadians because we prosper together.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.

Now we start the first round of questions.

Mrs. Truppe, you have seven minutes.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to welcome and thank everyone for your presentations and personal stories today. It's very helpful for us.

Jill, I love Futurpreneur. I think it's a great program.

Your other program for mentorship, what was it called? Is it Momentum?

[Jill Earthy]

Yes. MoMENTum with upper case MENT.

That's the stand-alone mentoring.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

That's stand alone. Maybe you could tell us a bit about that.

I hosted round tables across Canada and probably a few extras in Ontario. Mentorship came up. Pretty much at every round table, somebody mentioned mentorship. It was huge.

How important is mentorship for them since you deal with entrepreneurs all the time?

[Jill Earthy]

I would say it's absolutely essential. We hear again and again of the need to have that support, especially in the early days of starting a business but I think right the way through, especially for women. They need change and that support and that mentor or champion.

We see the results through Futurpreneur Canada, just in the resiliency of the businesses that we support over a longer period of time. We provide financing in the two-year mentorship as our core program and then the MoMENTum program is a six-month mentoring program for aspiring entrepreneurs, both men and women, as well as those who have just started a business, to help them flesh out their business model and get started on the right foot.

We are finding the demand is increasing.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

If someone has an idea and they go to see you and they are applying for money because they think this idea would work, are they hooked up with a mentor at that point or is it once you approve the funding?

[Jill Earthy]

That's a great question.

If they're looking for funding, which a lot of them are, they come to us. We help them work through their business plan, validate that, finalize that, provide the funding, and match them with a mentor for two years.

Some come to us with an idea but they haven't fully fleshed it out yet and they need a little more support. We will work with them on that piece and then we will match them if they're interested. They're not sure if they're ready for financing sometimes. If that's the case, that's when we'll direct them to our MoMENTum program to give them that mentor for the first six months. Often we find that after they've gone through that program for six months they come back to us and want to access the financing and the two-year mentorship.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

If you don't want funding and you just need a mentor, you could help with that too, obviously.

[Jill Earthy]

Yes. Absolutely.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

What would be the single most important reason for the success of a young person's business? What works and what doesn't work, because you obviously have some that are not successful?

[Jill Earthy]

Sometimes young entrepreneurs in particular don't know what they don't know. I think that's the case for all of us, obviously. So having someone to bounce ideas off on a monthly basis really helps. That certainly increases the success rate.

It doesn't work when they don't ask for help, when they don't put up their hand. I think organizations like Futurpreneur Canada and others—there are many fantastic resources across the country. I think letting them know that those resources exist so they can access, ask the questions, or ask the questions to find out the answer that will lead to another question and continue to give them the support they need is critical to the success.

I think we are well positioned across Canada. We have a lot of great resources. The trick right now is making sure that entrepreneurs anywhere can navigate those resources and find the one that's the right fit for them.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

If you wanted to leave us with a best practice, what best practice have you seen that works that we could share and that would maybe help young entrepreneurs or young women?

[Jill Earthy]

Ask for help, I think is always my number one thing. Reach out, do the research, ask people. You just have to keep asking. Take advantage of the amazing resources that are available across this country.