Evidence of meeting #35 for Status of Women in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was need.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
That's great. Thank you.
Hodan, congratulations on your entrepreneurship as a TV producer and journalist. You've done an outstanding job.
What is the most important reason for your success? How did you become so successful that you might like to share a best practice or something that worked for you that might help another young woman?
Executive Producer, Integration TV, As an Individual
I think you have to know sales when you're an entrepreneur. One of the most important skills we can teach young people is the ability to sell ideas or sell the concepts or the products.
Many times young entrepreneurs don't have those skills, and I believe that sales and marketing represent 90% of the business.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
Can that be learned as you go along? If you thought someone had an idea for something, do you think they could overcome that if they learned sales, or do you think they should have the sales and marketing before they venture out into this business?
Executive Producer, Integration TV, As an Individual
I think they go hand in hand. We live in a very diverse world, especially in terms of marketing for which there are social media and different avenues to reach your target audience. I believe it's an essential skill. It can be learned, absolutely. When people have a mentor or whoever they work with who helps them, that should be part of the training for entrepreneurs.
Conservative
Conservative
Executive Producer, Integration TV, As an Individual
Actually, I'm looking for one.
Conservative
Executive Producer, Integration TV, As an Individual
I mean in media, so if you have any friends in high places....
Seriously, I think it's very important. As I said, for myself, I come from a community in which we don't have people in television, in media or in radio. To me it would have been great to meet someone who had been in television for a long time to get mentorship and to learn about the business, because the reality is that sometimes it's not what you know; it's who you know.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
Sure. Yes.
Are you aware of any practices that would successfully promote economic leadership for female immigrants in Canada? Is there any program out there that will help? I know you talked about some of the challenges. I don't know if you've heard of any programs that might help young immigrant women.
Executive Producer, Integration TV, As an Individual
I believe in my area in Toronto there's an organization called MicroSkills that works with women immigrants to teach them about entrepreneurship, but I think for the most part there's not a lot of dialogue happening with minority women.
I strongly believe the only way out of poverty is to teach people economic success. Very few women are being taught those skills. I'm sure my colleagues here can attest to that. We're not given the opportunity to even come to the table to learn these skills.
If we're not having the outreach in the communities, how can we expect women to know what's out there to learn?
NDP
The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc
Thank you very much.
Ms. Ashton, the floor is yours. You have seven minutes.
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
Thank you very much to all of our witnesses today.
I want to particularly thank Ms. Earthy and Ms. Pacheleh. I realize that with the time change you started very early for B.C. time. Thank you so much for joining us.
I would like to first ask a similar question to a couple of our witnesses.
Ms. Chouinard, you spoke about the challenges that women in your area face. The members of this committee on the status of women know you well as a spokesperson on these issues.
Quebec has a system of daycare that does not exist in the rest of Canada. The province provides subsidies to help women who want to continue their careers.
How do subsidized daycares help the women in your area and how could they help women elsewhere in the country even more?
Director General, Com'Femme
I really do not consider myself an authority who can speak about that a lot, but I will tell you something important. At the moment, our major battle is about the number of spaces in the daycares. Since this is a universal program, you would think that “universal” means that it is accessible to anyone, regardless of income. This is a program where the cost of so-called public daycare is $7 per day. We are not talking about daycares that are open 24 hours a day and seven days a week. We are talking about daycares with hours of operation that can vary between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.
To get a space in a daycare, you have to know in advance that you are having a child. Currently, a woman looking at a gradual return to work or whose financial position is less comfortable, has to be asking for a daycare space between one year and two and a half years in advance. She has to apply even before she is pregnant. Even then, she has no guarantee of finding a daycare space for her child. That is the first obstacle.
The lack of daycare spaces and the universal nature of the program mean that access to the program is not always granted on the basis of income. So it is becoming difficult for women in precarious situations. Whatever the programs in place and the steps taken, we know that it is primarily women who live in the most precarious situations. Of course, they can become entrepreneurs. We know that they have the ability, but what stops them is their status, their role in society. So before they can think about doing anything, they have to think about daycare. A woman must think about her children. She has to register them in a daycare. She has to get them there at 6 a.m., and so on.
Once more, all kinds of constraints show women's perseverance, courage and intelligence. I am sure that our collective intelligence will let us find ways. At the moment, we can say that the program is a step forward, but there are still a lot of corrections to be made before it can be of benefit to all women, as should have been the case.
NDP
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
Okay. Thank you for the feedback.
Ms. McLachlan, I turn to you on the same theme. You spoke of the importance of a national anti-poverty plan, a national housing plan, food security measures. I'm wondering if you feel that a universal child care program would be important to help pull women out of poverty and would help all women in Canada.
President, Board of Directors, Canada Without Poverty
Yes, I have to completely agree with Danièle here. I think when the $5-a-day day care was formed, the idea behind that was to have a 24-hour day care available. There were some critics who were saying they were doing this so that people would get off welfare. I'd rather see it as the proper type of supports in place as women do a lot of care-taking. I know men do, too. But for women to move forward, it is critical to have affordable, accessible day care where you can have peace of mind and take care of whatever—education, or entrepreneurship, or whatever is in front of you. That's critical. No matter what program you have and no matter what career you're choosing, if you have children you have to take care of them. So I concur.
NDP
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
Thank you.
I do want to go back to the issue of housing, which you spoke of very powerfully, and it isn't something we've heard much about in this committee. I'm wondering if you could speak, perhaps briefly, as to what a national housing strategy could accomplish in terms of women's economic prosperity.
President, Board of Directors, Canada Without Poverty
For me, from personal experience and what I know from my clients is that it's almost like day care; it's essential. If you don't have proper housing or affordable housing, then you can be forced to stay in unhealthy relationships, living in very precarious, insecure situations with an aggressive partner, or whatever. You're forced to live with threats. You're forced to deal with these things. It's unacceptable in a country like ours. A national housing plan and strategies, some kind of legislative framework, would essentially be meeting some basic needs so that women wouldn't have to worry about getting home at the end of the day and wondering whether there's going to be some violence, or worried about their kids, or rats.
I'm thinking of some of these amazing mentorship programs I've just heard. But you go home at the end of the day and if you're dealing with a landlord who is sexually harassing you and you have no other choice but to stay there, or you're living with mould, it doesn't work. You're living in insecure situations. That is a basic need that needs to be taken care of.
NDP
The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc
Thank you very much.
The floor now goes to Mrs. O'Neill Gordon. You have seven minutes.
Conservative
Tilly O'Neill-Gordon Conservative Miramichi, NB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to thank all of you for being with us today and taking time to be with us. You certainly have all been very successful in your fields, but along the way we know that you have encountered many obstacles. You are to be congratulated for having overcome these obstacles.
My first question is to Jill Earthy.
I want to congratulate you on the work you have done. It certainly is very promising and very rewarding, and I know you put your heart and soul into it just by the presentation that you gave us here today. I'm also glad to hear you note that, as a result of the funding, we are able to offer worthwhile support to women. This is very important to our committee and to our government to see that we are focusing on helping women in whatever way we can.
As a former teacher, I certainly appreciate the work you are doing as mentors, because I think we need a lot of mentors along the way. Like you said, even today we still can use mentors to show us what the best practices are and where we can head so that we can take people in the right direction.
Has your organization noticed any increase or has it noticed a decrease in the number of female entrepreneurs in recent years? Why do you think this is happening?
Director, British Columbia and Yukon, Futurpreneur Canada
That's a great question.
Our organization has seen an increase in women turning to entrepreneurship. The national average is about 36% of self-employed Canadians are women. For Futurpreneur Canada, in the last five years an average of 40% of our clients or the young entrepreneurs we've funded have been women, and as I mentioned, in B.C., 44% are women. We see that our rate is slightly higher perhaps just because of the demographic. We serve 18 to 39-year-olds, and it's a lower financing amount. It's only up to $45,000, which seems to be a bit more accessible to women. Women tend not to access the larger dollar amounts, so therefore that may be why the numbers are a little bit different.
So the good news is that more young women are starting businesses.
Conservative
Tilly O'Neill-Gordon Conservative Miramichi, NB
Yes, that's what we want to hear as well.
Is Futurpreneur Canada an association that's in every province across Canada? Is this being offered in every province?
Director, British Columbia and Yukon, Futurpreneur Canada
Yes it is. It's a national organization with a head office in Toronto and regional offices in each province.
Conservative
Tilly O'Neill-Gordon Conservative Miramichi, NB
Okay.
Next, what steps can the federal government take to encourage greater participation of young women in the entrepreneurship and business sectors? I imagine there are some women who don't even realize that this website is available, and we need to get this out and have it so that it is available to more women. Just when I was home last week, a lady came into my office looking to start up a business, and this would be very helpful to her as well. We know there are many other women out there, so what steps can we take to help them even more?