Evidence of meeting #145 for Status of Women in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was work.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
That's fine.
Minister, can I ask about something that you raised in your presentation regarding funding for women entrepreneurs in particular. Many women entrepreneurs in my riding are benefiting from grants in order to support their small businesses, and perhaps you can explain to the committee the work that the government is doing on economic empowerment of women.
Liberal
Maryam Monsef Liberal Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
Women cannot be economically empowered if they don't have control over their bodies. When members of Parliament, members of the Conservative Party join a pro-life rally on the Hill, the message they're sending is that women's independence does not matter—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Stop. Maryam, excuse me. There's a point of order. I have the chair.
Go ahead.
Conservative
Kellie Leitch Conservative Simcoe—Grey, ON
On a point of order, again, I will ask the minister this. She was asked a question about women entrepreneurs—
Conservative
Kellie Leitch Conservative Simcoe—Grey, ON
—and economic empowerment, absolutely, which is something I feel very passionately about. I'll be asking you questions about it. I'd just ask you to stay to the estimates and to that issue.
Thank you.
Liberal
Maryam Monsef Liberal Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
Madam Chair, all I'm saying is that it's hard to be able to have economic independence if you don't have control over your body.
We have invested $1.65 billion in a women entrepreneurship strategy with the goal of doubling the number of women entrepreneurs by 2025. This means support for businesses to start up, to scale up and to be able to benefit from export opportunities. We are the only country with a trade agreement with every G7 country, but if we don't use these trade agreements to get our goods and services to those markets, they are just pieces of paper. Minister Ng is working really hard on export development, as is Minister Carr. They have asked for mentors, conferences and data.
The women entrepreneurship strategy allows for this. There is a lot of demand for these dollars, which is a good sign. It means that Canada's women are—as we see with leaders around this table—ready to take charge of their own destinies. They have great ideas and we need them. Our economy will benefit by $150 billion when we increase the participation of women equally in our workforce over the next decade. Entrepreneurship is one of the ways we are doing that.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
Thank you very much. I'll pass a last question over to my colleague, Sonia.
Liberal
Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON
Thank you, Minister, for the great work you and your department are doing.
I am representing Brampton South, where we have lots of youth looking for direction. Are you working on any strategy for youth in working towards gender equality? Can you explain?
Liberal
Maryam Monsef Liberal Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
Youth are leaders today. They are not leaders of tomorrow. They are leaders today. The Prime Minister says that often, as minister for youth. He brought together young people at Parliament for a youth summit a couple of weeks ago and introduced the first youth policy. That's really important because millennials in particular, and the younger generation, are the most powerful generations to have ever existed. They have access to technology and they have people like us thinking about them every single day.
When it comes to gender equality, part of what we got funding for is youth-led dialogues to advance gender equality. We brought together an advisory council for the Department of Women and Gender Equality to work with us over the next two years to make sure we're adopting youth-centred approaches.
We have also heard a lot about online violence. Parents are worried about their kids experiencing cyber-violence and all the other ways that young people can be violated online. All of us can be, but the young are particularly vulnerable, so we are working on a youth-led initiative that allows us to address and prevent online violence.
I would saying that housing for youth is part of the national housing strategy for a reason, especially for LGBTQ youth. If they come out to their families and they are not accepted, they get kicked out of the house. They have nowhere to go and then they get exposed to all sorts of harms and violence that housing could prevent. There is a carve-out for that in the national housing strategy.
We're also providing them with skills they need. We are lowering the amount that they need to pay back after they graduate from post-secondary by giving them more grants and by giving them a grace period because we know they are worried about that.
Most importantly, they are worried about climate change. This is the world they will inherit and they see the rivers rising all around us. They see the forest fires. They see what's happening around the world and they want to know that we are taking concrete action.
Conservative
Conservative
Kellie Leitch Conservative Simcoe—Grey, ON
Minister, having sat in your seat, I will kindly ask you if we could stay on the estimates and the issues of the day. I recognize that we have a lot of issues. We could try to boil the ocean here today, but I think that's not our intent.
Liberal
Conservative
Kellie Leitch Conservative Simcoe—Grey, ON
Our intent here is to focus on status of women issues to make sure that the women in this country have the focus and voice that I think they deserve from any government.
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Excuse me, Minister, please. That's inappropriate.
At this moment we will continue with one minute of questioning from Sonia.
Liberal
Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON
Is there any plan to work with our G7 partners on advancing women's equality?
Liberal
Maryam Monsef Liberal Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
Yes, the G7 gender equality ministerial meeting has happened this year. Last year, under our leadership, gender was mainstreamed throughout every item of the agenda and it also happened in Italy.
We've just agreed on the fact that we were going to better support women entrepreneurs and we are also going to focus on addressing gender-based violence more effectively, particularly online violence. Most importantly, we are going to work together. One of the reasons we are so susceptible to backlashes and losing hard-won gains is our inability to be united and to work together for all sorts of systemic reasons. The fact that G7 countries are working together on this is a really good sign.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
We are starting our second round, and Kellie Leitch is next, for five minutes.
Conservative
Kellie Leitch Conservative Simcoe—Grey, ON
Great.
Thank you, Minister. Thank you to all of the public servants who are here today to answer our questions. It's greatly appreciated.
I had the great honour of being Canada's first full minister of Status of Women. I have to say it was an enormous honour. One of the things I focused on was women entrepreneurs. I think that empowering women, providing them with economic opportunities, is the best path forward for dealing with many issues.
In 2014, a report was published, put together under my leadership with Arlene Dickinson, Carolyn Cross, Marissa McTasney—great women. It focused on three things, and the results of the report were very clear. The report was pretty blunt that for women entrepreneurs to be successful, we need money, we need markets and we need mentorship.
Conservative
Kellie Leitch Conservative Simcoe—Grey, ON
We had the first women-led, all women participant trade mission to Brazil.
My first question for the minister—and I will say I am splitting my time, so I will cut you off, Minister, as I'd like succinct answers—is when will the next all women-led trade mission be, where will it be and under what circumstances?
Second, substantive funding was raised through the private sector to help these women, including from the banking community, which is large in Canada, as opposed to just government funding. What initiatives are being taken with the tier-one banks?
Third, an organization put forward an idea that we acted on called “It Starts with One”, a mentorship program. I'd like a commitment to continue with that program, because the mentorship of young women in this country, I think, is the future of what we will be doing.
Please give succinct answers, because my colleague has a question at the end that I want to reserve a minute for. Thank you.
Liberal
Maryam Monsef Liberal Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
Thank you for your leadership during your time as minister for Status of Women. I did learn about your efforts to advance women entrepreneurs in Canada, and I'm thankful for them. The women entrepreneurship strategy includes mentorship opportunities.
Export and trade missions are the purview of Minister Carr. I know that he just led the first LGBTQ2 mission and that the idea of a women in trade initiative is certainly high on his radar.
We have a Canada-U.S. business council, as you know, for women entrepreneurs on both sides of the border who are working to advance this work.
As to your question about the private sector, we are working in partnership with BDC and EDC, but also with banks like RBC to help support women who've experienced violence get back on their feet, get the skills and the confidence they need to enter the workforce, which may be via entrepreneurship or other avenues.