Status of Women Committee on July 7th, 2020

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Ms. Gavsie, if you could just wrap it up, we have to get on to questions.

[Linda Gavsie]

I'm sorry. I didn't hear you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

We need to get to questions, so if you just want to make a final comment, we will get to questions.

[Linda Gavsie]

Okay, I will go down.

The reduction in the workforce is staggering, and we need to find a way to support our students who are in co-ops that need to be delayed and who need to earn a living to pay their rent. I thank the federal government for giving us the support that they have so far, but we need more and our students need more.

I very much appreciate the time for this. I will take questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Excellent. Thank you so much.

What we're going to do now is reduce the questions to five minutes. We will go around five, five, five and five before going on to our next panel. Marc, sorry about that. You are going to have to revise that.

I'm going to start off with Jag Sahota for five minutes.

[Jag Sahota, Conservative, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Thank you, ladies, for your time and presentations, and for the work you are doing with women during these difficult times. I'm going to go to Ms. Whitman.

In your opening comments, you touched on the government announcement in May that they would not meet their June target for the release of an action plan based on the final word from the national inquiry. What was your reaction to that? Governments need to be able to lead and take action during a crisis, especially if the crisis remains ongoing. You need to be able to handle it when you are in government. I am curious to hear your thoughts on that.

[Lorraine Whitman]

Thank you very much for the question.

First of all, I would like to mention that I was very disappointed. It was very hurtful for the family members who had opened their hearts and their wounds with the national action plan when they told their stories of their loved ones. That's where the hurt came, because the families who were there thought there was a hope that the government would be able to help them. They had seen the light at the end of the rainbow, but when there was no action plan, they were disappointed. They lost faith in the government because it didn't follow through with an action plan when it said it would have one about a year later. In saying that, we're still working with the families as best we can to uplift them and let them know that we're still working with our minister, the Honourable Carolyn Bennett, so that we can work through it. So, that was difficult.

As well, with the violence that is occurring, I'm not saying that it's going to end today if we had an action plan, because it certainly isn't. There is a lot of history that goes back into it. We had given the Crown some recommendations from a round table that we had with all of the PTMAs across Canada and the territories. If we had just one piece of paper, the government would be able to use that, just as a beginning, a baseline, so that we would be able to start the work in progress.

[Jag Sahota, Conservative, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Thank you.

I will move on to Ms. Earthy.

We know that many women-led businesses such as catering companies, hair and nail salons, and also tutoring services and home health care services have been massively impacted by COVID-19. Many of these businesses use personal chequing accounts and are ineligible for the Canada emergency business account. Should the government allow certain businesses that dedicate personal chequing accounts for their businesses to apply for the CEBA?

[Jill Earthy]

Thank you for the question.

Now, I should mention to you, of course, that there is the regional relief and recovery fund loan as well, and some of that has now been extended to sole proprietors. That absolutely has helped, and stage three of the CEBA loan has helped with that. I think it is a consideration. It is certainly a reality for women entrepreneurs that they don't all incorporate and shouldn't necessarily need to.

A big role of the Women's Enterprise Centre and the women's enterprise initiative is to provide that education and support and to ask those questions of the entrepreneurs, to understand their goals, so we can guide them towards the right resources. But I do agree that using personal chequing accounts is a reality and should be considered.

[Jag Sahota, Conservative, Calgary Skyview, AB]

The next question is similar to what I just asked. Many small businesses are unable to access the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program as well, because their landlord refuses to apply for it. Does this challenge have a disproportionate impact on women with small businesses?

[Jill Earthy]

We don't have data to confirm this, but I can share an example of one of our loan clients just from today. We were having a conversation. She has an indoor gym for children. She has two locations. One of her landlords at one location is working closely with her and helping her and they are accessing this program, which is wonderful. The other one is not. Her monthly rent is very high, and of course she has no revenue to offset that.

There are still some gaps there. We would love to see a little more encouragement for landlords to access this program. We would like to see more landlords use that program to better support entrepreneurs, and we are certainly seeing many of our women entrepreneurs being challenged by that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you.

We're going to move over to Marc Serré. You have five minutes.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My thanks to the witnesses for giving us their ideas today. This subject is very important in the context of the economic recovery from the current pandemic.

My first question goes to Jill Earthy.

Jill, you talked about women entrepreneurs. I just want to share this with the committee. With Covergalls Workwear, Alicia Woods from Sudbury, northern Ontario, has done a lot of work adapting clothing for women in the mining industry, to start off. Now she's trying to get more in the oil sands. She has adapted a lot of the PPE for women. I encourage you to look up Covergalls Workwear and all the work she's doing all across the country.

You mentioned financing. It's really important. You mentioned the RDAs, Western Diversification and the 2018 program that put dollars for developing women entrepreneurship. I don't know your opinion of BDC, but from what I see here, it has been, I would say, neglectful of rural, of women, of resource-based companies. It hasn't really supported them, so I want to get your sense of that.

During this pandemic, should the federal government expand the women entrepreneurship that was set up in 2018? Would that be appropriate? We're looking at recommendations here for the fall.

Also, you mentioned the fact that many of the businesses that are women-led cannot access current programs. The RDAs' relief fund was put in place just a few weeks ago to address this. Do you think we should be expanding that in the fall?

[Jill Earthy]

Thank you. I think I heard three questions there.

First of all, to answer your question around BDC, that is a complex question. I will speak of my experience with the Women's Enterprise Centre of B.C. We do partner with BDC. For example, our loan program is up to $150,000, and we partner with BDC to add an additional $100,000. Are there gaps? Yes. Can there be improvements? Always. That's a different conversation.

With regard to the additional support in programs, under the women entrepreneurship strategy and the ecosystem funding, there is absolutely an opportunity to enhance support there, to offer the additional training and support, financial literacy and guidance that's so important, along with the funding. I think that is really the key piece. It's not just the funding; it's the wraparound support that's so important. Now, we are optimistic that there will be additional funding coming soon.

The other key piece I should mention is that the organizations that are supporting women entrepreneurs right across the country are collaborating. We're connecting. We're looking at ways to leverage this funding and resources, to share best practices. The impact that any additional funding would have would be very significant.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Good.

You also mentioned data collection. Would you be able to provide the committee with some more detailed reporting of specific items that you feel would be beneficial for Statistics Canada or other federal government departments to collect data on?

[Jill Earthy]

Yes, again I can share an example. The recent partnership with Vancity came out of a conversation that we were having internally. We were curious to know what percentage of women entrepreneurs were accessing the CEBA funding; that's the $40,000 loan fund. We had our intuition around that, and some of that has been addressed in this conversation. We approached a couple of financial institutions, and they are not tracking that. Certainly, gender is one of these, as well as phase of business, type of business, etc. Some of those things are being tracked, but we really need to dive deeper into the demographics.

Certainly, you indicated, too, the need to ensure support for rural entrepreneurs and rural communities. That's another critical piece.

I do have a list I'd be happy to share as a follow-on. We will be submitting a brief, which will include the recommendations and more specifics.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

I have 30 seconds before the chair mentions anything, so thank you, Chair, for allowing me to continue.

Ms. Earthy, can you just expand on the caregiver credit you talked about? It's really important for caregivers.

[Jill Earthy]

As I indicated, a caregiver is with children or elder family members. I indicated the percentage: 24% of women entrepreneurs in Canada have children at home under the age of 18. That's a lot of additional juggling that has to occur. We're seeing a number of women entrepreneurs having to choose family over building their business and continuing to have that business grow and thrive.

The caregiver grant would provide much-needed support, either for child care support or elder care support, or to hire assistance for the business. Ultimately, it would be flexible, to offer some different options to increase productivity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Excellent. Thank you very much.

We're now going to Andréanne, for five minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you.

My questions first go to Ms. Whitman.

June 3 marked the first anniversary of the release of the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. You expressed your disappointment, which we can well understand.

Could you tell us of any specific ideas that, in your opinion, could have been implemented in the last year to respond to the report and provide assistance to indigenous women and girls. I would also add the potential for a second wave of the pandemic, that we have to take into account.

[Lorraine Whitman]

First of all, if we did have the national action plan, which was supposed to happen.... For nine months, the government could have reached out to our national organization. We submitted some suggestions and comments about how to work together and what's happening with the violence that's occurring with our women, as well as about some of the 231 calls for justice.

Another area we mentioned, under call for justice 7.1, was health and wellness. We are soon going to be opening a resiliency centre. This centre is a lodge that will be implemented by our elders [Technical difficulty—Editor] to help our women who have had violence in the past or who are still living with violence. It will help them with their work and their capacity.

We should support resiliency centres. We would like them to be in each of the provinces and territories. Dollars should be made available so that we can put this in motion. We have one that will soon be opening in Quebec. We have another one in New Brunswick that we have been funded for. We have another one in Nova Scotia, which is being worked on, and another one in Saskatchewan. If we could have the government's support and dollars to continue, this would certainly be a good step [Technical difficulty—Editor] women.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

You also brought up the issue of violence. Attention has been paid to the help for women who are victims of violence, but there has perhaps been less mention of indigenous women during this pandemic. This brings up the whole issue of available resources.

How can we encourage or help women to find resources that will provide them with assistance during the pandemic? Because of the lockdown, a lot of resources designed to help them have been cut off.

How can we improve the access to resources in preparation for second wave?

[Lorraine Whitman]

First of all, with this resiliency lodge, four elders answer a 1-800 number that people are able to phone in to, just to know there's someone else on the other end. As the information comes in, we have a navigator who is able to, in turn, take the information from the elders to give more support to the women, girls and gender-diverse people who call so that they would be able to meet the resources in their area to help them. If there's a shelter they can go to, we can book [Technical difficulty—Editor]. It's just a voice at the other end of the line, as opposed to an answering machine. It gives the heart and opens up that [Technical difficulty—Editor] of the cultural component that we miss because of COVID and the isolation.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

My next question is for you, Ms. Earthy.

As you mentioned, programs really must be tailored to women entrepreneurs. Basically, to provide them with more help, we need tax incentives tailored to their situation. You talked about credit. Perhaps it should be more focused on part-time work. There is also the whole matter of networking and better financial guidance. In short, that is really how we can create a genuine program of female entrepreneurship.

[Jill Earthy]

I would also add that it's the networking, it's the access to capital and it's absolutely the education and training and ongoing support. We see the success that we have through the holistic model of the women's enterprise initiative, because we offer one-on-one business advisory support, peer support and access to additional education and training, as needed. It's multi-faceted, and it is all of those pieces that help women entrepreneurs the most.