Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to thank all of the witnesses for being here today and for your passion for what you do. It comes forth in every comment you make.
I was a woman entrepreneur many years ago. It is hard. I was at it 20-odd years ago. When I see programs that Minister Ng, the minister for small business, has now topped up, such as the women entrepreneurship fund by $15 million, I wish some of it had been available years ago to help women in need.
We all know that child care is huge. It has always been an issue, but we have created 40,000 new spaces, and our $7.5 billion investment in early learning and child care is going to make a difference.
The other thing I want to focus on is what the last speaker mentioned, immigrant women. We know that national standards were promised in the throne speech. They're going to go a long way for safety and well-being of seniors, but we also need to help protect the workers, who are mainly women, as we all know, and significantly, many who are immigrant women.
We know there's a concern about how the pandemic is impacting immigrant women. This has pushed the debate on adverse socio-economic efforts. We all know that women have experienced more job losses.
I read about a study done at Carleton University, which conducted an in-depth survey of 50 highly skilled immigrant women in July and August of this year. It asked about their employment experience due to the pandemic in order to understand the gendered effects of the pandemic. These women had post-secondary education, and their work experiences were in a variety of professional fields.
Forty-one of the 50 were negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. They cited delays to the start of their careers, changes of career due to layoffs, decreased availability.... We all know that working from home has limited social supports.
What can the federal government do to alleviate these impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on immigrant women and prevent their becoming long-term? What recommendations do you have to keep immigrant women safe and to protect their economic security? We need them as we grow our economy and put it back on its feet.
I'm going to put that out to all of you—Leah, Penny, Vicky, whoever wants to comment.