Status of Women Committee on Feb. 29th, 2024

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Lastly, you mentioned that women who own a house have to get permission from the minister to mortgage their house. Did I understand correctly?

[Emily Whetung-MacInnes]

They have to retain funding from Indigenous Services Canada, or they have to have a loan guarantee from the Minister of Indigenous Services to get a loan to purchase a home or build a home.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you.

We are now going to go to Emmanuella for five minutes.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank all of our organizations and witnesses for being here today and for doing the incredible work that they all do to support women.

I'm going to focus my questions on YES Employment and Entrepreneurship, an organization that I know does incredible work because I've seen the results of that work and I know there are people who benefit—some of whom I know—so I appreciate what you do.

You alluded to the fact that with every additional intersectionality there are additional barriers, so of course, not only do English-speaking Quebeckers experience a gap in employment, but there is also the fact that being a woman will only make it more difficult, and then being of another type of minority community will make it even more difficult.

From what I understand, you did take advantage of the women entrepreneurship strategy between 2019 and 2022. Is that correct?

[Kathy Slotsve]

Yes.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Was that the ELLEvate women program?

[Kathy Slotsve]

Yes.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Then, from what I understand, you had some difficulty receiving the same funding in 2023. I'd like for you to explain to the committee why that is and what makes your particular organization different, in terms of why it wouldn't have received funding in this second round or in the last round.

[Kathy Slotsve]

We are part of the new funding structure, but we had to change our application and the way our program is rolled out in order to fit the guideline for the new funding call for applications. When the fund was released in the most recent version, it was for national initiatives, and while that works for other language minority communities.... French-language minority communities across Canada are dispersed across the country, so there was an ability to form national partnerships fairly easily with that. However, for us, our official-language minority community exists within the province of Quebec. We actually partnered with a number of universities and managed to still roll out our program, but we had to change it quite a bit in order to still access that funding.

Does that answer your question fully?

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

It does.

Actually, a follow-up question I have is what you can recommend to the government in order to make it easier for you going forward. Are there any particular exceptions that should be included in the wording of a program, or should there be a specific type of program? What do you think are solutions to that going forward?

[Kathy Slotsve]

While I understand the national scope and the intent behind that, I think you have to look at the differences within communities and their ability to form national partnerships that will support those communities across the country. This is because certain communities might not be dispersed across the country.

When you're looking at offering programming that targets specific groups, such as linguistic minorities, it is important to take a lens for both official-language minorities that exist within Canada and really look at the unique characteristics of the community and what those communities will need. When you're looking at funding packages, make sure that you're making them accessible to all communities across Canada and their unique situations.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Going forward, besides that particularity, is there any way the federal government would be able to help your organization and, I guess, all the organizations that are helping women out there, especially in terms of economic empowerment?

[Kathy Slotsve]

Definitely. We outlined some of the different funding opportunities we have, just in terms of the way funds can be structured.

Meltem brought up a very good point about a lot of funds being structured around the scalability of businesses, but that's not necessarily the reality or the goal for many women-led business ventures. A lot of them are focused more on sustainability or social responsibility, so make sure the funds are inclusive of that.

I also think offering holistic or wraparound supports really helps us create accessible programs. Earlier, we talked a bit about e-learning. Technology investments are very important in creating accessible programs, but also in creating funds that allow us to allocate technology to participants so that they can access them. This is because not everybody has access to the Internet or computers all the time, or they might have access to the Internet or computers, but not any that can run at the level we need for e-learning programs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much.

We're going to continue with our final two questioners. We're going to pass it over to Andréanne Larouche.

You have two and a half minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I too would like to thank the witnesses. Thanks to them, we're learning new things again today.

Ms. Cooper, in your opening remarks, you talked a lot about housing, safe housing, and fighting violence and poverty.

We recently learned that cutbacks were made to the only federal program addressing the issue of homelessness, called “Reaching Home: Canada's Homelessness Strategy”. At a time when homelessness is a problem across the country, we should invest more in social and community housing and to fight homelessness. You'll tell me that the issue of housing and homelessness is also important in your communities. Therefore, what message is the government sending by making cuts to this program, which has helped so many people out of homelessness?

[Rosemary Cooper]

Pauktuutit has been involved in the last couple of years with shelters and transitional housing with CMHC and Indigenous Services Canada. We've made every effort to make sure that we provide supports to Inuit women in Inuit Nunangat.

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami also has, through its Inuit-Crown partnership committee, the establishment of a homelessness caucus or membership there. It ensures that they support, through the four land claim regions, efforts to address homelessness.

Going back to the question of Ms. Gazan, I'm very happy to respond in a written format. I know time is very sensitive today.

Again, housing is the foundational issue for Inuit, and if we're going to combat this, it means partnership at all levels of government. We've seen examples of P3 initiatives that ensure we are building successful infrastructure, yet we're still way behind in Canada when it comes to housing and homelessness.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

We're on our final line of questions, with Leah.

Leah, you have two and a half minutes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you.

I'd like to allow Ms. Cooper a chance to finish the question I asked in the first round.

Go ahead, Ms. Cooper.

[Rosemary Cooper]

Again, violence against Inuit women is not new. It's all related to colonization and residential schools.

If we're rooted in Inuit values and principles, everybody always has a role and a place in our culture. There's somewhat of a loss in our cultural values today. How are we going to ensure that we're rooted in the work that we do or the community that we affiliate with?

Entrepreneurship has always been a part of Inuit culture in supporting our needs. The workforce is just not there for a lot of our communities, especially the smaller communities, where it's predominately government. Our pivot is towards entrepreneurship and mining sectors to ensure that families are being fed.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much.

My last question is for Ms. Slotsve.

You spoke about intersectionalities. I've been very concerned about the attacks on trans women, particularly by elected officials lately, and how that might impact participation in the workforce or place them at risk in the workforce of harassment or being unsafe. Could you share your thoughts about that?

[Kathy Slotsve]

I'm not sure if I have any specific feedback. I could say that, in terms of our programming, we're always looking at building the most inclusive programming we can. The way YES offers its support is very holistic. We look at the needs of the individual and try to build programming and supports around that. A lot of our programs are one-on-one, but they also involve workshops and networking. We really try to focus on 360 degrees of support.

In terms of attacks in workplaces, I don't have statistics on that right now to offer. I would say that it is very important to us as an organization to make sure that we're inclusive in supporting all communities, including the transgender community.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

Now we have to wrap up our first panel.

I would really like to thank all of the witnesses today for bringing their voices and their strong testimony.

We are going to suspend and come right back.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

The committee will resume the meeting and the study of women's economic empowerment.

For the guests here, I remind you that you have French, English or auxiliary, so you can listen to the floor. Make sure that your mic is on and off, and that your earpiece is not too close to the mic, due to interference.

I am very pleased to welcome our next two speakers. We have Wendy Cukier, founder and academic director of the diversity institute for the Ted Rogers School of Management; and Paula Huntley, who is a business owner.

I will be providing each of you with five minutes for your opening remarks, starting with Wendy.

Wendy, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Dr. Wendy Cukier, Founder and Academic Director, Diversity Institute, Ted Rogers School of Management, Toronto Metropolitan University, As an Individual]

Thank you very much. I am really pleased to be here today and very grateful to have an opportunity to speak.

My name is Wendy Cukier, and I am a professor of entrepreneurship and strategy at Toronto Metropolitan University. I have also founded several start-ups, as well as social ventures. I've been on the board of a number of tech companies.

What I'm going to talk about today is primarily our work at the Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub, and I welcome questions about that, but also the broader approach, which I really hope the committee will think about in deliberating on this issue.

Some of you may have seen the article that Morley Gunderson, an economist at the University of Toronto, and I published recently in The Globe and Mail. I reference that because I think we need a fundamental paradigm shift in Canada in our thinking about economic development and innovation. I say that as a former president of research and innovation at the university.

My observation is that a lot of our strategies are derivative. We look at what the U.S. does and we say, “Oh, our productivity is lower. Our investments in research are lower. We don't invest enough in skills”, without understanding the differences in the economy. In the United States, 50% of employment is with large business, and 50% of private sector employment is with small business. In Canada, large businesses account for only 10% of private sector employment. Small and medium enterprises account for 90%. When we think about where we're putting our money, what we're investing in and whom we're supporting, we have to be laser-focused on small and medium enterprises. That's the first thing I wanted to say.

The second thing I wanted to say is that the Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub, which has 10 sites across the country, very deliberately took an ecosystem focus. Rather than just looking at supporting organizations targeting women entrepreneurs, we look at what financial institutions are doing, what the regional development agencies are doing, what the Business Development Bank of Canada is doing, what our legislative policies and practices are, and what large businesses are doing. They say they support women entrepreneurs, but they don't dedicate any of their expenditures.

That's the other thing I wanted to say, because from what I've heard of the testimony, quite rightly, there's been a lot of discussion about how to dedicate funds, specifically for women entrepreneurs. What I would suggest to you is that the bigger and the more impactful strategy is to remove the barriers in the mainstream funding, because there's way more money in the government and in the private sector that we could be leveraging to support women entrepreneurs.

Out of our research have come a few insights that I think are fairly important. There are still limitations in the data. The disaggregated data that people have referenced is super important. We are encouraged that, based on the data that is available, it does appear that women are gaining traction both in terms of being majority owners of businesses and also in terms of narrowing gaps. Women are now almost as likely as men entrepreneurs to export. If you look at innovation, women are actually more likely to innovate in terms of products.

We still know that women-led businesses are underfinanced, that they are smaller and that they tend to be concentrated in some sectors and not in others. That's very much a function of a long-standing problem around the under-representation of women in science, technology, engineering and math. I've been working on women in technology for 30 years. I can tell you that today there are fewer women in computer science and only marginally more in engineering since the Montreal massacre. It's moved from 20% to 24%, in terms of women in STEM. That has an impact, obviously, on women's ownership of high-growth companies, which we tend to be preoccupied with, but it also means that women are excluded from strategies that focus on tech start-ups and tech incubators—tech, tech, tech.

Those are just a few key points that I wanted to make.

The final one I'd like to end on—and this has been said by others, but we have the data—is that Black women, indigenous women, racialized women, immigrant women, women with disabilities, those who identify as 2SLGBTQ+ and so on face more barriers, and we can talk more about that.