Status of Women Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2025

[Connie Cody, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you.

Since the launch of the women entrepreneurship strategy in 2018, funding has grown from $2 billion to nearly $7 billion, yet the share of women-owned SMEs has only risen from 15.6% to 19%, failing to reach the goal of 25%.

How do you justify this limited progress despite such a substantial public investment?

[Frances McRae]

I'm going to allow my colleague to answer that question.

[Etienne-René Massie, Assistant Deputy Minister, Small Business, Tourism and Marketplace Services, Department of Industry]

You are right. The women entrepreneurship strategy is a collection of 20 federal departments, Crowns and agencies that have come together to deliver a range of services and supports for women entrepreneurs.

The number of women entrepreneurs has increased, as you mentioned. I would also note that we have seen that those are businesses with employees. I would also note that in addition to businesses with employees, we have seen an increase in women sole entrepreneurs. Women sole entrepreneurs now represent 34% of sole entrepreneurs across the country.

[Connie Cody, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Could you explain why the results are not being posted, several times for several years?

[Etienne-René Massie]

On a yearly basis, we would publish a sort of state of entrepreneurship in Canada. The latest edition is currently being reviewed and will be made public very soon. In addition to that, we also work with the Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub, out of the Toronto Metropolitan University. We work with them to publish a state of women entrepreneurship in Canada on an annual basis.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That is time.

We're now going to Ms. Fancy for five minutes, followed by Madame Larouche.

[Jessica Fancy-Landry, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you very much.

I would like to welcome the panel here. Thank you for coming.

I have three questions. They might seem a little scattered, but hopefully I'll have time to bring them together at the end.

My first question is for the deputy minister.

We've been seeing in the House lately a Conservative attack on DEI. Could you take this opportunity and talk about DEI and its importance? As Canadians, our strength is our diversity and our mosaic. As a former educator and high school principal, I know the importance that DEI has and its role for our youth in how they enter the job force.

I would like to give you the opportunity today to talk about DEI, please.

[Frances McRae]

I'm going to bring this question back to the issue of GBA+. The reality is that Canada is becoming more and more diverse, as we know. Therefore, our job as public servants is to ensure that our programs and services respond to the Canadian population. With that population becoming more and more diverse, it's only natural that we should be ensuring that everyone benefits from the programs and services we have, no matter what their circumstances. That diversity is a fact.

When it comes to equity and inclusion, the reality is that not everyone has the same chances and not everyone has the same opportunities, so equity is about fairness, and inclusion is about belonging. From our perspective, when people belong, they are healthier, they are better able to contribute and they're better able to learn. For us, these are really important concepts that are built into GBA+ and in fact enshrined in the Gender Budgeting Act.

[Jessica Fancy-Landry, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you very much for that.

I would also like to ask.... It's time to talk about boys for a moment. We know that the fight against gender-based violence is an ongoing effort, and it requires the involvement and engagement of every single Canadian. This includes men and boys.

I'm wondering if your department today could share what you're doing to ensure that men and boys are included in this important conversation.

[Frances McRae]

As the minister talked about, men and boys are a critical part of prevention. However, I want to raise a couple of issues. We've been talking quite a lot about equity.

For example, men in Canada are much less likely than women in Canada to go to post-secondary education—significantly. This is not good for our society, and that, to us, is also part of the challenge when it comes to ensuring inclusion and engagement and solving issues like gender-based violence. We also know that men are in poorer health and they're less likely to seek help from medical professionals. Again, that contributes to well-being below levels that are optimal.

As examples of some of the work we do, we certainly work with our provincial and territorial colleagues under the gender-based violence national action plan, in the prevention pillar in particular. There are a number of programs engaging men and boys. One project that I would like to talk about is White Ribbon, which we at Women and Gender Equality Canada support. They have a campaign called “My Friend Max Hate,” and they're working quite heavily on this campaign, from September 2023 to March 2026. What they're doing is scaling up some work they've been doing on social marketing through this campaign, reaching educators and developing lesson plans. They've now been able to scale this program and expand it to Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and the three territories. We're quite interested in making sure we fund projects that are working, and this is one of them.

[Jessica Fancy-Landry, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

That's awesome. Thank you very much. I would love to have Nova Scotia on that list. I'm very familiar with the program. I'm also familiar with the work of Morris Green, in my own riding of South Shore—St. Margarets, who is doing a lot of work with Guys Work. We've had him in a lot to work with some of our boys.

I have one last question. Within my riding, I've met with a lot of different women's groups and a lot of different action groups. A lot of them talk to me about application processes. I'm glad to talk to the panel here today about that. They're saying that when their programs come out, sometimes they have multiple places within, let's say, my province of Nova Scotia, and they feel like they're competing when they're applying for things. When we're looking at streamlined application processes, I think my colleagues from across the way mentioned the rubric and how we apply for these.

I have wonderful organizations that are having to spend a lot of money on consultants in order to apply in some of the applications, because they're so convoluted. I'm wondering if there have been any measures in terms of how we could have a streamlined process so that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to help get funding and apply for some of the programs that are available.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Give a very brief answer, please.

[Frances McRae]

At Women and Gender Equality Canada, we solicit feedback from our applicants on a routine basis to be able to streamline our application processes. We recognize that it's not easy when you're a small organization. We work with very small organizations, so we are very sensitive to that at Women and Gender Equality Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Excellent.

Ms. Larouche, you have the floor for three minutes. I'm giving you extra time, to be fair.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Training is key. We've heard about the importance of training within the justice system during studies at this committee. In fact, we put questions to the Department of Public Safety and the Department of Justice. We were told that the training sessions were not related, even though the issue affects various departments. In my opinion, this reinforces the idea that members of the Department for Women and Gender Equality, the Department of Public Safety and the Department of Justice must work together in order to have related policies.

Can you explain what the additional funding for the women's program and the equality for sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression program will be used for?

How much of vote 5 is allocated to Quebec and rural regions? Can either of you answer that question?

[Frances McRae]

Thank you for your question.

I agree with what you said about working together. We work very closely with our colleagues at the Department of Justice, the Department of Public Safety, the Department of Health and the Public Health Agency of Canada. You're absolutely right that coordination is very important.

In answer to your second question, that is not how we calculate the increase in vote 5 allocations to various populations. We can give examples of projects in Quebec and rural projects, but the data we collect is not divided into those categories.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

It would still be worth knowing how much of the funding is allocated to the regions, especially rural areas, where access to services is a problem, particularly for women in financial difficulty or victims of violence. We've already done a study on the importance of the distribution of funds.

What are your priorities in allocating funds? Is it violence, economic security or leadership? Are those your priorities?

[Frances McRae]

If I understood the question correctly, you want to know how we set priorities.

Currently, the three priorities of the women's program are fairly long-standing. The program itself was put in place in 1973. It has been around for a long time, and each government gives it different focuses and priorities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We will now go to Madame Vien for five minutes.

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

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

Deputy Minister, would you say that your department is succeeding in protecting women when there has been a 55% increase in the number of violent crimes, a 30% increase in the number of homicides, a 76% increase in the number of sexual assaults, a 40% increase in the number of spousal violence cases and a 41% increase in the crime index? I'm not the one saying this; it's the Minister of Justice, who announced these figures last week.

In your opinion, are you succeeding in protecting women?

[Frances McRae]

We are confident that our programs and the funding we provide to organizations working on the ground are making a difference.

Have the numbers gone down? No. You're absolutely right that these are unconscionable numbers.

As department members, we have leverage to support organizations that do the work on the ground to help women and people who have been abused.

However, the numbers sometimes go up because people are more likely to file reports because they trust the police more. Our data shows that the number of reports is increasing.

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

Thank you, Deputy Minister.

In your departmental plan, which appears on your website, you talk about a 53% staff reduction. However, there are two files in addition to the minister's. It isn't just the women's file; there are also the tourism and small business files.

Can you tell us exactly how many employees your department has at the moment, and how many of them are dedicated solely to the issue of women in Canada?

[Frances McRae]

I thank the member for her question, Madam Chair.

First, the small business and tourism files are under another department, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. You won't see them in our departmental plan. This one deals only with the Department for Women and Gender Equality.

As far as staffing is concerned, the figures you would have seen in the departmental plan tabled in June do not reflect the decisions that will be made based on the budget.

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

You're not able to disclose what's in the budget, but there was an announcement last week of almost half a billion dollars.

I don't have a lot of time, Deputy Minister. I want to know whether, as deputy minister, the department's top official, you received a letter from the Minister of Finance and National Revenue, the Prime Minister's Office, the secretary to the cabinet or the Privy Council asking you to cut 7.5%, 10% and 15%.

Did you receive that letter, yes or no?

[Frances McRae]

Madam Chair, the minister received the letter this summer, at the same time as the other departments.