International Trade committee  That's exactly right, so building that sector is critical. I think that's why the Prime Minister asked Minister Joly, in her mandate letter, to develop a tourism strategy for Canada and I know she's taking that very seriously. The economic impact of this sector is not well unders

International Trade committee  I would just add a couple of things to what Chris has said. You talked about time, risk and resources, and I think the minister certainly talked a little bit about the time factor, where we know that this is a significant issue. To go back to the point about SMEs being the ones

Status of Women committee  There was a call for proposals for the CanCode program earlier this year. As I mentioned, there are 81 applications. They're from qualified organizations who could deliver this program, deliver the results we're looking for.

Status of Women committee  I would say the applications would all be quite different. I would say that we've had a very broad scope of applications and have had applications from all parts of the country, including Iqaluit, and some from indigenous organizations. We're thus quite pleased with the breadth a

Status of Women committee  Thank you for the question. There are actually many practices around the world, but I could not say which are the best. The important thing is to adapt existing practices to the needs in Canada. I will turn to Ms. Poirier-Mizon. Ms. Poirier-Mizon, do we have information about

Status of Women committee  You're absolutely right that there are many reasons, and the environmental factors in the workplace culture are obviously part of what women face. We're finding that many organizations, such as Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters but also private corporations, are seeing that

Status of Women committee  Thank you for that suggestion. We'll take that note. It's very creative.

Status of Women committee  You're absolutely right. We have an initiative, which we can get back to you with more information on, called Connect to Innovate, which is very much connected to the notion of empowering people with the right tools and technology to build and grow.

Status of Women committee  To be honest, the actual work around Bill C-25 is done in another part of my department, so on that specific question about where the next steps are, I would have to come back later with that. I will just say one thing, if you'll allow me to, on Bill C-25. We think that the lack

Status of Women committee  For that I would go back to our notion of the continuum. We really believe that addressing the issues around women's entrepreneurship and women-owned business is not really something that can be done with any one specific initiative. In fact, we need to look at the full continuum

Status of Women committee  As was alluded to earlier, different parts of the country have different needs, so the regional development agencies really work with their local communities in determining the best types of tactics and what needs are manifested. I can give you a bit of a rundown on a few things

Status of Women committee  Thank you for the question. The issue of advancing women in business is really a cross-government objective. It is a whole-of-government objective. There tend to be a lot of discussions. Our minister has had round tables, including with Minister Duclos on women entrepreneurship

Status of Women committee  Yes, we are. There is a commitment that we will start collecting much more detailed data on our programming.

Status of Women committee  As you say, it is very complex, and there are needs that are very different across the country. We do work with organizations, other parts of the government, like ESDC, in addressing the more holistic view of what it is we have to deal with. Clearly—

Status of Women committee  When I talked about data collection work, we're collecting data that is much more about the use of our programs and much more sophisticated data about who uses the programs: if they don't use the programs, why don't they use the programs?