Official Languages committee  Access to child care is a priority for both women and men entrepreneurs under 40 whom we support. They are into the child-bearing years. In fact, some of the entrepreneurs we've supported have started day cares for their communities. Those are the businesses because there is so m

Official Languages committee  Thank you for the question. I will approach it from the employee side, as well as our services side. As I mentioned, close to half of our bilingual employees live outside of Quebec. In fact, we pay a premium to employees who have English and French, because we value having the

Official Languages committee  That is interesting. I'm sorry. I did not fully understand your question. We currently already serve francophone Canadians, regardless of where they live. We have francophone team members throughout the country. An additional tool that we are currently using, but could use more

Official Languages committee  Futurpreneur is currently up for funding renewal with the federal government. The federal government's funds help us to ensure that we can deliver our services. As I said, we seamlessly deliver our services in French or English. However, we need funding in order to employ the peo

Official Languages committee  Yes. Supporting OLMC entrepreneurs has been and will continue to be core to Futurpreneur's work, and we look forward to continuing our successful partnership with the Government of Canada in support of inclusive economic development. Thank you.

Official Languages committee  Thank you very much. Dear members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Karen Greve Young. I am the CEO of Futurpreneur Canada. We are a national non-profit organization that helps diverse aspiring entrepreneurs launch successful bu

International Trade committee  I was in nearby Vancouver late last week. I think the important thing is to think as creatively as the entrepreneurs do about what they might need and what a new company might look like. As an example, we launched a side hustle program a couple of years ago. There are some comm

International Trade committee  They benefit from the diaspora to some extent. What we see a lot of is that community not only becomes very supportive within their community, but they are able to leverage their international diaspora. A great number of the entrepreneurs we support are food businesses, for insta

International Trade committee  On that point, I'm going to go a little bit earlier. I think, as important as it is to communicate effectively to the small and mid-sized businesses, especially the small enterprises and the newer enterprises, it's equally important to have their perspective as the negotiations a

International Trade committee  I don't know the specifics, I will admit. We support roughly 1,000 entrepreneurs getting new financing every year. I have met the Wilder Harrier team, and I know that Europe has become an important new market for them, but I'm not actually sure how the mechanics works. I'd be ha

International Trade committee  Yes, I would like to add that the really good news is that we talk to each other. I've been in this space for about eight years in Canada, before that in the bay area in California and in the U.K. Eight years ago, all the different players were not really effectively talking to

International Trade committee  We're not only not scared to; none of us can service everyone who comes in our door. We have two and a half applications for every entrepreneur we finance or mentor. Those who we can't support, we'll refer to others.

International Trade committee  It really depends on the business and the sector it's in. They're all within the first year, right? That loan is coming within a year of the company's launch or within a year of the company having launched, so it's for any of those early needs. It really depends on whether it's a

International Trade committee  Some of them were. I should clarify that Futurpreneur Canada doesn't have firm data on that. I say it based on my past experience with MaRS.

International Trade committee  I think some of them were, in fact, primed. A great example from Quebec is a company called Wilder Harrier, which is a non-meat pet food company that started exporting to Europe pretty much as soon as CETA was signed, particularly to France. We've tried to help them get access to