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Results: 61 - 75 of 172
View Jag Sahota Profile
CPC (AB)
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Minister, I asked you about gender-based analysis and if the programs had that lens applied. Women were being left out of some programs where they couldn't get financial support. You said that Minister Qualtrough was fixing the programs, or had fixed the problems so women could get support.
How and why did we get to the stage where the program needed to be fixed? Your mandate letter requires you to apply the gender-based analysis lens before the programs are rolled out, not two, four, six or eight months later when women have already lost their jobs and feel the financial impact.
View Maryam Monsef Profile
Lib. (ON)
I think every Canadian appreciates that we are in the middle of an unprecedented crisis and that the pandemic is something that we have been working on since the beginning of the year. I think Canadians also appreciate that their government listens. When they say something needs to be improved, when they say something is better, I think Canadians expect the government to listen, and we've done just that.
In addition to the supports we've put forward around parental leave and mat leave, we were able to put forward a credit—
View Jag Sahota Profile
CPC (AB)
Minister, my question is this: Why wasn't the gender analysis lens applied before the programs were rolled out, such that we needed to fix those programs afterwards?
View Maryam Monsef Profile
Lib. (ON)
We were able to put forward a historic number of programs and deliver them in record time. Canadians told us to focus on speed and to perfect the programs after they had been rolled out. We did just that.
Canadians can rest assured that we'll continue to be there for them throughout COVID and post-COVID. We will take what they have to say seriously and respond to their needs. Members of Parliament have played a really big role in providing those eyes and ears on the ground to ensure that the decisions we make in such tight timelines, in a matter of months compared with years, take into account lived realities, as well.
View Jag Sahota Profile
CPC (AB)
Thank you, Madam Chair.
My question is for Ms. Smylie, or anybody else who wants to answer.
Ms. Smylie, on the GBA+ analysis, you talked about the process and how you apply the GBA+ lens at the beginning, in the middle, towards the end. Basically you continue to apply the lens.
Considering the problems we saw with the initial programs at the beginning of the pandemic, which are now being fixed, was a GBA+ analysis done at the beginning? If so, were the issues, such as women going on maternity leave or small business owners who are women and not having chequing accounts, flagged and addressed prior to the rollout of these programs?
Lisa Smylie
View Lisa Smylie Profile
Lisa Smylie
2020-11-24 13:14
Our work at WAGE doesn't involve us being intimately familiar with all of the discussions that go on as part of the GBA+ process, so I'm not able to speak to any specific initiative that is the purview of another department.
In terms of whether GBA+ was applied at the beginning, the middle or the end, my answer is that it depends. For new programs that were developed, you can see in the economic and fiscal update that in many of those, the GBA+ was done at the beginning. For initiatives that leveraged existing programs, the GBA+, in the context of COVID, would have been done in the midst of implementing that program. It existed pre-COVID.
The answer is that it depends on what initiative was being leveraged, whether it was a new program or an existing program, in terms of what point in time that GBA+ was done.
Corinne Pohlmann
View Corinne Pohlmann Profile
Corinne Pohlmann
2020-11-17 12:02
Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I'll be focusing my remarks on the impacts of COVID-19 on female entrepreneurs. I'll be walking you through a slide deck that I hope you all have in front of you.
Right away, I want to talk a bit about CFIB. It's a not-for-profit member-based organization that represents the interests of independently owned Canadian companies. Our 110,000 members come from every sector of the economy and are found in every region of the country.
During COVID-19, CFIB has been very active. Our help line call volumes tripled, with small business owners looking for information to help them get through the crisis. We've also undertaken regular surveys since the beginning of the pandemic to determine how small businesses are doing and how well government programs are working, and I want to share some of that with you today.
If we move to slide three, I want to start with how small businesses are doing right now.
As of early November, 66% of small businesses were fully open, 42% were fully staffed, and only 28% were at normal sales, all of which has actually decreased since October as more jurisdictions impose further restrictions. The bottom line is that this pandemic remains a significant challenge for many small businesses.
As you can see on slide four, small businesses are not homogeneous. About 30% have been in business for 10 years or less, and 96% have fewer than 50 employees. Just under one in two small businesses are owned by men, almost one in four are owned by women, and 28% have multiple owners, which might have a combination of genders.
Slide five looks at the share of ownership by gender, with 23% of firms being either entirely or majority owned by women and another 28% owned equally by women and men. This means that around 50% of businesses have women playing some type of role in the ownership.
Female business owners are also more highly represented in certain sectors, such as social services, enterprise and administration management, retail, professional services and personal services. In addition, as you can see on slide six, women-owned businesses also tend to be newer and smaller than their male counterparts, which might also explain some of the additional challenges they have faced.
As you can see on slide seven, those challenges are substantial. Only 63% of female-owned businesses are fully open, which is 10% less than male-owned businesses. Just 35% are fully staffed, which is 13% less than their male counterparts, and only 24% are back to normal sales, which is 8% less than men-owned businesses.
As you can see on slide eight, most small businesses are worried about the uncertainty around a second wave, and about two-thirds worry about the economic repercussions. About half are worried that consumer spending will be reduced even after COVID, and a similar number are worried about their business cash flow, the physical health impacts and their growing debt.
When we dissect the data further, you will see on slide nine that female-owned businesses are much more likely to be worried about consumer spending being reduced even after COVID, about their mounting debt, about their business cash flow, and about dealing with overwhelming stress than their male counterparts. Clearly, female entrepreneurs could use some financial and emotional support.
When it comes to financial support, as you can see on slide 10, female-owned businesses are more likely to need rent relief, and getting that relief significantly increases their odds of staying open. This is why the new Canada emergency rent subsidy needs to be implemented as soon as possible.
As you can see on slide 11, the Canada emergency wage subsidy tends to be more heavily used by more established firms. As female-owned businesses are more likely to be newer and smaller, we can assume they are probably not using the wage subsidy quite as much, and they are more likely to have used the Canada emergency response benefit to help themselves get through the tougher periods of the pandemic. It was also sometimes the only financial support many very small and newer business owners could get.
Quickly, in summary, before I get to some recommendations, female-owned businesses are more likely to be smaller and newer businesses, which also tend to be the businesses that are more likely to fall through the cracks of the various emergency relief programs, so it really should be no surprise that they also tend to be more worried about their businesses, and with good reason. The data tells us that they are less likely to be fully open, have normal or better revenues, be fully staffed or be able to pay their rent.
To help these entrepreneurs weather the storm, we need to make adjustments to the various emergency relief programs. First, we need to expand all emergency support programs to include microsized and newer firms, as this will likely help more female-owned businesses and also those that are owned by visible minorities.
For example, the Canada emergency business account loan requires a smaller company with less than $20,000 in payroll to submit documents showing they have more than $40,000 in non-deferrable expenses. The problem is that the application process is complex and some of the rules make it very difficult to comply. It needs to be simplified and made more flexible.
Second, as rent tends to be a more important expense to female-owned businesses, government needs to introduce the Canada emergency rent subsidy immediately, as December 1 is not that far away.
It would also be important for government to look at providing 50% of rent retroactively to those who qualified under the old rent program but did not get relief, as their landlord did not apply. Those businesses have likely accumulated a lot of debt and deserve to be provided with some assistance to help them through.
Third, even though women entrepreneurs are less likely to use the wage subsidy, it is still the most generous program being offered to small businesses. We want to make sure it is accessible to those who really need it. For example, many small business owners pay themselves in dividends, so they're not able to include their own income in the wage subsidy, nor can they use their dividend income to get CEBA. These programs should allow at least some dividend income to be included.
We would also suggest that the new lockdown support, which allows businesses to get up to 90% of their rent covered if they are forced to shut down due to a public health order, be expanded to the wage subsidy. Businesses want to hold on to their staff, and if they must close, they may have no choice but to let them go. Increasing the wage subsidy to 90% during these periods may help many more hang on to their staff until they can open.
Finally, I just want to mention something that is starting to emerge with seasonal businesses. They're now in their low season and may no longer have the revenue losses they did during the summer, but their needs have not changed. Without having made their usual higher revenues during the high season, it will be difficult for many of them to get through to next year. Finding some alternative ways for them to illustrate their circumstances in order to get a higher wage subsidy would be welcome.
There are many more ideas, but I will leave it at that for today. Thank you for your attention. I look forward to answering any questions you may have.
Sévrine Labelle
View Sévrine Labelle Profile
Sévrine Labelle
2020-11-17 12:09
Good morning, everyone.
Thank you for inviting me.
Allow me briefly to introduce Femmessor. We are a Quebec organization that has been devoted to the development of women's entrepreneurship in Quebec for the past 25 years. We offer financing and coaching particularly to women entrepreneurs from all regions of Quebec.
To maximize the potential of the Canadian economy, we need to promote diversified and inclusive economic growth. Unfortunately, female-owned businesses are still a small minority of Canadian SMEs: only 15.5% of SMEs are majority female-owned, compared to 66.4% that are majority male-owned. According to statistics, this gap is even wider in the manufacturing, technology and all innovative sectors, where women are largely absent.
Female entrepreneurship has experienced remarkable growth in recent years. Entrepreneurship intentions among women in Quebec more than tripled between 2007 and 2017. And this rate is twice as high among immigrant women. However, the COVID-19 crisis has hit women entrepreneurs harder, which threatens to widen the gender gap.
That is one of the findings of a survey conducted by Femmessor in collaboration with the BMO Chair in Diversity and Governance at the University of Montréal and the Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub. The findings in this report are worrisome and shed light on the need for additional steps to ensure that women entrepreneurs can participate fully in the economic recovery.
Highlights of the study include the fact that women entrepreneurs were hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Two-thirds of the companies surveyed were operating at less than 50% capacity during the crisis in the spring, and one in five entrepreneurs did not think they could survive the crisis. In addition, women-owned businesses have distinctive characteristics. They are in the sectors most affected by the pandemic. We are thinking, obviously, of the retail industry, personal services, the arts, culture, housing and the restaurant industry.
In many instances, women-owned businesses are also small businesses. Consequently, the financial resources that they can use to address such a crisis are limited. They also experience financing issues, as my colleague said. According to our study, 42% of the women entrepreneurs surveyed indicated that they were actively seeking funding to ensure their survival or to adapt their service or product offerings in response to the pandemic.
After exhausting the government assistance available, their funding requirements averaged $54,000. However, only 20% of respondents said that they intended to take advantage of the measures put in place by the Government of Quebec and the Government of Canada. When asked why, many said they did not qualify for the programs. The high level of debt among women entrepreneurs is also a major concern according to the study. In the spring, the most-used government measures among women entrepreneurs were definitely the Canada emergency business account and the emergency wage subsidy. New measures have since been implemented.
The crisis has also affected the women themselves. They have more family responsibilities and are experiencing more stress, which has, in some instances, made it more difficult to achieve work-life balance and to manage their businesses. We also learned from the survey that women need training and coaching to help them go digital and to support them in innovation, business development and networking.
What needs to be done? First of all, we need to step up our efforts to ensure that women are fully engaged in the economic recovery and that they do not lose the hard-won gains of the past 10 years. A gendered crisis requires a gendered response. Consequently, the economic recovery plan must include specific actions to revitalize the sectors that employ the most women. Women entrepreneurs can play a leading role in creating a resilient economy, not only because of the role they play in providing essential services to our population, but also because of their role in creating strong and diverse local economies.
Lastly, women entrepreneurs can be a driving force in creating a sustainable and green economy. According to a major Canada-wide study, Canadian women are more committed to taking action on climate change than Canadian men.
We need to increase support to women entrepreneurs, build on expertise from entrepreneurial ecosystem partners, including Femmessor, and work together to ensure that no businesses lag behind in generating the expected level of prosperity.
The various special assistance measures for women entrepreneurs naturally include financing and customized ongoing coaching to address the many needs identified. For example, at Femmessor, we place an emphasis on financing plus coaching, which has yielded a survival rate of approximately 80% for our companies after five years. There are also advisory services, codevelopment, customized training, and an emphasis on a diversity of female role models. Femmessor does all of these things.
I would like to congratulate the Canadian government for its leadership in the development of women's entrepreneurship, and for its sensitivity to the problems faced by women entrepreneurs during the crisis. Femmessor is grateful to the government for its trust in us, and for awarding us the largest grant under the federal Women Entrepreneurship Strategy to an organization that specializes in women's entrepreneurship. This support was also increased during the COVID-19 pandemic to help hundreds of women entrepreneurs transform their business model and adapt their products and services in order to become financially viable again.
Quite simply, what we are requesting is that financing for the many programs established by the government of Canada for entrepreneurs should also be extended to organizations like Femmessor, to ensure that women have full access to these forms of financial assistance and can benefit from the coaching we can give them.
From the standpoint of the Canadian economy, if women and men participated equally in entrepreneurship, it would mean a potential injection of $150 billion in gross domestic product, or GDP—a 6% rise in the current forecast GDP over the next decade. That would be equivalent to adding a new financial services sector to the economy, making it a significant step forward.
To conclude, more than ever, diversity and inclusion should be seen as ways to leverage economic growth, innovation, sustainable development and social development. All the evidence shows that Canada's sustainable development and economic development will require greater participation by entrepreneurial women and underrepresented communities, together with a contribution to help them achieve their full potential.
View Patrick Weiler Profile
Lib. (BC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Minister, for joining our committee today.
I'd like to turn back to the matter at hand today, which is, of course, the supplementary estimates (B).
Minister, this spring we debated and passed in the House several bills that contained vital measures to help Canadians get through the COVID-19 pandemic, and in particular, the estimates and the Public Health Events of National Concern Payments Act provided authority for a variety of COVID-19 spending, such as the CERB and the safe restart agreement, and others.
You mentioned in your opening remarks that these supplementary estimates (B) present information on the $58 billion in statutory expenditures. How much of this statutory funding is related to the COVID-19 response measures, and how are these items presented in these supplementary estimates?
View Jean-Yves Duclos Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Weiler. That's an interesting segue from the earlier question by member of Parliament Lloyd.
Ninety-six per cent of the statutory expenditures in the supplementary estimates (B) are focused on the COVID-19 crisis, expenditures such as the safe restart for children at school, to provide PPE—personal protective equipment—to front-line workers, strong investments in vaccines, in treatments, in testing equipment and resources for provinces and territories. Those are all part of that very significant 96% of the budgetary dollars in the supplementary estimates (B).
David Chartrand
View David Chartrand Profile
David Chartrand
2020-11-03 11:20
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to speak.
Natan—of course a very close friend of mine—it's great to see you again.
Marlene, it's been a while since I saw you. It's great to hear your opinion and views.
Natan, you'll see me now reading something, which I'm not typically used to doing. They're structuring me here.
Let me start off again by thanking you for inviting us to speak as the Métis National Council again on the COVID-19 that is gripping our country—we all know that—and, in particular, its impact on the Métis nation.
Since my last appearance, the Métis nation governments have worked hard to provide support for our citizens, family, workers and businesses as they try to cope with the hard impact of COVID-19. The Government of Canada heard our concerns, which I expressed to you in my last appearance, that some of the key support programs, such as the Canada emergency business account, were not reaching many of our people. However, after many calls and some push forward, it responded quickly and meaningfully and in partnership with us to adjust the program to allow our Métis nation governments and capital corporations to deliver a financial lifeline to our entrepreneurs, which we called a Métis nation CEBA.
It has also provided additional support to our governing members to ensure food security, income and other supports for many of our more vulnerable citizens, including our seniors, students, early learners and homeless. To give you an example, in the spring the Métis government in Manitoba delivered over 6,000 hampers to our seniors and vulnerable across the province. We're already now moving on our second phase.
There is no doubt that the government’s indigenous support programs, in addition to its broader COVID-19 economic response plan, have helped to stave off what truly could have been a devastating and disastrous impact on our communities.
At the same time, COVID had a significant impact on our people even before the onset of the second wave. Métis constitute the largest indigenous labour force in Canada, and the data coming out of Canada’s labour market survey shows we have lost jobs at a faster rate than other groups.
In case you have forgotten my last brief, there are an estimated 400,000 Métis in the Métis nation homeland in western Canada. We are the largest indigenous nation in this country. Many of our citizens are employed in the services and construction sectors. Their type of employment does not enable them to work from home.
We are also concerned for the future of many of our businesses. Yesterday, the Métis government announced $5.5 million, because we're in a red zone in Manitoba, to help any of our businesses that would potentially find themselves near bankruptcy or complete closure. We announced $5.5 million to be eligible to all Métis businesses in Manitoba. We know that we are a stopgap measure that cannot be relied upon for too long.
The COVID crisis has also exposed the particular vulnerability of our citizens and communities, owing to our long-standing exclusion from the federal health supports available to other indigenous peoples. While the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch of ISC worked with the first nations and Inuit to provide PPE and other forms of medical assistance, the Métis were left to fend for ourselves. As you heard from me last time, we ordered a lot of our stuff from China.
While we are all now focused on the need to contain this second wave, we hope that Canada tries to build resiliency with an equitable and sustainable economic recovery plan. We'll figure out in this plan the impact that COVID is having on our people.
We believe an equitable and sustainable economic recovery plan should incorporate the commitments made to us during the 2019 election campaign. Acting on these commitments will serve to stimulate economic activity and resolve long-standing inequities. These include commitments by Canada to close the infrastructure gap in Métis communities by 2030 through investments in critical health infrastructure such as the Métis nation health hubs; co-develop distinctions-based indigenous health legislation—with which we're in dialogue with Canada right now—to ensure indigenous control over the development and delivery of services; attain a 5% indigenous procurement target in federal spending and establish a major projects benefit framework to ensure Métis communities benefit from major projects.
I should add that passing federal legislation to implement UNDRIP will greatly assist in helping shape this major project framework. The MNC is engaging with the mining, oil and gas, and pipelines industries on UNDRIP, and we are all of like mind in working together to support legislation that can ensure our rights are respected and that certainty is provided for major projects to continue in this country. We will be meeting with many of the executives of the mining sector and the pipeline sector. We're making it very clear from our sector, the Métis nation, that we work hand in hand together and that UNDRIP is not a veto.
I should also add that the federal government’s budgets in 2018 and 2019 contained significant allocations for Métis nation-specific programs and services such as housing, early learning, child care and post-secondary education over a 10-year period. That was an essential, very wise investment because, as you know, all universities and most post-secondary institutions are shut down, so they're learning from home, and so are our kids. We've been able to provide supports to them at home.
Accelerating the release of the balance of this funding in a shorter time frame may also help in addressing the long-standing needs and provide economic stimulus in our communities. We hope the money would be released in a much broader context and we can get all of it into our banks so we can make sure we can put our long-term plans into action.
I hope this committee will lend its support to our important work ahead with the government.
Again, thank you for the invitation. Thank you for allowing us to be here and speak. I commend each and every one of you, from all parties, and I hope you're all safe. At the same time, I hope that all parties that are listening today take the time to reflect on where the Métis nation sits on your party's platform; and where you sit on ensuring the Métis government and Métis citizens—who, as I say, are the largest indigenous nation in this country—are well protected and part of your platform, your policy and your think plan.
To end, take care, and again, be safe, everybody. It was a pleasure speaking to you.
View Brian Masse Profile
NDP (ON)
View Brian Masse Profile
2020-07-10 15:48
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Have any of your companies applied or expect to apply for or receive any financial aid from any of the COVID-19 federal government programs?
I'll start with you first, Mr. La Flèche.
Eric La Flèche
View Eric La Flèche Profile
Eric La Flèche
2020-07-10 15:48
No, we did not apply and did not receive. Although some of our subsidiaries could have applied for them, we chose not to.
Michael Medline
View Michael Medline Profile
Michael Medline
2020-07-10 15:49
I do not believe we did. I'd have to check if there's a franchisee somewhere who was impacted who did, because we have franchised stores, as well—they're not our employees—but I don't think so.
Sarah Davis
View Sarah Davis Profile
Sarah Davis
2020-07-10 15:49
I have the same answer. As an enterprise, it's no. There might be some independent businesses that are affiliated with us that could have if they had the right circumstance.
Results: 61 - 75 of 172 | Page: 5 of 12

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