Canada’s Biggest Missed Opportunity: Women Entrepreneurs
Episode 4
Released March 25, 2025
KEYWORDS
Women's entrepreneurship, gender gap, business ownership, economic opportunity, access to capital, BDC initiatives, Thrive platform, VC ecosystem, policy support, administrative burdens, high growth sectors, inclusive entrepreneurship, DEI leadership, Canadian economy, business development.
SPEAKERS
Marwa Abdou, Isabelle Hudon
Intro 00:01
Welcome to Canada's Economy Explained the Business Data Lab Podcast, an initiative of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, with your host. Marwa Abdou, Senior Research Director. Using real time data and actionable insights, our experts and guests will break down the trends that are shaping Canada's Economic and Business landscapes to help you make better decisions. Let's dive in.
Marwa Abdou 00:26
Today, we're diving into one of the most pressing economic challenges in Canada, entrepreneurship, and more specifically, the gender and representation gap in business ownership. In budget 2018 the Government of Canada announced an impressive $2 billion to advance women's entrepreneurship through Canada's first Women Entrepreneurship strategy the West. The West builds on the government's empowerment agenda and introduces, quote, whole of government approach that positions women's entrepreneurship as an integral part of Canada's growth strategy the West, at that time, aimed to double the number of women owned businesses by 2025 fast forward to today, the share of women's owned businesses in Canada is 18% that's just under one in every five businesses, a figure that has had slow progress for at least two decades and sits far short of the government's targets. We're seeing fewer businesses being launched today than 20 years ago. Why are so few of them owned by women and more importantly, what can we do about it? Joining me today is a trailblazer in the world of business and leadership. Madame Isabelle Hudon, she is the President and CEO of the Business Development Bank of Canada, BDC. She has held executive leadership roles at Sun Life Financial and the Montréal Board of Trade and served as Canada’s Ambassador to France. Hudon is a recognized champion for women’s advancement, co-founding L’effet A to promote female leadership and co-chairing the Gender Equality Advisory Council for Canada’s G7 Presidency. Her contributions have earned her numerous accolades, including the Québec Medal of the National Assembly and an honorary doctorate from Concordia University.”
Welcome to the podcast, Isabelle.
Isabelle Hudon 02:29
Thank you. Thank you for the invitation. Marwa.
Marwa Abdou 02:31
Isabelle, we've been seeing declining dynamism that's been widely reported. Business exits are exceeding that of entry, as well as lagging rates of self employment. Women remain significantly underrepresented in entrepreneurship, and the economic cost of that disparity is staggering in our most recent BDL report, which we'll include in the show notes, we estimated that had we met the targets that we set in 2018 and moved on closing a bit of that gender gap, we would have capitalized on up to, if not more than 6% of GDP growth during that period of time, just by including women entrepreneurs in the equation alone, in dollar values that can be up to $180 billion of lost economic opportunity. Now, Canada has been, in my opinion, somewhat apathetic and looking beneath its feet, instead of really thinking more boldly, even beyond and irrespective of whether there's enough priority and emphasis and care about closing the gender and representation gap, which we've been talking about for decades. There is, as I mentioned, untapped economic opportunity and potential that we've lost sight of. You know, be it in terms of innovation, of productivity, instead of continuously exhausting the same resources, we're really missing out on that immense capacity of underrepresented groups, particularly women. Now I wanted to ask you, what do you see as the biggest challenges facing entrepreneurship in Canada today, and why have we been so glacial in terms of our progress and remain stagnant despite years of investment in women's entrepreneurship?
Isabelle Hudon 04:19
So let's start Marwa on the overall entrepreneurship data point whereby there's not enough Canadian male, female or non gender Canadian thinking about making their career one of entrepreneurship, and this is probably linked to the fact that the young generation have, or the younger generations, let's call it like this, have many options when they're out of school. Entrepreneurship might be an option, but they have many options to join many organizations. That was not the reality 20 or 25 years ago. So that we need to keep in mind, if there's a decrease in popularity around entrepreneurship, is probably linked one to the fact that the younger generation has, like, maybe, more options out of school. First. Second, it's becoming well well known that being an entrepreneur is not a walk in the park, and it's not only a job, it's a lifestyle. And younger generation because they have other options where quality of life could be seen and understood better, maybe entrepreneurship is not top of mind for them or their first choice. So those are two reasons on which we need to reflect link to the lack of popularity around entrepreneurship. Now let's dig into female entrepreneurship. Numbers and data are even more severe when when we talk about woman entrepreneurship, you're asking why the first why is access the capital for women is not as quote, unquote easy for women, or it's not as easier for women than it is for man. Now we have to reflect on this as a society and as an organization like BDC, what can we do and what should we do differently? Now I have a long list of what we need to do differently, but I would say Marwa is the challenges around access to capital is probably one of the top three reasons why we don't see as many women picking entrepreneurship as a career versus men.
Marwa Abdou 07:07
I think you touch on a couple of really important points. I think there is a certain attractiveness to entrepreneurship that has really fallen behind. And I don't think that that's yes by proxy, that you know, times are changing and evolving, but I think particularly when we think about women and underrepresented groups, it's become so much more of a risk to go into entrepreneurship than anything else. And we know that women, and particularly women from underrepresented groups, be it black or indigenous or, you know, visible minorities or women from LGBTQ plus communities, when we think about the additional barriers to their entry and the Indi the additional burdens that they have to continue to face and tackle on it becomes so much more of an exacerbated issue. And we know from the data, and we cite that in the report that we recently published in the BDL, that fear of failure is a real thing, and women in Canada feel that, you know, there's, there's a significant portion, particularly when you compare that with OECD countries, that it's not just fear of failure, but also feeling like they don't have the skills to be able to navigate such a difficult climate in the business world. So I, you know, I hear you, and I think the work that BDC is doing, particularly in terms of alleviating those burdens and those challenges, especially in terms of access to capital, are huge and so necessary. I think that also when we think about the role of policy, when we think about administrative burdens, and when we think about childcare programs, coupled with the access to capital, those are going to have insurmountable, you know, amazing effects in terms of tackling insurmountable challenges and barriers to women's entry. Now women are just they're not just underrepresented. They're also missing out on key high growth sectors. We provide some data in the report, and we cite particularly an issue in terms of gendered industries. So, we see a lot of women owned businesses remaining concentrated in three sectors, healthcare, retail, rather than high growth sectors like tech, manufacturing, construction. These sectors occupy such a massive portion of Canada's GDP, and the role of women in those sectors could really provide exponential growth for Canada, and can provide probably vantage points of innovation, of productivity, if we are actually investing in the right way. Now we've estimated based on the OECD data that Canada has, and this is a very rough estimate about seven. 110,000, missing women entrepreneurs, and that what we mean by that is that they are women who could be engaged in entrepreneurship, but are simply not being engaged in entrepreneurship for a lot of the reasons that we just mentioned. And the gender gap is particularly high in certain provinces. I wanted to ask, what kind of work is BDC doing in terms of tackling those industry level challenges and in expanding kind of the geographical outreach to engage more women into entrepreneurship.
Isabelle Hudon 10:35
As you know, Marwa, at BDC, we lend money, we provide advisory services, so non financial support, and we invest in in VC and venture capital, in the three lines of business, we have specific strategy on how to go and get and convince women to start a business. Do more, grow and stay into business. On the lending side, we are showing more flexibility to make capital accessible to women, especially to launch or to grow their business. On the VC side, Marwa, that's where we are very focused on. Making sure that across all sectors in which we have decided to invest, high growth sectors, usually when, when investing in VC, we make sure that we have, first of all, we have programs 100% dedicated and exclusive to women entrepreneurs. Some men would come to us and say, why you're doing this. Well, sadly, so in 2025 numbers are showing that if we are not being deliberate around making capital available to women. It won't happen naturally. So I'm totally convinced that we still need to have dedicated programs for women entrepreneurs. Now what we also do manhwa is not only investing in woman led companies, but we are trying to bring our influence into the VC ecosystem. We do invest in funds, and when we do so, we make sure that there's women around the table at the Investment Committee, because we know very well. Then when women are part of decisions, decisions are always more favorable towards woman entrepreneur than the reverse. You would imagine Mawa. You come like with a high ambition to raise money with a startup, with a dream. You're a woman. You're the first-time entrepreneur. You come into the room and it's a room filled with men only, and usually white location, 55, men, and you're here to pitch on this big, bright idea that is that will change the world that is never seen before. Well, women were not at our best when we are among an environment such as the one we've described. So bringing more women at the table who will be part of the decisioning does help. It does help smooth the experience for women pitching on their idea. But also women will bring elements to consider differently than men. And I'm not saying better or worse, but it's a combination of both, like the male lens and the female lens. So that's a work that we've been doing that it really behind the scene Marwa, it's not as impressive as announcing a half billion dollar platform dedicated to women what we did a few years ago with our Thrive platform, but what we're doing behind the scene is as important transforming the ecosystem so that this environment becomes a little bit more friendly. I don't know if the VC ecosystem will ever be friendly, but making it a little bit more friendly and welcoming for women, but women also, they need to fuel themselves with confidence, because getting into the VC world is not an easy experience. But I wanted to to highlight the fact that we are doing highly visible things, like a half billion dollar platform exclusively for women entrepreneur but behind the scenes. In what we're doing is as strategic and important.
Marwa Abdou 15:04
I can't tell you how important so many of the points that you touch on are. First and foremost, as you said, we've devoted a lot of funds and resources over decades to tackling women's involvement, engagement, participation in the business world and in entrepreneurship, we've, you know, we've said that this is a priority. And, you know, one of the things that I'm often asked is, why haven't we made progress? And as you said, it's not enough to just create these programs and just assume that women are going to rush and be able to to tackle and take advantage of these resources that we're making available, but it is the onus of policy makers, of practitioners of different aspects and components of society to come together and think about the conversations that we're having and the ecosystem that we're fostering that actually underpins this entire pipeline of entrepreneurship. You know, one of the things that also we talk about is it's not enough that we talk about the entry of women into entrepreneurship, but making sure that we are supporting them along the way through the stages of entrepreneurship, so not just through entry and nascent entrepreneurship, but or early stage and moving them to then scaling and then maturing their businesses to make sure that they are taking full advantage of that cycle of entrepreneurship. Now, I wanted to focus a little bit more on BDCs role of driving change in that conversation, because I really think that we're getting to the heart of some of some of these issues that we haven't been able to get to. You know, one of the things that you mentioned is BDC has made significant commitments to inclusive entrepreneurship, including major financial investments. When we first met a little bit over a year ago, you had asked me, what motivates me to do this work. Now it's sort of a full circle moment for me to ask you, first and foremost, what motivated you as a leader, as the first female leader for BDC to undertake this work, and particularly, we were talking in this moment in time, you know, when we're seeing so much rhetoric south of the border that is attacking diversity and inclusion. Why you think it's more important than ever to really lead this effort? That's one. And I wanted to also ask you, in terms of the Thrive Platform for Women that's been helping entrepreneurs from all over Canada, can you share a number of any success stories that really stick in your mind in terms of women that have been included into the entrepreneurship ecosystem that wouldn't have otherwise been able to do so.
Isabelle Hudon 17:50
On your first question, Marwa, I think it's a real opportunity for Canada to show strong leadership and to stay The course. On Dei, I've shared many times with my colleagues over the last few months that there's no change for us. We are a bank, but we are also a development bank, and my definition of the Development Bank is to play where others are, not until they do so fill the gap, but not only filling the gap, making sure that there's going to be a number of organizations that will follow our step. So I'm totally convinced that we have a role to play. We will not be alone changing the world, but as a development bank, we have a role to play. And as the country, when other countries are shutting down the DEI conversation, we should do totally the reverse, and we should stay the course. I think that we have shown not I think we have shown leadership as a country. You've mentioned that I was ambassador once. It was a few years ago. I can tell you that abroad, we are an inspiration for many countries on how we are totally conferable. Not saying that it's easy. We all recognize that it's challenging and difficult sometimes, but it's not because it's difficult that we should drop the gloves. We should stay the course, face the winds, and keep on walking, if not running. That's my position. That's my personal conviction. And I think that there's a real moment for Canada to show an even stronger leadership. On on dei now, on what we have been doing BDC over the last few years. It was one of my first announcement. Did the Thrive platform with half a billion. And dedicated to women. I was able to dream big because the organization when I joined, already started to deliver big on women. When I joined, we were at the end of our first woman in technology fund that had 200 million at the time, and then my team came and said, Well, we're about ready to do our second fund, and we have this great idea of maybe bringing 300 million to the market. And I said, You know what? I don't think that's ambitious enough. I think we should go bold. And they came back few weeks after, and they said, Well, we have this project, it would be half a billion platform dedicated to women that would be divided in three. We would invest in funds that want to make a difference for women entrepreneurs, what we called indirect so. So we did. We will bring 300 million for direct investment in women led companies, and we will reserve 100 million that we go into a lab and where we would do things differently to promote entrepreneurship among women and to make it look just a little bit easier to enter this world. And I say Marwa, that the lab with the 100 million is probably what makes me most proud of that half billion platform. It's not where we will deploy most of the capital, but it is through this action, specific ambition that we will have an impact, and we had decided to deploy that 100 million capital along with partners on the ground. So instead of playing along, we've decided that we would play with others that are capable of making sure that we find the right woman in which we are ready to invest in their business. It makes me very, very proud, and I can tell you that it's not an easy journey. Sibling label is leading the charge on this internally. We're now rallying everyone, but at the get go like it was not obvious internally, it was not well understood externally. But after two years, we've already started to invest in companies in sectors that are both conventional and high growth. So it makes me very, very proud.
Marwa Abdou 22:48
For good reason. I think that you know, no one is saying that this work is easy. We know what we need to do. We know that change takes time, as much as we want to press the fast forward button. Now one of the things that you know I and I urge our listeners to go to BDC and to access the wealth and the breadth of resources that BDC has on its website, and which are really, truly impressive. I also wanted to say that we're going to link in the show notes the most recent report that BDL has published, which focused on women entrepreneurs, and we cite a lot of OECD data comparing where Canada stands in terms of entrepreneurship compared to OECD countries. Now I want to touch on a point that you had mentioned. Obviously, BDC isn't your first big and monumental position. You've spent a lot of time abroad, and one of the questions that I'm constantly asked is, What can we learn from other countries, and what are the lessons that we need to take from other countries abroad, whether it's OECD or otherwise, that we can employ here in Canada and use as promising practices in terms of improving the engagement of women entrepreneurs and the conversation and the actions that follow in terms of empowering them.
Isabelle Hudon 24:07
What I've learned the most from the French, because I was in I was in France for four years, is the level of ambition that they are highly conferable dealing with we are somewhat in our good Canadian posture. We have learned through the years that being too ambitious was probably stealing something from someone in our good Canadian posture. That's not the good thing. Well, time is changing, and the war we are in with, with the United States, the commercial war we have to fight for, is showing us that a big ambition is more than possible. Rule, and more than that is needed in those time, difficult times. So what I've learned the most is we should be way much more allowed to show up with high, high ambition, not to rule the world, not at all, but to go for it big and and bold, and that is also true for women entrepreneurs, we need to aim high, like the half billion platform is exactly the message that I wanted to send, internally and externally. It is possible to make the impossible possible when you decide to do so absolutely.
Marwa Abdou 25:46
And I think taking lead on leaving no one behind is really critical in this moment in time. We just simply cannot afford to leave the massive talent that we have at our fingertips. You know, be it through immigrants, be it through underrepresented groups, women being at the helm. And we know that the largest gaps that exist in entrepreneurship are are that of women. Now I want to just take a moment and ask you, as Canada has the talent and the resources to thrive, we are seeing these persistent barriers. Are there any key messages? What's the one thing that you would tell our listeners, be it women entrepreneurs who are listening, who are feeling apprehensive, who aren't feeling necessarily welcome into the space, or just generically, any listener that's thinking, well, how can I continue to support women entrepreneurs in this climate.
Isabelle Hudon 26:43
So for the woman themselves, be highly confident based on what you know and not on what you don't know. We always and sadly, so start too often women with what we don't know, make sure that you focus on what you know and what you're good at doing first second, when you visit your banker and you're thinking asking for $100,000 ask the double ask for $200,000 or if a million ask for two million, we do see a huge gap between what women entrepreneurs are asking money wise, versus men. Thirdly, for women entrepreneurs the same than men. Surround yourself with very strong people that you can reach to at any time. Now, for the second category, the ones that are thinking, What can I do, to do, to start doing something, or to do more and better? Listen and don't impose your narrative or your way of seeing the world, but listen to that entrepreneur in front of you that wants to change the world and be curious about her project, her dream, and don't impose your view of the world to her.
Marwa Abdou 28:16
Well, I think that this was an incredibly insightful conversation and an inspiring one for so many of us. Thank you so much. Isabelle for your time, for sharing your insights on this incredibly important issue. You know, we're richer for your comments and for your intellect and your for you for your leadership. That's it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening to the business data lab podcast, Canada's economy explained, where we do our best to help you make sense of Canada's numbers. Be sure to join us next time. Thank you.
Outro 28:51
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