The Government of Canada’s Budget 2025’s ‘Build Canada Better’ investments in major projects, trade diversification and critical sectors represent opportunities for women-led small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), but ecosystem leaders will have to continue advocating vigorously to ensure these businesses can fully benefit from this potentially transformative moment in Canadian economic development.
Speaking at “Women Build Canada: Sustaining Success in Critical Sectors”, an event organized by the Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub (WEKH) and the Diversity Institute at Ottawa’s Rideau Club in November, founder and Academic Director Dr. Wendy Cukier underscored that without intentional strategies and measurable targets, women-led businesses risk being sidelined as these major federal investments roll out.
“There needs to be a focus on getting women-led businesses into the supply chains for these new projects,” she explained during an engaging fireside discussion with the Honourable Rechie Valdez, Canada’s Minister of Women and Gender Equality and Secretary of State for Small Business and Tourism. Their conversation followed Minister Valdez’s presentation of Budget 2025 highlights to an audience of women entrepreneurs, high profile women business leaders, and ecosystem partners.
Following the fireside conversation, Dr. Cukier shared additional insights from WEKH’s gender-based analysis of the Build Canada Strong initiatives, outlining the current landscape of women’s entrepreneurship in Canada and examining specific sectors relevant to the areas identified in the budget.
For example:
- 3% of cleantech firms are majority-owned or managed by women but 18% of firms in the research and development stage are women-led. Women-led green-sector startups have demonstrated higher returns on investment compared to men-led startups.
- In dual-purpose firms—those serving defense and civilian markets—women’s representation is growing. However, benefiting from “Buy Canadian” defence procurement requires navigating relationships with prime contractors and overcoming opaque procurement pathways.
- Women-led construction firms remain a small share of the sector, but representation has grown sharply—from 3.9% in 2017 to 7.8% in 2024.
- Women majority ownership or management in professional, scientific and technical sectors has expanded from 14.9% in 2017 to 22% in 2023.
- Canada leads globally in AI gender diversity, with a 67% jump in women working in AI from 2022 to 2023; the highest increase worldwide. Canada’s gender gap in AI is narrower than it is in other technologies: 47% of women are familiar with AI programs compared to 53% of men.
Dr. Cukier noted that the government’s commitments to help SMEs access “Buy Canadian” procurement policies and diversified export opportunities are promising signals for women-led businesses.
“A lot of the focus over recent years has been on access to financing, access to loans, and access to investors – all of which remain very important. But access to customers is equally transformative. Bringing a gender and diversity lens to procurement is critical, particularly at a time when massive public sector investments are planned. There are opportunities as tier 1 suppliers but also tier 2 suppliers and we want to ensure that large projects prioritize community benefits as part of the negotiations, particularly in the north.”
Demonstrating that an intersectional and inclusive lens needs to be embedded across the “whole of government” approach to Build Canada Strong, Dr. Cukier in particular highlighted the powerful economic impact of immigrant entrepreneurs, including women:
- Women owned businesses have bridged the gender gap and are just as likely to export as men led businesses.
- 20% of immigrant-owned SMEs exported in 2023, compared to 12.9% of non-immigrant owned businesses and all SMEs (15.1%)
- They are more likely to export to non-US markets than SMEs led by Canadian-born entrepreneurs (76.1% vs. 88.2% focus on the U.S.)
- Women are over-represented in many ethnic entrepreneurship groups compared to women in the general population.
“Immigrants are Canada’s superpower: We are a global country; We have a global workforce; We have entrepreneurs with global reach. That is geopolitical capital and export acceleration potential.”
“Ninety percent of private sector employment is powered by SMEs, but smaller enterprises are so busy, they don’t always have time, resources, extra capital and skills necessary to take advantage of this technology.”
Research shows that 65% of SMEs using generative AI report increased employee performance. It has been estimated that broader adoption could save workers in SMEs an average 125 hours per year, and deliver up to $100 billion annually in value. These gains, she argued, hinge on equipping entrepreneurs and their employees with the necessary skills to use AI responsibly and effectively.
Ensuring women-led businesses can access the full range of opportunities within Build Canada Strong initiatives will require coordinated effort across government, industry and the entrepreneurship ecosystem. Inclusive innovation must be embedded from program design through evaluation, Dr. Cukier concluded.
“What we really are striving for is embedding a gender lens across the ecosystem. That means for every single policy and program, asking: ‘What is the impact on women entrepreneurs,’ whether it’s AI, science and technology investments or the R&D investments or tax policy.”
