Rechie Valdez

Mr. Speaker, since it is Women's History Month, I want to thank my hon. colleague for the question. What I will say is, that is false. Our women entrepreneurship strategy has helped empower well over 600,000 women entrepreneurs across this amazing country to start, scale and grow their businesses. We have also attracted $7 billion to help women entrepreneurs across this country. This summer alone, I also announced our replenishment of funding toward the women entrepreneurship strategy. That is more money, $173.3 million, to help uplift women across the country. We are going to do everything we can to lift and empower them as well.

Mr. Speaker, supporting women entrepreneurs is not theatrics. I want to give a big shout-out to WeBC, which is a Kelowna-based organization that has received $5.6 million in helping women entrepreneurs with mentorship, business training, export support and growing their finances. Through our women entrepreneurship strategy, we are supporting women across the country and investing $173.3 million to help women entrepreneurs start, scale and grow their businesses. We are going to do everything we can to support them.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. Across Canada, women are making history. They are entrepreneurs, public servants and community leaders. Our government is working to break down barriers and open more doors. Over the past year, we have invested about $1 billion to create more opportunities for women and girls across the country. When women succeed, Canada succeeds.

Mr. Speaker, our government is focused on ensuring that everyday essentials are more affordable for Canadians. That is why our government introduced the first-ever national food security strategy. This is our $3-billion plan to make sure that we are increasing competition and making more food here at home. This is going to help Canadian producers, farmers and independent grocers, while bringing the prices in the grocery stores down. We are going to be focused on helping support Canadians while creating jobs and a strong economy.

Mr. Speaker, small business investment is up by 10%. The first thing our government did in terms of action was to bring down federal trade barriers across provinces and territories so small business goods could flow across the country. We are also diversifying trade, making sure that we are able to secure investment. We heard many references today. Do colleagues know who is going to benefit from that? It will be small and medium-sized enterprises. Through our buy Canadian policy, federal procurement opportunities are going to be opened up so that small and medium-sized enterprises can take advantage of this. We have invested $60 million for a small and medium-sized business export readiness program that will help ensure that we can secure—