Rosalind Lockyer is founder and CEO of PARO Centre for Women’s Enterprise-Ontario, PARO Canada and board member for Women’s Enterprise Organizations of Canada.

A new national, federally funded report from PARO Centre for Women’s Enterprise Canada makes clear that women entrepreneurs across Canada face significant roadblocks – particularly biases about their businesses and overly complex bureaucratic processes – created by systems not designed with them in mind.

As the federal government forges new trade relationships and launches big infrastructure projects to strengthen the economy, it must not overlook the power of entrepreneurs to fuel economic growth.

Reshaping these systems to include women is essential for building a more robust, resilient and inclusive economy. But doing so will require more than just tinkering around the edges.

We must fundamentally change the systems, policies and institutional practices underlying entrepreneurship so they do more than just accommodate women – they empower them to thrive.

To better understand the challenges and develop solutions, PARO – with funding from Women and Gender Equality Canada – consulted with more than 1,000 women and gender diverse entrepreneurs across the country to prepare the report.

Based on more than 60 regional consultations, two national surveys and expert interviews, the report identifies legitimacy gaps and complex and unreliable bureaucratic systems as over-arching barriers holding back women entrepreneurs.

Time and again, women entrepreneurs face institutional biases about their business’ legitimacy in funding, procurement and regulatory systems – with many describing being treated as marginal or “not quite established.”

Many are questioned about how real their business is simply because they operate outside of stereotypical entrepreneurial settings – with no downtown office, no visible team and no tech incubator logo attached to their brand.

Regardless of business type, size or revenue, women entrepreneurs must continually prove their legitimacy – explaining and re-explaining their business models to institutions that lack relevant categories, and adapting applications to fit frameworks that do not reflect their sector or scale.

This “legitimacy tax” diverts their time, capital and strategic capacity away from their business and leads to burnout.  

The burden is even greater for racialized, Indigenous, immigrant, disabled and rural entrepreneurs.

Just as problematic are overly complex, fragmented and unstable administrative and regulatory systems that drain time, create friction and generate mistrust.

Women entrepreneurs spend a disproportionate amount of time navigating compliance, licensing, reporting and shifting program rules – with many describing “jumping through hoops for a few bucks.”

They fill out detailed applications only to be rejected by hidden eligibility rules at the end. They navigate multi-agency licensing processes where departments do not talk to each other – resulting in often contradictory information.

Rules often shift quickly, with abrupt program cancellations or retroactive changes in terms that leave entrepreneurs scrambling, with one saying, “It felt like I ran a race and the finish line moved while I was running.”

They also often only learn about funding programs from talking to peers rather than hearing about them from the institutions offering them.

Not only do these challenges add another layer of exhaustion, but they also undermine trust in government and institutional funding.

They also underlie two other barriers – funding systems that are so out of step with women’s business realities that many must rely on personal savings and debt to grow their businesses, and infrastructure and market access systems that fail to accommodate the size, sector or geography of women-led businesses, hindering their growth.

 Transformation of current systems, policies and practices is required

The report’s findings paint a clear picture of women entrepreneurs facing challenges not because of their shortcomings, but due to systems that do not match their actual circumstances.

We need to drastically overhaul these systems to reflect women’s realities.

We must modernize the way legitimate businesses are defined to recognize a wider range of business models – including explicitly recognizing remote, care-based, creative and cooperative models as legitimate, with tailored criteria rather than shoehorning them into standard categories.

“Legitimacy audits” for funding and procurement programs must be introduced and small-value, low-barrier procurement streams must be created for women-led, non-traditional firms.

Evaluation of program outcomes should include tracking of time spent on administrative burden to identify and eliminate policies that lead to systemic burnout.

Administrative and regulatory systems must be simpler, clearer and easier to navigate, with one-stop compliance and funding portals, coordinated “no-wrong-door” service, plain-language guidance and early and clear communication when policies or programs change.

Funding systems must be more flexible and suited to business stage and sector and infrastructure must be right-sized to meet the needs of small, rural, coastal and care-based enterprises.

Women and gender-diverse entrepreneurs contribute significantly to Canada’s economy.

It is time we transformed systems, policies and practices to ensure they work for, not against, these entrepreneurs.

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