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Tsunami Co-Chairs Meet with Canadian Prime Minister’s
Parliamentary Task Force on Women Entrepreneurs
Meeting at the Willard InterContinental Hotel in Washington, DCthe
place where the term “lobbying” was born in the
late 1800s Tsunami Co-Chairs Virginia Littlejohn (far left) and Ambassador Linda Tarr-Whelan (far right) had breakfast
on April 30 with Astrid Pregel, the Canadian Consul General in Atlanta, GA, USA; Member of Parliament Sarmite Bulte,
Chair of the Task Force; Andrina Lever, the private-sector advisor to the Task Force; Senator Catherine Callbeck, a Task
Force member and former Premier of Prince Edward Island; and Member of Parliament Karen Redman, a Task Force
member. All 5 Canadians are members of Tsunami’s Global BrainTrust.
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Prime Minister Jean Chrétien created a Task Force
on Women Entrepreneurs on November 19, 2002,
as a vehicle to advance the contribution of women
entrepreneurs to the Canadian economy - more.
The Task Force has been holding a series of
Roundtables across Canada to examine the
unique challenges faced by women-owned
businesses. It is considering the factors required
to encourage women’s entrepreneurship,
assessing existing resources, and identifying gaps
and areas for possible future action. It also is
identifying best practices in other countries, and
evaluating their appropriateness for Canada.
After synthesizing information learned, the Task
Force will provide advice to the federal government
on broad issues in women’s entrepreneurship. It
also will develop a national strategy on how to
assist women entrepreneurs, and make
suggestions for specific policy and program
initiatives that the government should consider.
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In their April 30 meeting, Tsunami Co-Chairs
Virginia Littlejohn and Linda Tarr-Whelan shared
insights about the U.S. experience with women
entrepreneurial advocacy since the mid 1970s,
including both successes and failures, and
emphasized the critical need for research about
the role women entrepreneurs play in creating
jobs and spurring economic growth. Task Force
Chair Sarmite Bulte conducted a similar factfinding
mission to the UK on April 24-25, and
Virginia Littlejohn met with some of the same
British officials and private sector leaders during
the week of May 5th (see article on page 2).
Tsunami’s Co-Chairs and the Canadian
representatives discussed ways to work
cooperatively to identify women entrepreneurial
best practices in the U.S., Canada and other
countries. They also discussed how these findings
and best practices could be showcased at a
series of OECD meetings taking place in Istanbul
in June 2004, including a 75-country Small and
Medium Enterprise Ministerial, Business Forum
and Global Marketplace.
Parliamentary Task Force on Women Entrepreneurs
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“Supporting women in
business is good economic
policy. What is good for
women entrepreneurs is
good for all SMEs.”
The Honorable Sarmite Bulte,
Canadian Member of Parliament, and
Chair of the Prime Minister’s Task
Force on Women Entrepreneurs
About Project Tsunami
Project Tsunami, Incorporated
(www.projecttsunami.org), is a non-profit
corporation based in Atlanta, Georgia,
USA, that is a global accelerator for
women’s entrepreneurship. It was
designed to help create a tidal wave of
economic opportunities in the U.S. and
abroad, by identifying and connecting key
women entrepreneurial leaders, facilitating
the sharing of best practices across
countries, and helping to link effective
programs with resources. It uses 21st
Century technology to make a
clearinghouse of resources and best
practices available to its powerful global
network of leaders and multipliers, who
then disseminate this information widely
to their members and stakeholders. The
organization began its work with a major
seed grant from the Ewing Marion
Kauffman Foundation, which funds
innovative programs that foster
entrepreneurship.
Tsunami is an outgrowth of two major
international conferences on womenowned
small and medium enterprises
(WSMEs) put on by the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) in Paris in 1997 and 2000, for
which Tsunami’s Co-Chair and CEO,
Virginia Littlejohn, served as Senior
Advisor. Project Tsunami influences
policies, practices and programs that
expand the WSME sector by concentrating
on 5 core strategies: 1) WSME research,
data and statistics; 2) Entrepreneurial
education and training; 3) Access to
finance; 4) Access to networks and to
corporate, government and international
markets; and 5) Technology as an
entrepreneurial enabler. We also are
analyzing how these five areas impact
high-growth women entrepreneurs.
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