Honourable senators, I am pleased to see increasing awareness of Canada’s dismal productivity growth and acknowledgment that this is putting our prosperity in jeopardy.

As we finally start to work to address our productivity problems, we need to ensure that we harness the power of diverse entrepreneurs like our own highly successful colleague Senator Gerba. Specifically, we need to see diversity, equity and inclusion not just as a social imperative but as an economic catalyst critical to our future prosperity.

Diversity fuels disruptive innovation, which is essential to fostering prosperous and inclusive growth. Why? Because when we favour homogeneity over diversity, we choose to look at the same old problems the same old way. Canada can no longer afford to miss out on the benefits of economic and social innovations that Black and diverse entrepreneurs have to offer. We have one of the most diverse populations in the world, but this global advantage is profoundly underutilized when we reinforce the status quo through our actions.

This is why Senator Gerba and I chose to examine the progress being achieved by Black entrepreneurs in Canada and to report on our findings. Importantly, our interviews with financial institutions found a rapidly growing awareness of the barriers facing Black entrepreneurs who want to finance their business growth.

We were inspired by the creative approaches that many financial institutions are demonstrating when they work with Black entrepreneurs who are looking to expand their domestic and global businesses. We encourage you to read the report available on my website in English and French.

Colleagues, homogeneity stifles creativity and innovation; diversity achieves the opposite. There are countless reports on this issue, one being the Centre for International Governance Innovation’s 2017 report called Diversity Dividend: Canada’s Global Advantage. CIGI found that ethnocultural diversity increases a business’s revenue and productivity growth. Yet, in Canada, three quarters of our venture capital comes from the U.S., where 58% of venture capital investors are White men and they control a staggering 93% of venture capital funds. Too often this sort of structural bias means that our non-inclusive status quo is perpetuated.

We need to keep searching for ways to help Black and diverse entrepreneurs creatively solve both local and global problems. Their innovations transcend national boundaries, reaching previously untapped or ignored international markets and consumers.

Colleagues, innovative entrepreneurs do amazing things, but evidence shows that adding diversity can unlock even more previously untapped opportunities in Canada and globally. Diversity, equity and inclusion is not just a social imperative; it’s crucial to driving innovation and ensuring our collective economic prosperity.

Thank you, colleagues.