Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to be here amidst all of you. I look forward to exciting conversations, questions and answers.

My name is Lohifa Pogoson Acker. I'm an entrepreneur, business owner and community advocate from the wonderful city of Hamilton, Ontario. I bring you greetings from the city of Hamilton—Hamilton Mountain, to be exact.

I'd written quite the epistle over the weekend before coming here. I found out on Friday I was going to be coming here.

An incident occurred that shifted my perspective, and I thought I would bring to you a story of a friend of mine who started the entrepreneurship journey with me five years ago. Unfortunately, we ended up in emergency at the psych ward over the weekend—on Sunday, on Monday and again on Tuesday.

I wondered how we got to this point of not supporting entrepreneurs along their journey and at their junctures of challenge. When I hear the minister speak about wraparound supports, I can't help but wonder what exactly she was referring to in terms of wraparound supports. We all know, as entrepreneurs, that our journey is already lonely. Sometimes it is very difficult to reach out, to find resources and to find these ecosystems that I hear mentioned.

When I heard them mentioned, I couldn't help but wonder if I was in the same country that she was referring to—or even the same city, to bring it a bit smaller—because there has been a disconnect throughout the pandemic and there continues to be a disconnect.

I think there is an aspect of entrepreneurship and an aspect of women in business and supporting women in business that we are not being very intentional about. The joy has left the building. I'm not sure how else to say this. The stress has taken over. There are a lot of mental health issues as a result of the joy leaving the building.

We do not see intentional programming to help women remain enthusiastic, to help women remain joyful and to help them find.... Sometimes it's difficult to find a balance, but it's the feeling that you have a balance in managing a home, managing a business and being an active member of society.

I'm hopeful that we can have these discussions today. I can hopefully offer some perspective and some solutions in terms of bringing the joy back into the building for women entrepreneurs, but also, particularly in my case, for black women entrepreneurs.

Thank you very much.