New Dawn Enterprises

SYDNEY, N.S. — Nadine Bernard was happy to see another Cape Breton woman at the RBC Women of Influence awards gala in Toronto.

The We’koqma’q woman was one of three finalists for the Micro-Business Award, which she won at the Nov. 8 gala.

Before the awards, Bernard said she felt like a “fish out of water” at the event which she described as glamorous like Hollywood.

When she found fellow Cape Bretoners Erika Shea, CEO of New Dawn Enterprises, a finalist for the Social Change Award: Regional Impact.

“It was a very, very classy event. Very high society, very important people and I just felt like, you know, I’m from a small village in the First Nation community in Cape Breton,” Bernard said.

“And I saw Erika Shea, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God,’ the relief I felt to see someone from home, (it) felt so good. We were like, ‘You know what? We’re just gonna go in and fit in the best we can,’ and that’s what we did.”

Shea said the two friends tried to find time to get together to catch up over lunch and they joked about having to fly to Toronto for an awards gala to find time to catch up. “They had a lovely, lovely networking reception and we had a great catch up about our professional and personal lives on the fourth floor of the Ritz Carlton in Toronto,” said Shea.

“To see Nadine win the award in her category is something I will never, ever forget. She was the second award category of the night and … you could hear a pin drop during her acceptance speech. She was in tears after, the audience was in tears and, so, to get to be witness to that moment in person was extraordinarily special.”

Although they didn’t know it at the time, there was a third woman from Cape Breton who was a finalist in a different category — Carolynn Dubé.

“It’s kind of cool there are three of us from Cape Breton here,” Dubé said. “When you think about it, there’s only 21 finalists … and one took home the top prize. I think that that’s awesome.”

Shea said seeing three Cape Breton women in the finals was exceptional considering how little exposure there usually is for women entrepreneurs on the national level.

“Women in Cape Breton are working incredibly hard. They are rigorous. They are committed and they’re earning, you know, maybe a disproportionate piece of the national spotlight for women entrepreneurs,” she said.

“It was extraordinary that of (21) there were three finalists from Cape Breton.”

Bernard thinks it is also a testament to the business community in Cape Breton and that it shows the world we have a strong business community with opportunities.

“This history of Canada and business after the industrial part … of Cape Breton, turning it into what else do we have to offer, in Canada and the world,” said Bernard.

“That we don’t have to leave. You can come to us.”

Bridging the gap

When they announced her name as winner of the Micro-Business Award, Bernard said all she could do was cry.

“It was just recognizing all the hard work, the sacrifice, the commitment, the belief, the passion,” said Bernard, who created the Indigenous engagement and procurement company almost six years ago.

“Working crazy hours, like 60-70 hours was a norm. Just keeping the engine chugging was my priority because I believed in what this work does so much and it just felt like, you know, somebody else sees it besides me.”

Helping bridge the gap between Indigenous communities and peoples and governments and industry, Indigevisor also helps employers understand and develop Indigenous benefit packages.

“We have progressed into two new sectors, which is more mining projects … and and the other is oil and gas in Western Canada,” said Bernard, who noted they are also in the defence sector.

“We just see more long-term relationship building, you know supporting corporate Canada in the reconciliation action plans and in their learning journey. I think we’re really going to have to put on our sneakers in 2025, for sure.”

Helping the homeless

For more than 15 years Shea has been involved in community development and is a driving force behind some solutions for homelessness in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.

President and CEO of New Dawn Enterprises, Shea has been a part of the rapid housing initiative and pallet shelter village in Sydney.

Shea said being chosen as a finalist in the Women of Influence 2024 awards was unexpected and appreciated.

“I’ve been the CEO of New Dawn for coming up on four years and it has been the privilege of a lifetime,” she said.

“We’ve worked really hard on a number of projects in the last four years to bring them to fruition from imagination to tangibility and it was a great exercise to see if these accomplishments could be stood up against accomplishments from across the country and for it to be affirmed that, yes, they could.”

Shea said she wanted to do the contest and spend the time on the application process in light of recent world events, such as the U.S. election.

“The rhetoric throughout the American election and the results of the American election from a gendered perspective was heavier and more heartbreaking than I anticipated,” Shea said.

“To go from another American election in which a qualified woman is not chosen for the most powerful office in the world to a room filled with accomplished, compassionate, committed women, it was the reminder and the affirmation I needed in the weeks following the American election that that outcome is not representative of most of the world of women’s worth and of what they’re capable of doing.”

Making lives better

Dubé has been the executive director of Fertility Matters Canada for 10 years and has personal experience with infertility and treatments.

Through its advocacy, Fertility Matters helps parents across the country start families and get access to fertility treatments clinics.

“There has been a significant increase in the advocacy work that our organization does and when I say advocacy, we do advocacy at several different levels,” said Dubé, who lives with her family in Montreal.

“We are very active at advocating at the federal government level for a national fertility support for every Canadian or every person who lives in this country, who needs access to care … we also advocate at the provincial level. Of course health care is delivered provincially … we advocate for public funding and policy.”

Being a finalist in the Social Change Award: National Impact category was an honour for Dubé.

“When you work in non-profit and charity work there are fewer opportunities for these types of recognition,” she said.

“The award that I was nominated for recognizes the social impact that you have or your organization has … in truly making the lives of other people better, and so it was very humbling to actually get the nomination and then certainly to be recognized as one of the top three finalists across the country.”

It also makes Dubé excited for the people Fertility Matters helps.

“(When I was told I was a finalist) I felt very proud and I felt very excited for all of the people in Canada that I work for,” Dubé said.

“One in six Canadians is impacted by fertility and the work that we do is in complete support of them and their journey on achieving their dream of having a family, ensuring that they have equitable and universal access to the health care that they need in order to do that.”

– Nicole Sullivan is a multimedia journalist with the Cape Breton Post.

View the original article on the Saltwire website here.