Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good evening. Hello again to the members of the committee. As many of you heard last week, CFIB is a not-for-profit, non-partisan organization representing more than 109,000 small and medium-sized businesses across Canada that collectively employ more than 1.25 million Canadians and account for $75 billion, or nearly half of Canada's GDP.

Finance committee  It certainly will be. We can get this breakdown for you by region, where you'll see it does move up. However, members across the board are telling us that they're having difficulty finding labour. While the issue may be lower on this list, it's not substantially lower. It's certainly not down there with availability of financing, for example.

Finance committee  It's certainly a lower priority when compared with some of the others. We are finding that credit unions, for example, are increasing their availability to small businesses. They take over, in a sense. Where they may get turned down by a bank, many business owners will go to a credit union.

Finance committee  It is a big challenge. We are in the process of surveying our membership on what they are doing in their own businesses and for their employees as to what resources they have available for their retirements right now. We're trying to broaden the scope. We're looking at the sale of their business, the sale of their house, inheritance, for example.

Finance committee  I believe we have that figure, but I don't have that information with me at this time. I can attempt to get that information for the committee.

Finance committee  I'll start. We would have to go to our members on this issue specifically. We operate by survey research, so for this particular issue, we would need to get their views on it. We generally find that on tax issues, our members want competitiveness and fairness, and to be able to administer their taxes as simply and efficiently as possible.

Finance committee  We are in the midst of planning our lobbying and legislative affairs for 2014. So I'm not sure where it is on the list, but...

Finance committee  We support attempts to foster innovation at all levels. SR and ED has its good points. It is a very difficult and expensive credit to gain. Many of our small business members have told us that they need to hire consultants to help them navigate the red tape and to apply. The benefits can be quite substantial.

Finance committee  Right, so we're addressing the erosion of that value for owners of small businesses.

Finance committee  The rate has actually decreased but not at the same rate as the general rate has decreased.

Finance committee  In the sense of the value of the rates, the spread is not as high. So, yes, there were increased cuts to the corporate rate in general that weren't reflected in the small business rate.

Finance committee  The key piece in that whole rate freeze is exactly that: it's the freeze. It's rate stability. Of course, deficits in the programs and the rather unpredictable nature of having rates go up and down, up during a recession and down when times are good—that was a very challenging tax for our business members to contend with.

Finance committee  As I mentioned in my presentation, the CPP/QPP payroll tax is the granddaddy of all payroll taxes. It is by far the biggest. The CPP is 4.9% on wages. Our members have told us that they will not hire as they had planned to, or they will have to lay off staff, or they will be looking at reduced salaries over the coming year in order to accommodate that increase in payroll taxes.

Finance committee  The credit was a critical tax credit for the smallest of businesses especially. It allowed them to in some cases keep their staff on hand. Mr. Flaherty said in his most recent economic update that payroll taxes are job killers. Increases in payroll taxes, whether they are EI, CPP, or others, really limit growth for small businesses.

Finance committee  There is no question that the EI hiring tax credit was enormously popular with our membership and very well used. We are in a different situation this year given the freezing of EI rates. So we are examining what would be most useful to our members now and looking at that credit and maybe other opportunities available to use with it.