The clip that aired on The National was an interview with Peter Mansbridge when the Prime Minister commented that a large percentage of small businesses were simply ways for wealthy Canadians to save on their taxes. We immediately sought clarification because if the Prime Minister through those comments is channelling that his government will not tolerate anybody setting up a fake company to benefit from the small business corporate tax rate, we will applaud that and we will take no issue with that whatsoever.
If, on the other hand, there is the sense that some small businesses are not deserving of the lower rate of taxation for small firms, and some provinces have been putting this forward, several of them have moved. For example the Quebec government, which has made a lot of really good public policy choices, has decided to eliminate access to the small business rate for any business that has three or fewer employees, so the smallest of small companies in Quebec starting in 2017, next year, will no longer have access to the lower rate of taxation on small businesses. The depanneurs across the river will no longer be able to access that and will pay the big business rate.
Our worry is that the federal government may be drawing some inspiration from that. We don't know the government's intention. It does worry us though that this same theme is in the mandate letter for the new Minister of Small Business Bardish Chagger. We're going to be meeting with her next week, so we look forward to that. At the moment we're seeking clarification from the federal government as to what that means.