Thank you, Chair.
I'll continue with the CFIB. We have a serious youth unemployment crisis in this country that we have been highlighting and calling for action on. The CFIB recently put out an excellent report, “Work in Progress: Bridging the Gap Between Small Businesses and Canada's Youth”. It reflects many of the things I've been hearing when talking to business owners as well as young people. It demonstrates a mismatch or disconnect that's leading to a lot of frustration on both sides. I would just encourage this committee's members to familiarize themselves with that report. I think there's a lot of good information to consider in the preparation for the next budget.
In particular, I want to ask you to follow up on a couple of points. You note how the challenges businesses are facing—weak demand, rising payroll, wage costs, limited capacity to absorb training costs—obviously have implications for the ability of small businesses to hire young people. Then you also talk about what we can do about it. It seems that often, when it comes to youth unemployment, the emphasis on the government side is to talk about programming.
You identify the fact that, “Existing government supports for small businesses to hire youth are often overly complex and administratively burdensome”. What you're proposing instead is broad-based efforts to reduce the cost of hiring, things like a temporary EI premium relief and training supports that would make it easier to train young people.
Can you speak a little more about your recommendations for how government policy can make it easier for small businesses to hire young people, especially for their first jobs?