I think one of the eternal struggles is to understand what is the correct definition of a small or medium-sized business. At our organization we use 20 to 50 as small, 50 to 500 as medium, and 500 upwards as large.
Then we have “under 20” as the micro-enterprise size. I think it's important to identify that. Too often, especially once you get into the five-person type of business, they're not included in many calculations. They're often not included in many programs because they're so hard to get to, and yet they represent 80% of all businesses out there in Canada.
Sometimes when I read research reports or whatever from other organizations, it's often only for 20 or more employees. When it comes to fairness, then, sometimes we neglect the fact that there's this large segment of the business population. They're often not included when it comes to government programs or statistics or research that's being done out there, and yet they represent a significant portion of the business community.
When we talk about our membership, the average size of our members is about 14 employees. That's actually a little bit larger than the average business out there in Canada. Going up to 500 I think is fine for small and medium-sized companies, but I'd be more interested in knowing what percentage of the people they're assisting are in that 100 to 500 category versus those who are in the zero to 20 category, and knowing how that reflects to the actual business population.