Government Operations Committee on June 5th, 2020

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much. That's very kind of you.

We'll now go to Mr. Jowhari for four minutes, please. This will be our last intervention.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you MP McCauley.

Thanks to all the witnesses.

I have a couple of quick questions for Madam Bamford.

First of all, thank you for your testimony. It was quite informative.

Can I ask you what type of membership your coalition benefits from?

[Jocelyn Bamford]

We have over 300 primarily small to medium-sized businesses, but we've been attracting more medium-sized businesses. We are a grassroots organization. We don't have any full-time employees. We're all just business owners. We do this on a voluntary basis because we think small and medium-sized businesses are so important to this country and—

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Absolutely. I would like to also echo that SMEs are the backbone of this country. Thank you for advocating on their behalf.

You mentioned that you had the feeling that most of the consultation by the government was done with the NGOs, with very little small and medium-sized business owners' involvement. Have any of your 300 members been involved in any sort of consultation at any jurisdictional level, whether it's federal, provincial, municipal or regional?

[Jocelyn Bamford]

I would say that during the last four weeks—probably even the last six weeks—every week we've been on a federal committee, a provincial committee or even at the municipal level. One of our members is involved at least once a week, if not a couple of times a week, in sitting on various task force committees.

The concern we have is that we represent a small voice. We should represent a big voice, because we're the ones doing the heavy lifting. We're the ones who are still working and we're the ones who contribute to every program and policy. Everything that happens happens because of private enterprise.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

That is totally understood.

I believe you mentioned that you're part of the SME sector, with 90 employees in Scarborough. Congratulations, and thank you for your support during these times.

Have any of your members, or has your company, benefited from any of the government programs that have been announced at any level, whether federal or provincial, such as the wage subsidy or the CERB or—

[Jocelyn Bamford]

Often I will refer to small and medium-sized businesses as the forgotten middle child. It just seems that for so many programs, we don't qualify. I didn't even qualify.... We've hired four summer students who are graduating and who are going to college next year. Two are indigenous students, and there was no program.

We went to our MP, Shaun Chen, who has tried to be helpful. There was no money left, and we understood that MPs had the ability to assign summer students if there were extra dollars. We did go to him to see if we could get support for our summer students, and there were no resources.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

If I have some time, I have a question on the testing. You mentioned that rapid testing is critical to SMEs.

What are your thoughts on the involvement of all levels of government in testing and in mobilizing the testing?

[Jocelyn Bamford]

It needs to be faster—

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Madam Bamford, we're out of time. We do have to adjourn at one o'clock sharp. Could you please present to our clerk as quickly as possible an answer in writing to Mr. Jowhari's question? We would appreciate that very much, and that will then be distributed to all of our committee members.

To all of our witnesses, thank you so much for being here with us today. Your testimony has been extremely informative and helpful. We thank you for that.

Colleagues, I wish you a safe and happy weekend.

We are adjourned.