Good afternoon. My name is Jasmin Guénette. I'm the vice-president of national affairs with the CFIB. I'm here today with my colleague Michelle Auger. We would like to thank the committee for inviting us today. I'll make my presentation in English, but we are available to answer questions in French as well.
The CFIB represents 97,000 SMEs across every industry and region of Canada. Based on our monthly survey, called the “business barometer”, the level of optimism of small business owners is currently very low. Every single line of a small business budget is increasing, and demand is low.
Our members would like to see government reduce the tax and regulatory burden to help them with the rising costs of doing business and give them more chance to grow their business and improve productivity.
I'd like to mention that we are not experts in natural health products, and we therefore cannot answer technical questions related to the specifics of these products. However, we represent nearly 2,000 small businesses across Canada that will be impacted by the recent change by Health Canada regarding natural health products.
I'll now turn it over to my colleague Michelle.