I think the most important thing is to remember that small business people are very stubborn. But we need to drag them into the 21st century, kicking and dragging, if we have to.
The first thing is an acknowledgement that there is an issue that small businesses need to address. If they are to survive on main street, they need to address this issue. Support: provide for education and training. I think a number of the other speakers have said the same thing. We need to acknowledge this and provide a mechanism to show these business people in our neighbourhoods that doing business in the traditional way is no longer the norm.
I can envision a business where the front third is the traditional hangers and shelves, where we go in. But you walk into the back half of that business and there are people stuffing boxes in bags, and at 4:30 the UPS truck shows up to pick that up. It has to be a combination of brick and mortar and e-commerce with new technology.
It's acknowledging that. It's doing a study the way they did in the U.K. Prime Minister Cameron over there retained the services of Mary Portas to retake the state of high streets.
I think the time has come to determine what the state of the main street is in Canada. I think we will all be shocked with what we find in all of our communities. This is not Toronto-centric, it's small-town Ontario, small-town Quebec. We are seeing a shift, and that shift needs to be addressed through education and training.