Thank you.
Good morning to you all. Thank you for your testimonies this morning.
I can say from being a small business owner that.... As Mr. Wilson well knows, we have a manufacturing business back in New Brunswick, and we also have a tourism business. Prior to the election, I actually taught international trade at university, so I live this.
I want to highlight a couple of points that each of you said, and then bring it back together.
Ms. Bamford, you talked about going directly to the business for the training or to get information.
Mr. Kingston, you specifically talked about better coordination.
Mr. Shantz, you talked about training modules, as well as—and I want to get back to this—education and tourism.
Mr. Wilson, you talked about scaling up and about the risk and the challenge with fewer than 10 employees. In Atlantic Canada, over 50% have four employees or less.
Mr. Dekker, you spoke of the uncertainty and the opportunities with trade missions.
Bringing that back together, I think—and we've heard from across the committee—one of the things is really the importance of getting the information to the entrepreneurs of what they actually don't know and how to coordinate that. While listening to the economic statement yesterday, I can say that I did feel encouraged at the opportunities for mentorship, when we look at further funding and investment, at ground-level initiatives, the work that is being done by so many of you here.
When you look at that, can you suggest to us how you can see tapping in to that funding to take that down to the ground level to the people who you work with directly every day and who trust you?
I'll start with Mr. Wilson.