Mr. Speaker, the government plans to increase the lending ceiling under the Small Businesses Loans Act to $12 billion. This money is available for fixed assets, not working capital.
The industry committee report "Taking Care of Small Business" identified working capital as the problem, not asset capital. In fact suppliers of funding for asset financing asked that the government not compete with them.
Why did the government not follow the recommendations of its own committee and address the working capital needs of small business particularly exporters, rather than increasing competition with the existing sources of asset capital at significant expense to taxpayers?