Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have an opportunity to speak on Bill C-17, an act to implement budget measures.
The Bloc Quebecois members are missing a central theme in the budget. It has to do with small and medium size business. We campaigned last summer on the fact that small and medium size business represented the greatest hope for putting Canadians back to work.
As Liberals we said that if the 900,000 men and women who owned or operated small and medium size businesses were given a proper environment, the chances of hiring Canadians were very good. A central theme in this budget has been to try to create that environment that will cause that entrepreneurial spirit to move forward again.
There are a number of things that one has to do to create that environment and they have all been listed in the budget. Of course one of the very first items that we said we would address, and we did say this in the budget, was access to capital for small and medium size business.
All members of the House have been working on that issue over the last three months. We are beginning to get some movement. It is amazing that when the opposition stands up, it picks one or two little pieces. It is all negative. It cannot seem to find anything positive that we have done here in the House of Commons or in committee in the last few months.
Another theme in the budget which is related to the bill that we are talking about today has to do with making sure that we encourage our small and medium size entrepreneurs to trade more on the international scene, on the global scene.
As members of Parliament, we have to be more creative when we are looking at this budget and use it as an instrument of hope as well as a way of giving guidance to some of our small and medium size businesses.
Last week a group of parliamentarians from the government side went to China for 12 days with 120 small and medium size businessmen and women from every region of this country. I would say through you, Mr. Speaker, to the opposition that over 90 per cent of them had never gone on a foreign mission before. Going to China was a totally new experience.
We discovered number one that there is an economy over there which is very receptive to doing business with small and medium sized Canadian firms. It is not just the larger Canadian firms that they want to do business with. In fact unlike a few years ago when China was a place where it would take sometimes as long as 10 years to complete a deal, today they are moving in a very expeditious way.
I believe if we as parliamentarians would become more aware of the economic opportunities that exist in a country like China for our small and medium size business, we would then look more at this budget that the Minister of Finance has put forward where he is trying to create an environment which will inspire that sector to take risks, to have the courage to move forward, to hire again. If we showed them that their markets are not just in North America but that there are tremendous markets as well in the Asia Pacific region, I think we could trigger this economy that we are all working desperately on to move forward.
My message today on Bill C-17 is the fact that all of the components of the budget are an attempt to create a total environment which will allow small business to reinvent itself, to retool itself, to allow it to rethink its whole strategy for the new economy.
If we approach the budget knowing that all of those options exist then we will probably have a better chance of putting Canadians back to work. The member said earlier in his speech that jobs must be our focus. I think realizing that objective would be a lot more realistic.