Mr. Speaker, I did not intend to speak on this bill but there are some things that have concerned me for some time about small business and this is an opportunity to say a few things.
Bill C-99 gives access to capital for small businesses in Canada. My concern is basically if it is really looking at small business, the value of small business to our country and just what small business needs. That is where my concern stems from, where the banks have refused to take a risk. I contend that the banks should have taken a risk in the past. We do have the Federal Business Development Bank which was in the past supposed to be the bank of last resort. Often this has not been the case and somebody else has had to come up with the funds.
If we are talking about other programs for small business, like community futures, it really does depend, as the member for Kamloops said, on the expertise of those that run those programs. I have had some experience with it and I have found that perhaps that is one of the reasons why some of the losses are a little greater than they should be.
Of course there is risk involved. There is a risk involved for anybody going into a small business and we expect some losses. However, we do not expect the amount of loss to be higher than normal businesses would have going through the banks.
There have been some successful businesses through the community futures. Some good ones are still running right now in my community. However, the difficulty with the community futures program is that some of the businesses that are successful could have been funded by the Federal Business Development Bank which is the bank of last resort. It should have been funded there, not with the taxpayers' dollars in another program.
What I am trying to say is that community futures has to be accountable. There is no bottom line. We have a Privacy Act and we cannot access that information. That is not acceptable to the Canadian taxpayers. I found the rate of losses higher and, being unaccountable, therefore unacceptable to me as an MP responsible for taxpayers' dollars.
I felt that the people going into the community futures program were protected so that perhaps the incentive to succeed may not be as great if one knows one does not have to worry if one has a loss.
In small business there is always a challenge and a risk. Those people who go into a small business are usually entrepreneurs who have some wonderful talents and expertise. We usually see good results. Unfortunately, often in community futures we do not see this because the accountability is not there. Wherever we do not have accountability we have a future problem of breakdown.
The purpose of the Federal Business Development Bank is that it is a bank of last resort. It is supposed to be the money lender of last resort.
The member for Kamloops said it very well. He said that small businesses just want the government to get out of their way. Being in small business myself I can say that this is exactly true. We need a healthy marketplace if we are in business. We need to have fewer burdens on us.
The tax structure is far too heavy today to encourage anyone to go into small business. The first couple of years are difficult. In the past if businesses had troubles the Federal Business Development Bank was not always there to back them up but often put them into receivership at a time when all they needed was some support to get through. I would suggest the Federal Business Development Bank has not always done its job in the past.
Small businesses want less government interference. They need some incentive. We are talking about younger people coming into the marketplace. I have often mentioned this in my community and I have talked to small businesses in my community about this. There is a program in Europe where small businesses apprentice a younger person coming out of a college, a technical school or whatever. If our small businesses apprenticed a young person for a year, they would be providing a training program built into the most natural area possible. It would be built into the marketplace, the economy, into a natural spot in the economy, in a working spot in the economy.
I honestly feel when speaking to small businesses this is an avenue we could travel. Considering small business supplies about 80 per cent of jobs, I feel this is an ideal opportunity for our young people that are unemployed with nowhere to go to get the training they need if they do not have it.
Why is the small business person going to do this? There would obviously have to be some incentive. Perhaps a tax break in some area would help as small business is overtaxed already. They have the fewest tax breaks. Big business seems to qualify for them where small business does not. I would really like to see the government take a look at some serious ideas for helping small business in this area.
The banks have not always lived up to their responsibilities. They are there to encourage small business and they are there to do it in a realistic way.