Mr. Speaker, Bill C-102 represents the opinion and the majority belief of most of us that most Canadians are honest.
I cross the border. I live within 30 miles of border at Thousand Islands. My riding of Hastings-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington extends from the Thousand Islands to Algonquin Park. We have a steady flow of tourists back and forth. We have small businesses exporting and importing.
Whether I was driving back from the United States or whether, as in a previous life, I was importing, I could see the honest person with the small company was being confronted with too much paperwork. There was a real lack of support for the small business person who was being put behind the eight ball.
Certainly there is smuggling today. If a person wants to smuggle something he would target our area of the St. Lawrence River. I do not want to see us penalize the honest person. I do hope Bill C-102 will help eliminate some of this overburden of paperwork.
The large corporations in our part of eastern Ontario are expanding at a great rate. Bombardier is shipping $595 million worth of cars to Malaysia and other places around the world. Celanese just got an expansion. It has invested $191 million so it can export most of that. It is a polymer based product. Basically the polymer to make a shirt is the same product used to make a two-litre plastic pop bottle.
These companies have the resources, the income, the background and the experts to help with the trading nation philosophy we have. However, the small businesses do not always have all this information available. I certainly hope Bill C-102 will help in this respect.
We need to send the message as the bill progresses that we will ally with small businesses so they can access this neighbouring market.
Small businesses in my riding are getting the spinoff from these major orders. Almost $1 billion has been invested into our area this year. From that many small businesses can take the opportunity to reach into the United States, Mexico and to the fourth amigo down the road. Yet the atmosphere is not always there which says we care about small business. We all acknowledge small business is the engine of the economy. That is where our jobs will come from. How many people are not certain the government is really looking after small business?
This is a great opportunity for Bill C-102 and for us. It is my responsibility following this to show how this will help our small businesses.
I want to get the opinion of my colleague from Algoma that the mandate of Bill C-102 will help our small businesses and in what ways. I know he has studied this bill much more than I have.