Mr. Speaker, the greatest hope we have for putting Canadians back to work rests with small and medium size businessmen and women in the one million enterprises that employ close to 70 per cent of the nation.
In the budget the Minister of Finance did three very specific things for small business. First, the small business corporate tax rate was not touched. Second, the $500,000 capital exemption was not touched. Third and most important, the Minister of Finance announced last night that the chartered banks of the country would be brought to task for their relationship with small and medium size business.
Today the chairman of the Standing Committee on Industry announced that within the next two and a half weeks the presidents of all the financial institutions in this country will come to the committee to report on what they are doing for small business.
That is how we will create jobs.