Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to follow an as erudite and eloquent speaker as the member for Calgary Centre. Was that not a thrill to listen to him advocate on behalf of our young people, small businesses and to encourage the entrepreneurship of those who are aspiring to become big businesses? That is tremendous. I congratulate my hon. colleague who presented a very balanced view of what is happening in Canada.
I will talk about the entrepreneurship that is so characteristic of small business people. The people who start small business are entrepreneurs in the absolute and best sense of the word because the entrepreneur is someone who takes his own initiative, motivation, ideas, learning, skills and abilities and applies them in a way that will make him some money, that will allow him to express himself, to get that self-actualization to the fore so that he can become that respected member of the community.
Entrepreneurs are the very people who are the most charitable in giving their time, money and skills to the community. Recently we had a fundraising dinner for the cancer clinic in Kelowna. The fundraiser was populated by primarily small business people.
What did they do? Ninety of these small business people raised $90,000 in one evening for the Kelowna clinic cancer centre. Is that not something to be proud of? I think that is wonderful and we should congratulate them. Those are the very same people who stand behind the United Way and have helped build the social conscience among the members of the community. Those are the kinds of people who have that have the spirit and drive that says I want to help myself and I want to show the aggressiveness and the way in which I can build a better community. That is what those entrepreneurs and small business people do.
That is not all they do. They are the source of most new jobs, with 85% created by small business people. Is that not something we should reward?
If that is the case perhaps this is a really good amendment because it is supposed to help small businesses. The interesting thing is that it says the purpose of the act is to increase the availability of financing of small business which would not otherwise have access to financing.
If that is the purpose then I want to ask what has the experience been. There was a Small Business Loans Act which had a purpose very similar to this one but how did it actually work its way out? In many instances the financial institutions recognized that if they would grant a loan under the provisions of the Small Business Loans Act they would be able to collect a better interest rate and besides that they were absolutely assured that the loan would be repaid regardless of what happened to the business.
If that does not sound, smell, taste or look like a subsidy to the financial institutions I would like to know what it is. I think we had better really look at this carefully and say what are we really doing here. Are we subsidizing those big banks that had profits last year of $1.5 billion for one bank? They do not need the subsidy. But the small businessman needs a break. He does not want a subsidy. I have not heard a single small businessman say to me they want me to get them a subsidy.
What they say is “Give me a fair break so that I can compete fairly, that I can compete honestly and so that I can apply my skills in the best way possible. Reduce my taxes. Reduce the intrusion of government in my work and do not give me subsidies. If you give me a subsidy you are probably going to give my neighbour a subsidy. But worse than that, you are probably not going to give a subsidy to me and give it to somebody else and that person is going to compete with me”.
I will give a specific case of a business that was doing very well. It wanted to expand and did. It borrowed $250,000 to expand the business, put a new product line in place and to make it more efficient. What did the business discover? It discovered that in another community that had the same market area as it did, the government came in with a subsidy for exactly the same business. Here we have an honest entrepreneur trying to compete with this big mammoth, giant government which gave this person an interest free loan. Is it any wonder that both those business had problems? That is the kind of thing we want to avoid.
Small business is also the centre of most new ideas and innovation. If we look back on the communication industry and how it has flourished, where did it start? We can look all the way back to Alexander Graham Bell. Where did he start? In big business? He started as a tiny little business. We can go back to the computer industry, back to the chips, back to virtually any of these things that are happening today. Where did they start? They started as small businesses. They did not start with the Small Business Loans Act. They started not with a special subsidy. They started because they had a good idea, they had a few dollars and they put their enterprise to work. That is how it works.
Does this mean I am opposed to small business? It is the exact opposite of that. It gives small businesses the courage, the enthusiasm, the support, the level playing field so that they can compete fairly and squarely with other businesses so that the best person can win. Let us face it, that is what we want.
It is government's responsibility to create a playing field that is level, an environment that encourages distribution and advancement, that builds on the talents and skills of the people. That builds a nation. The strength of a nation does not rest primarily on its natural resources. It rests on the motivation, on the skills, the abilities and the knowledge of the people. Because that is where it rests, it finds its greatest application in small business. That is where we need to look.
This government should be ashamed that it gets in the way of small business with its bureaucracy, gets in the way of small business by not giving it the opportunity it should.
Let us encourage this government. It has done wonderful things but there are some things it is doing that are wrong. That is what has to be taken care of.
The GST should go. The government said once it was going to go. There are all kinds of members over there who said it should go. Did it go? No. It harmonized the GST, which costs even more money. That is a disgrace.
What is it that we now need to look at with regard to small business? New jobs. If there is one thing that would encourage our young people, the graduates, more than anything else it is to recognize that their skills, their abilities, their training will result if a job.
Last summer I met with two university students, bright young people. They came up with a truck and a trailer. On the truck they had wheelbarrows, rakes and other tools. On the trailer they had some lawnmowers and other gardening equipment. I asked them what they were doing. They said they got a little loan and bought this equipment and were in business. Guess what happened. At the end of the summer they had paid off the loan, paid for the equipment and saved enough money to pay for their next year's tuition. They were so proud of being able to build the business. They were so happy and they are now putting that equipment to work during the winter, getting ready for the winter clearing of snow and things of that sort.
This started because these young people had some skills and ability and could not find another kind of a job and so decided they could help themselves. That is what this government should be doing. It should encourage our young people.
It is a great world. Canada is a great country and that is what we need to build on.