Mr. Speaker, the point I was trying to make was that most loans in most of our communities across the country are controlled by one or another financial institution.
In those financial institutions there are certain criteria. We know the criteria, depending on the security, depending on the amount of money coming in, depending on a lot of factors. Someone can borrow money for a start-up business at a certain per cent.
If they cannot get a loan from a bank, they might then go to another financial lending institution which may lend them that money. Often that money is at a higher rate, a rate that makes it very difficult for that business to operate.
Someone can have a tremendously great business plan. They may have a lot of factors involved that would make this business a go and people sitting down and analysing it can give them a tremendous amount of support.
They still may not have any reserve capital that would allow a bank to say it will lend them that amount of money.
My point in suggesting this is that I believe at the outset often businesses do need a little extra support. Government programs giving an 85% guarantee is giving that support to those businesses. The track record of the lending pattern has been very good.
We know the costs in that program. We have laid on fees that match the costs. If the bank would lend that money without the support of the Small Business Loans Act, fine. We support that very much.
All we want to do is make certain that for those folks who do need that bit of support it can be there and it can be helpful for them and it will not put them into a situation where they cannot go ahead with that small business.
The program allows a lot more people to enter the business sphere. It also gives guarantees that people need within that structure.