Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member hit it on the head when he said that 94% of those loans were actually successful. My question throughout my whole discourse is why is the government involved in that process if in fact the private sector can do it itself. That is the key.
The hon. member even mentioned the fact there is scrutiny placed on these businesses going through the process of applying for these loans. That can be done without government intervention as well. He reaffirmed that.
The hon. member also mentioned that it is not a perfect world. I would say that it is not a perfect world especially for small business in this country because of all the obstacles this government has placed in front of them. What the Reform Party is trying to do is stand up for small businesses in allowing those small businesses to create opportunities for themselves and not try to create this false impression that wealth and jobs are created by governments. As we have seen, there is a limited growth when it comes to that. The taxpayers' money is unfortunately recycled.
One thing the hon. member mentioned which I would like to address was the issue I had brought forth earlier. The program has been in place for 37 years, yet I continually hear from the members opposite that the single most important concern from small business continues to be the access to credit. If the program has been so successful, why are there still so many small businesses that are not achieving the financing for their enterprises or their businesses?
As a small business person myself, one of the biggest problems I had looking for financing was not because the government had created a program that was going to secure financing for me, the biggest problem was the fact that there was not enough competition willing to lend to me and other small businesses across the country. This is why we cannot confuse the issue, as the Liberals have done, in this debate.
It is not an issue of not supporting small business. That is exactly what we want to do in the Reform Party. We would like to support small business. We would like to support the free market. We believe that can be well achieved by getting government out of the regulation that it continues to create and which continues to put obstacles in front of small business.
Let us create an atmosphere of positive competition in this country where real entrepreneurs have the choice through the access to capital. Let us work with businesses to do that not in a way that creates more regulation and unfortunately keeps some entrepreneurs out of the loop, but let us try to widen that so everyone has an equal chance in achieving financing.