Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Mississauga West.
I am pleased to speak to budget 2003. I will begin by congratulating the government and the Minister of Finance on yet another balanced budget. In fact, it is the government's sixth consecutive balanced budget.
As the Minister of Finance noted in the opening part of his budget speech, Canada stands alone among its group of seven partners in keeping its finances in the black. This is the message we heard from Canadians and it was particularly loud in my riding.
Today I will specifically address the ambitious plan that the government has put forward to boost entrepreneurship. I do so as the chair of the Prime Minister's task force on women entrepreneurs and as a member of Parliament for a riding where there are hundreds of small and medium sized businesses. All one needs to do is walk down Bloor Street west, Roncessvalles Avenue, Queen Street west or Dundas Street west.
As the chair of the Prime Minister's task force on women entrepreneurs, I was delighted to see that women entrepreneurs, with whom we have already consulted, influenced that budget.
Before I go into actual budget recommendations, I will give a little background about the task force.
The Prime Minister's task force on women entrepreneurs was announced on November 18 at the innovation summit in Toronto. The mandate of the task force is to provide advice to the federal government on broad issues on women's entrepreneurship, to create a national strategy to help businesswomen and to make suggestions for specific initiatives that the government could consider, such as research and trade.
The task force is to examine the unique challenges faced by women owned businesses. It will consider the factors required to encourage women's entrepreneurship, assess existing resources and identify gaps in areas for possible future action. We have also been instructed to evaluate international practices and to find out if they are appropriate to the Canadian context.
One might ask why we would undertake a task force for women entrepreneurs. The reality is that women are creating businesses at twice the rate men are. Therefore if we can foster an environment that will assist women entrepreneurs to grow their businesses, increase productivity and participate in globalization, we will be creating a blueprint for all SMEs, small and medium sized enterprises, for the future.
Supporting women in business is good economic policy as small and medium sized enterprises drive the economy. It is sound economic development. What is good for women entrepreneurs is good for all small and medium sized enterprises.
The task force has already started its regional consultations by travelling out east. We have held consultations in Kitchener and in Toronto. Probably the most important consultation we have had to date is the first round table discussion which took place on December 17 in Toronto as a prebudget consultation in the presence of the finance minister. I am delighted to note that many of the issues raised at that meeting were subsequently incorporated into the budget.
I would now like to refer to the specific initiatives.
Almost unanimously the women entrepreneurs felt that the RRSP limits should be increased to better provide entrepreneurs with retirement income in lieu of CPP benefits.
Another suggestion that was made to help women entrepreneurs save for their children's education was that increases also be made to the registered education savings plan. There were specific increases to the RESP. On page 11 of the budget speech, the Minister of Finance announced that the budget encourages savings by Canadians by increasing registered retirement savings plans limits to $18,000 by the year 2006.
The second most important issue that was raised at this prebudget consultation with women entrepreneurs was the need for better access to day care. Many women entrepreneurs suggested either a national day care program or full deductibility of child care expenses. Perhaps it is trite to state that women entrepreneurs continue to bear a disproportionate responsibility for child care in the family. This is all the more important as women entrepreneurs cannot take advantage of parental leave or maternity benefits, at least not yet.
In the budget speech the Minister of Finance specifically noted “families need more than income support. They need real choices”. At that point he announced a new federal investment of $935 million in child care over the next five years.
Another important issue for women entrepreneurs was their access to capital. There is still a problem for women entrepreneurs in accessing capital but, more important, they wanted easier access to venture capital and felt the government should do whatever it could to encourage that. This is a frequent issue for start up companies, especially those owned by women. In fact, when we did our prebudget consultations in Moncton the lack of venture capital was noted just in general for all businesses, but it was specifically noted that if a women tries to obtain a venture capital loan, good luck, it does not happen. It is still the old boys network.
One of the recommendations that was made in Toronto at the prebudget consultation was increased funding through the Business Development Bank as a means to achieving this goal. I was delighted once again that budget 2003 addressed this concern. In fact, when announcing the extension of a further $190 million in equity to expand venture capital investment by the Business Development Bank of Canada, the Minister of Finance noted “We have heard many good ideas from”, inter alia, “women entrepreneurs”.
On page 129 of budget plan 2003 it is specifically stated that the capital from the purchase of the additional $190 million of BDC common shares will allow BDC to provide additional equity financing for knowledge based and export oriented businesses and to increase the financing available to women entrepreneurs.
During the December consultations it was pointed out that new immigrants face much greater hurdles in starting their own businesses, especially immigrant women. In addition to lacking familiarity with available support networks, barriers to accredited foreign trained professionals prevent them from fully utilizing their own credentials. I was delighted to find that in the budget speech the Minister of Finance addressed this issue with the announcement of $41 million over the next two years to help new Canadians to integrate quickly into our economy, whether it is through second language skills, faster recognition of foreign credentials or pilot projects.
There is another thing that some of the women noted at this prebudget consultation that I want to share. It is also something we are starting to hear in our consultations as we cross Canada with the task force. Some women noted that there is too great a dichotomy between being an entrepreneur and being a full time employee. It poses a considerable barrier for women when they are forced to choose between running their own business and working for someone else when they would have the full protection of the social safety net if they continued to be employed by someone else.
I have to say that while we still have a long way to go to address that concern, and perhaps the task force will be able to address that concern specifically when it comes up with its recommendations to the Prime Minister at the end of May or June 2003, budget 2003 actually starts to address this dichotomy a bit.
Budget 2003 also includes new initiatives that build on a five year $100 billion tax reduction plan to improve our tax system. Other initiatives include supporting entrepreneurs and small business by raising the small business deduction limit to $300,000 from $200,000, strengthening investment by eliminating the federal capital tax with medium sized enterprises benefiting first, and lowering the employment insurance rate for 2004 by 12¢ to $1.98 per $100 of insurable earnings.
I will conclude by saying that women entrepreneurs have been increasingly successful in recent years and with the task force and the recommendations that we hope to propose, we hope they will become more successful. I must add that budget 2003 will help to facilitate more women and encourage them to own, start up and grow their own businesses.