Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking my colleague from Thunder Bay—Superior North for crafting this opposition day motion, as well as for his excellent work in supporting small business. This motion is very important and indicative of long-standing NDP policy in the area of support for small business.
I want to reiterate the motion, which states:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should recognize the important role Canadian small businesses play in creating employment in their communities by lowering the small business income tax rate in order to encourage job creation.
Small business plays a huge and vital role in our communities. Small- and medium-size businesses employ about 56% of all Canadian working people. That is a huge number. About eight million Canadians work for small- and medium-size businesses and small business makes up almost 98% of all Canadian enterprises. It is a huge segment of our economy.
There are 2.3 million small businesses in Canada and about half of Canadian GDP is generated by small and medium business. We are talking about a huge and important sector of our economy.
I would also point out that about one-third of all self-employed persons in Canada are women and they have ownership stakes in about 45% of small and medium business. This number is growing.
I would like to talk for a minute about the small businesses in my riding of Parkdale—High Park. It is a fairly well established, older community in the west end of Toronto and is one of the most desirable communities in the city because of the presence of small businesses. It is a community with older, tree-lined streets where people do not have drive to big box stores but can walk to their neighbourhood grocers, the Home Hardware store on Roncesvalles, clothing stores, shoe shops, restaurants and all of the services that are provided by small businesses in the community. I believe that the quality of life is increased immeasurably in my community because of small businesses.
The people who own these businesses work incredibly hard. Many of them live in the neighbourhood. Some of them live above their stores, others live in the neighbourhood and they have a stake in the community. Yes, their business is there, but, as I say, many of them live there and their kids go to the school.
They are tremendously engaged in the community and they express that engagement not only by the services and goods they provide through their businesses but by sponsoring sports teams, raising funds for community initiatives like creating the Wabash Community Recreation Centre or the Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre.
They are very active in neighbourhood business improvement associations. These associations were actually pioneered in Bloor West Village thanks to Alex Ling, who was a visionary in this area. The BIAs have championed the beautification of the business areas and neighbourhoods but also how to attract investment in the community, how to draw people into the neighbourhood.
Therefore, small businesses do not just serve the people who live in the neighbourhood, but attract people from all over the community. They are huge sponsors of festivals, such as the Ukrainian and Polish festivals. They are incredibly important to the lifeblood of the community.
We have moved this motion because, unfortunately, both the Conservative government and the Liberals have been supporting tax cuts across the board without any job creation measures attached. The current tax cut that is going forward, which both the Conservatives and the Liberals voted for, has no job creation measure attached to it, whereas this motion speaks to cutting small business taxes.
We know that small businesses are not going to ship jobs out of the country, but that they employ people in our neighbourhoods. In fact, they provide good jobs, they train people, they innovate and they are creative businesses in our communities. Whether in boom periods or recessions, they try as much as possible to maintain the stability of their employment in their businesses. They will do their darndest not to lay people off, even when they are really struggling as businesses. We have certainly seen many small businesses struggling in our cities and neighbourhoods.
Reducing small business taxes from 11% to 9% is a way of providing an incentive for small businesses to take on more staff to grow their businesses. We also propose a tax credit to offset some of the costs of hiring new people, a credit of up to $4,500, including a job retention measure.
These tax cuts are concrete measures tied to job creation. We believe they would create over 200,000 new jobs. That is why we believe this proposal is so important and significant.
We are talking about sustainable job creation because we know that when small businesses expand and take on staff, they tend to retain their staff. We have seen the good quality jobs they create right in our own neighbourhoods. We have seen their resiliency in good times and bad, and we seen the community investment these small businesses provide right in our own communities, because they roll their money right back into the community. They expand their business locally and create jobs locally. The people they employ, for the most part, live right in our neighbourhood. When they get employed, they spend their money in the neighbourhood and pay taxes. This is good for everyone.
In summary, our motion speaks to the important role in the Canadian economy played by small businesses. We want to help small businesses play that important role. We want to see them grow and thrive, create jobs and invest in our communities. We believe a tax cut for small business would encourage them to hire more staff. Our tax credit would, in fact, tie strings to the hiring. That makes much more sense.
Unfortunately, the party opposite has tied a very short-term credit to EI increases, which are completely unnecessary. We are going to have a $17 billion EI surplus over the next five years, on top of the $57 billion that has already been rolled into paying down the deficit. I would like to discount that approach and say how strongly I support this motion, because it is the right measure for small business in Canada.