Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to split my time with my wonderful, and I will add punctual, colleague from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.
It is also an absolute privilege to rise today in this House and talk about some of the hardest-working people in one of the hardest-working countries: small business owners.
This motion is a great step forward for small business owners. The Conservatives seek to do two things with this motion, and I hope all members will join me in supporting small business owners. The first thing we seek to do is put a pause on troublesome and burdensome audits of the CEWS program that are causing business owners challenges. The second thing is to make programs more flexible to make sure no Canadians are being left behind, which is something that is absolutely critical.
I would like to talk a bit about small businesses and why they are so important to our communities. They are the lifeblood of our communities. They are the ones that are sponsoring our soccer and hockey teams. They are in the communities providing the services we need. They are the ones making sure front-line workers are fed and that we take care of the entire community. There are over one million small business owners in Canada, who employ over 70% of private sector workers in Canada and they also contribute one-third to our GDP.
After listening to the interventions today, I want to congratulate members of all parties. It is not every day we see the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands celebrating a Conservative motion. It is terrific and a great way to show that everyone can be constructive in helping small business owners go forward.
To provide context on where we are with small business owners, it has been a challenging time for them. Even pre-pandemic, they were going through difficult times. Going into the pandemic, Canadians were struggling, with 50% of Canadians within $200 of insolvency. Canadians were facing a GDP that was reduced to nearly 0% by the end of 2019.
The struggles continued for small business owners as they, from 2015 to 2020, dramatically reduced their investments in infrastructure, a sign that they perhaps saw challenges on the horizon. At the heart of some of these issues is the productivity gap going on in Canada. Productivity is a big fancy 10-cent word, but in reality all it means is how Canadians are able to manufacture products and deliver services. The harsh reality is that Canadians were struggling.
In the U.S., the average worker contributes $60 per hour to GDP. In Switzerland, that number is more like $84. Unfortunately, here in Canada that number is $50. That is important because it affects people. It affects real wages. Going into the pandemic, the average wage in Canada was $19, compared with $23 for the United States and $33 for Switzerland. We had challenges going into the pandemic.
During the pandemic, the economy has become much worse. Many of the constituents I spoke with told me about horrible, difficult situations. They have told me about losing their jobs, their homes, and in some cases, they have lost all hope. This is all despite record spending. The government has actually spent more than any other country in the G20. We have the highest deficit, yet we have the worst unemployment numbers in the G7.
Many small business owners are heading out of business. The CFIB told us that, as of September 30, a full third of businesses will either close down or partially close. These are difficult times, but the numbers never tell the full story. I want to tell the House the story of John and Lent Travel.
John owns the Lent Travel agency in the beautiful town of Port Hope. By the way, if members have not been to Port Hope, please go once the lockdown is over. It is beautiful. He owns one of three travel agencies in town; one has shut down and one is operating at one-third its capacity. John told me that from the beginning of the pandemic to March 2021 he expects no revenue.
Just to go through the numbers, he was down 151% in April, then down 97%, 95%, 95%, 100%, 100% of revenue, equating to zero revenue over a year. He is in a challenging situation. He would have loved to have access to some of the programs, such as the rent subsidies, but unfortunately he owns instead of rents so he is out of luck there. John is like millions of Canadians who are feeling left behind in these difficult times.
The pandemic was a challenge to all of us. It required us all to sacrifice. There is no doubt about that. Government support programs were a necessary bridge, hopefully. Unfortunately, too many of those programs got confused, were delayed and held Canadians back. Instead of being that bridge to a brighter day, they became a trap. They were too complex and too confusing, and they even penalized work. No Canadian should ever be financially behind for adding an extra day's work. That should never happen. That is how John felt.
As we move forward into the safe reopening of the country, we are all looking forward. I know we all want that day when we can give hugs and shake hands again, when we can do all those wonderful things that we miss because of the pandemic. We need to move forward and give our businesses, not a shot of morphine but a shot of adrenaline, so we can carry forward. We need to have a safe recovery plan that includes rapid testing, so students could go back to school, so workers could go back to their factories and offices, and so that we could all once again start contributing fully to the economy, as I know every Canadian wants to.
We need policies that encourage work and promote opportunities. The government has had the opportunity to invest, however, it has too often squandered those opportunities of investing in the private sector. For example, while veterans are waiting, while new mothers are waiting, while people with disabilities are waiting, while that was all going on, the CRA proudly announced on social media that it was open for business, that it could audit and charge penalties and interest. Even for the Liberal government, that is peak hypocrisy.
If the government is saying it does not have resources to get money out to people with disabilities, new mothers and veterans, it cannot, at the same time, be saying that it has plenty of resources to audit and make life more difficult for hard-working, honest Canadian taxpayers.
The substance of this motion is with respect to the CEWS audit. Almost immediately upon the announcement of this, almost to the day, we started receiving complaints in our office about the burdensome, pages and pages, requirements by the CRA on an audit, a fishing expedition. These are not just simple documents, these are documents that have to be prepared by tax lawyers, by accountants, costing thousands of dollars. In fact, some folks have actually paid more in fees than they received in benefits. Imagine that. This is shameful, and all in the midst of a pandemic.
This is not the time in Ontario, Quebec and across the country in different regions. We are facing a second wave of the pandemic. Small business owners need to be helped. They need a hand up to get themselves back on track. They do not need a burdensome audit that puts them behind the eight ball and costs them thousands of dollars.
We are approaching the one-year anniversary of the pandemic. That is a terrible landmark to meet. The truth is, it is a year. These are not early days of the pandemic. The excuses are growing long, that there were not resources, we have shown that is not the case, or that we do not have time, we do have time. We need to work collaboratively so John does not feel left behind in Port Hope, and to help entrepreneurs who started a new business, some who started a new business in March of 2020 and do not have year over year numbers, who do not qualify, who are not eligible for these programs.
There are sectors of the economy that are being hit harder than others. This pandemic has not hit us all equally. Sectors like tourism, travel, aviation and energy have been hit harder than others. We need tailor-made solutions, not the one-size-fits-all that does not cut it.
Ultimately, we need solutions that do not come from government programs, but from the private sector. We have the most creative innovators, the hardest-working small business owners and the best workers in the entire world, and we have the opportunity to give them the ability to bring us out of this terrible economic crisis through their hard work. We just need to get out of their way.