Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to the intervention by my colleague today. When he got toward the end of his speech, he talked about the thing that seemed to be booming in his riding, which was signs “For Rent”. In my riding, the same thing is going on. There are a lot of for-rent signs going up. I would argue that seeing for-rent signs going up is not necessarily the product of lack of support for new businesses, but of businesses that have been around for quite a while and choosing not to continue. My approach to this is that I believe the government has been trying, in many regards, through the support of the opposition parties and their consent to the spending, to help businesses writ large. He brings up some very valid points about new businesses and I hope he has the opportunity to discuss those points when the bill gets to committee stage so that how we can support newer businesses can be discussed further.
Would the member not acknowledge that supporting existing businesses has been so critically important? Had we not done anything, there would be even more for-rent signs going up.