Industry committee  Very briefly, I would characterize the Canada Small Business Financing Act as a work in progress. Minister Ablonczy has made some changes that I think are very welcome; the thing that stands out most is increasing the size of the loan. We certainly welcomed it, we had asked for t

Industry committee  As an additional point, the dollar by itself, the level of the dollar, is a factor, but I think you need to look beyond that and look at the strength of the client's customer base, if they have a viable plan, and what their cashload is. The dollar will have an impact, but it's ra

Industry committee  I think the first set of questions was addressed to us. I'm going to ask my colleague, Mr. Wrobel, to talk about the dollar issue.

Industry committee  I'm going to ask my colleague, Marion Wrobel, to address that, if you don't mind.

Industry committee  I'm sorry, but I will have to field that question in English. There are a couple of things--costs, covenants, and entrepreneurialism. In terms of costs, it's really important to step back and put this into context. Perhaps my colleague, Marion Wrobel, will have some comments on

Industry committee  I think there are probably two questions there. One is, in terms of looking at history, how does this recession compare, where are we in the recession, and are we coming out of it? To paraphrase what I said earlier—and then I'll turn to Mr. Halde, because I'm sure he'll have com

Industry committee  Thank you very much, sir.

Industry committee  Sure. There are three or four questions embedded in that. First of all, our survey, by the way, has been borne out by PricewaterhouseCoopers and by Grant Thornton. They have done surveys of SMEs in Canada and have come up with largely the same result, that, by and large, about

Industry committee  The situation in the auto sector, as you and everybody around this table will know, was just an extraordinary sequence of events, almost cataclysmic, over the last year to year and a half. Specifically, in terms of auto dealers, I have just a couple of things contextually here.

Industry committee  I'm sure you do invest in banks through your retirement plan.

Industry committee  I would echo Mr. Halde. We think the BCAP program is a good one. We had been working, both of our organizations, on stronger cooperation before the recession hit, and I think the BCAP program has certainly accelerated and deepened that. What I would also say—and I'm speaking jus

Industry committee  I agree with everything that Thomas has said. But I'm going to look at it from a bit of a different perspective—the macro perspective. One of the perspectives we had coming into the recession was that a lot of existing small and medium-sized businesses—I'm not talking about sta

Industry committee  There are many questions there, and I think my colleague Mr. Halde will probably want to take some of them. I think it's hard to generalize with regard to small and large businesses. I found the testimony from the Manufacturers and Exporters and the CFIB on Monday very instruct

Industry committee  Good afternoon. My name is Terry Campbell and I am the Vice-President, Policy, for the Canadian Bankers Association. I am joined today by my colleague Marion Wrobel, Director of Market and Regulatory Developments. We thank the chair and the committee for the opportunity to be he

Finance committee  I'll turn to my colleague in just a moment. I agree--quite a bit, actually--with what Mr. Flexman says. I think that's entirely in the right direction in terms of the answer to your question. I would also say that internationally there is a growing consensus and standard throug