Finance committee  The intergenerational transfers are very significant. We have a massive exit of business owners, but not because of business failures. The other demographic reality facing us as Canadians is the fact that many business owners are getting older. Business owners often talk about

Finance committee  No, I certainly don't. There have been some advancements, including in the 2024 budget, but sadly, there have been a host of government policies that set small businesses back. I mentioned at the beginning of my commentary the four tax hikes we've seen just over the last four m

Finance committee  We're starting to see the price of some of those policies and the lack of changes. We were, of course, very happy to have your party's support for an increase to the CEBA deadline. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. The consequences are significant. Right now we are seeing dramat

Finance committee  It is very good news that after five long years of waiting, small and medium-sized firms are going to see government make good on its commitments to rebate a small portion of carbon tax revenues to SMEs. We at CFIB estimate that businesses in general pay 40% of the cost of the ca

Finance committee  Small businesses look at capital gains from two perspectives. Primarily our members—small and medium-sized companies—look at the capital gains treatment when they sell their businesses. Most small business owners count on the sale price of their businesses to fund their own retir

Finance committee  Thank you so much, Chair. It is good to be with you all. I am coming to you from Calgary today. I was in Ottawa earlier this week, so budgets are fresh on my mind. I was there to review the provisions of the 2024 budget. It's been a busy week for you and for me on that front.

Finance committee  This was one of the best parts of the 2023 budget. It's a major victory for small business owners, who have been calling for reductions on credit card processing fees for some time. We have had a couple of reductions. One was under the Conservative government and one was under th

Finance committee  Immigration challenges are a big part of some of the labour shortages they face. It is good that we have been increasing the numbers of immigrants and there has been more flexibility on the temporary foreign worker program but—

Finance committee  —delays in processing applications continue to plague business owners. They need workers for a job at a particular point in time. When that doesn't happen, it puts huge pressure on the business owners to try to fill the gaps themselves.

Finance committee  Sure. Really quickly, our members do see the tax on tax on tax as one of the many implications of this. The lack of any kind of rebate coming their way is another of the issues. This is going to hit them at escalating rates and they're not able to pass those on. Some will and, o

Finance committee  As a non-partisan association, I encourage all parties to talk about CEBA loans often, until such time as businesses are able to repay them. This is a big deal. These are not small loans for a lot of small businesses: $40,000 or $60,000. When the CEBA loans were first issued, it

Finance committee  Sure. Thank you for the question. Look, there are lots of pressures on lots of Canadians from different walks of life, including small business owners. Related to some of the previous questions, one of the big worries on my plate right now is the deadline for the Canada emergenc

Finance committee  This becomes even more worrisome as we look ahead to the further rounds of carbon tax increases that we're facing. Our main piece of advice to governments when businesses—or any Canadian, for that matter—is struggling is not to make the problem worse. Sadly, we've seen it right

Finance committee  It's a really important question. Carbon taxation has mixed views among Canadians, as we all know. That's equally true for Canadian small business owners. For small firms, it is a really bad deal. The only reason why anyone could suggest that some Canadians are getting more in r

Finance committee  In the budget as a whole, I'll just reference that the credit card processing fee reduction was the big win and the thing that we're most pleased about. There is progress on internal trade reduction. That's a huge file for small businesses, so there's some good news there. There'