Human Resources committee  Yes, and we all should be. They're not only important to our economic outlook; they are very important to job creation and really important for our landscape in every community across this country. They are what makes every community in this country unique.

Human Resources committee  They have been absolutely critical to the survival of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of small businesses, for sure. In responding to a recent survey we did, over 70% told us they continue to be critical to their survival in 2021 as we move into year two of the COVID pand

Human Resources committee  Yes, that is correct.

Human Resources committee  It's probably around 12 to 14 employees—on the smaller end.

Human Resources committee  Yes. We have members in every sector of the economy across the country. It can be anything from your mom-and-pop main street to your manufacturing or even high-tech firm, all of which are members of CFIB.

Human Resources committee  Yes. We certainly have both of those among our membership. It's a very good cross-section of the business population as we have it in Canada today.

Human Resources committee  That's correct. We do three things: We do advocacy. The advocacy is based on survey research that we have refined over many decades. We are celebrating 50 years this year. We have a full research team that vets every survey that goes out, does all the cleanup and makes sure the

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to be here to provide the perspective of small businesses when it comes to EI. As you may know, the CFIB represents about 95,000 small and medium-sized businesses across Canada. As we have this discussion, it's import

International Trade committee  They certainly are. I would agree. Our research has found the exact same thing as the CME, which is that small business owners are very unaware of all the supports that are out there that governments provide. I think an important part of all this is to somehow find better ways

International Trade committee  Not wanting to repeat what Mr. Poirier said, the fact is that business associations, trade associations, that have that direct connection with business owners are probably one of the better ways to get that. I think the program that Mr. Poirier was talking about—where we used to

International Trade committee  For us, it's really to make sure that there is a small business chapter incorporated into the U.K. trade agreement with Canada, because that is something that was missing in the CETA agreement. While they did some work on small business as part of a joint committee, there was nev

International Trade committee  Obviously, trade for small businesses is both international and domestic, so internal trade is another very big area that needs to be worked on. Probably the issues are similar. In fact, what we found is that a lot of small businesses will start trading within Canada, and if they

International Trade committee  Historically trade agreements have often been focused on the larger firms and their needs, and I think in the last maybe five to 10 years we've been moving a little bit more to understanding that sometimes smaller businesses have very different needs. They are even less trade ex

International Trade committee  Thank you. You did cut out briefly but I think I got the gist of your question. Absolutely, we'd like to see Bill C-18 ratified quickly. Again, there are lots of ongoing trading relationships that are reliant on the rules that have been in place for the last few years with CETA

International Trade committee  Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today to share the CFIB's perspective on Bill C-18. You should have a slide presentation that was sent to you by the clerk. I'm hoping to walk you through it, so I hope you'll have that in front of you as I pre