Parliamentary Secretary Hébert met with entrepreneurs and small business owners in Québec

PS Hébert shared how the federal government is helping small business owners start up, scale up, and access new markets

July 19, 2019 – Québec, Quebec

Small businesses make up 98% of all Canadian businesses and employ 8 million hard-working Canadians from coast to coast to coast. They are the backbone of our economy and critical to the middle class.

Today, Richard Hébert, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Small Business and Export Promotion and Member of Parliament for Lac-Saint-Jean, was in Québec to meet with entrepreneurs and small business owners.

He shared how the Government of Canada is making it easier for small businesses by cutting red tape and introducing initiatives such as:

• lowering the small business tax rate to 9%, one of the lowest rates in the world, thereby providing small business owners with up to $7,500 a year in savings;
• getting credit card companies to lower the fees they charge businesses when their customers use credit cards;
• launching the Canada Business app that brings the world of government programs and services to users’ fingertips and provides helpful notifications;
• providing access to over a billion and a half new customers through trade deals like the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, commonly called the new NAFTA;
• improving tax systems by allowing businesses to immediately write off the full cost of specific machinery and other newly acquired assets and by eliminating the threshold for the Scientific Research & Experimental Development investment tax credit;
• investing $2 billion to help double the number of women-owned businesses by 2025; and
• reducing over 450 federal rules that impose an administrative burden on business.