Minister Ng announced investments supporting women entrepreneurs in Burlington and London

Canada’s Minister of Small Business and Export Promotion shared how the federal government is helping small business owners start up, scale up and access new markets

August 9, 2019 – London, Ontario

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.

This week, the Honourable Mary Ng, Minister of Small Business and Export Promotion and Member of Parliament for Markham–Thornhill, was in Burlington and London to meet with entrepreneurs and small business owners to talk about the ways the Government of Canada is supporting their success.

On August 8, Minister Ng joined Pam Damoff, Member of Parliament for Oakville North–Burlington, to announce an investment of up to $507,800 in women entrepreneurs and an organization supporting women entrepreneurs in southwest Ontario. The funding, provided under the Women Entrepreneurship Strategy (WES), will help Bait Cloud Fishing Corporation and Gala Bakery Inc. scale up and access new markets and will support the Haltech Regional Innovation Centre in creating an accelerator and delivering programs to help women develop and grow their businesses.

Minister Ng then met with women entrepreneurs at the Jan Kelley Digital Marketing Agency. She was joined by the Honourable Karina Gould, Minister of Democratic Institutions and Member of Parliament for Burlington.

On August 9, Minister Ng travelled to London, where she joined Kate Young, Member of Parliament for London West, and Peter Fragiskatos, Member of Parliament for London North Centre, to announce a WES investment of over $4.2 million in local women-led companies and an organization supporting women entrepreneurs. Seven successful recipients each received up to $100,000 through the Women Entrepreneurship Fund to help them grow their business and reach new export markets. In addition, Pillar Nonprofit Network received nearly $3.6 million through the WES Ecosystem Fund (Regional Stream) to deliver the Women of Ontario Social Enterprise Network. Later that day, Minister Ng participated in a fireside chat at the London Chinese Cultural Centre.

Throughout the tour, Minister Ng spoke to small business owners about the government’s many initiatives that are making it easier for them to do business, such as:

• lowering the small business tax rate to 9%, one of the lowest rates in the world;
• getting credit card companies to lower the fees they charge businesses when their customers use credit cards;
• launching the Canada Business app, which brings the world of government programs and services to your 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;
• introducing the Accelerated Investment Incentive, which will allow businesses of all sizes in all sectors of the economy to write off a larger share of the cost of newly acquired assets in the year the investment is made;
• committing to universal high-speed Internet across Canada;
• 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.