Good morning ladies and gentlemen, friends and guests. Thank you for the warm welcome. C'est un grand plaisir d'être avec vous aujourd'hui. I'd like to take a moment to say hello to MP Chungsen Leung for Willowdale who is here with us today. Chungsen is a great advocate for his riding back in Ottawa and is an important part of our caucus.
It's always a pleasure to speak to an audience of small- and medium-sized business owners. And what a great opportunity for you to have various government officials available in one place to answer your questions today.
As the Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, or FedDev Ontario as it is often called, I've had a chance to travel across southern Ontario to listen to what challenges our businesses face and reflect on the opportunities we have to overcome them.
What I have seen, over and over again, is the talent and innovation that exists in offices, labs and on factory floors throughout the region. I understand that innovation is one of today's themes. Certainly our Government is committed to fostering a community of innovation—a community where people are encouraged to break from an ordinary way of thinking and suggest something new.
As smaller businesses, you play a critical role in our economy, in creating jobs and in bringing new ideas to the marketplace. This is especially true in Ontario, where there are more than 388,400 small- and medium-sized businesses, which employ more than 3.8 million workers. We want you to see our Government as a partner in helping you to grow and prosper.
We want you to continue to think big and to think about how we can all work better together.
Folks, as my colleague Finance Minister Jim Flaherty outlined in Economic Action Plan 2014 last week, our Government is doing its part to support our economy and guide Canada's strong economic performance in an uncertain world. And we will continue to do so as we work towards balancing the budget in 2015.
Actions taken by the Government have positioned Canada as an increasingly attractive place to invest and grow a business.
For example, since 2006, our Government has lowered taxes, made Canada the first tariff-free zone for manufacturers in the G-20, eliminated unnecessary regulatory burdens and improved conditions for business investment.
And while our Government has achieved a great deal, we recognize that taxes absorb dollars that would otherwise be used by business owners to seize opportunities for growth and create new jobs. As a result, further tax relief for small businesses will be a priority for our Government following the return to balanced budgets.
Over the next year, our Government will also continue its ambitious approach to reducing red tape through a combination of system-wide reforms and targeted action on issues that were frustrating businesses and stifling innovation.
I'm pleased to note that according to a 2014 study by PricewaterhouseCoopers analyzing the ease of paying taxes in 189 countries, a business in Canada takes 25 percent less time than a business in the United States to prepare, file and pay its taxes each year.
Our Government is absolutely committed to keeping taxes low, helping fuel job creation, and promoting economic growth—goals that have underpinned our Government from day one and goals that matter to Canadians.
As you will see through the workshops and information booths here today, our Government is offering a number of initiatives targeted at supporting businesses in different ways.
One of the services we offer at FedDev Ontario is Canada Business Ontario, which provides free business information and can help you navigate through suitable government programs available to you.
Through other initiatives, FedDev Ontario has a strong track record of funding projects that are driving innovation, productivity and diversification, making our communities more prosperous. We have also worked with partners such as the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, as well the Yves Landry Foundation, to support small- and medium-sized businesses.
Going forward, we will build upon this work with renewed funding over the next five years. I'd like to tell you about the four new Southern Ontario Prosperity Initiatives, or SOPIs, which represent a total of more than $530 million in available funding that you may benefit from.
As you are very well aware, new businesses in Canada have a tough time raising adequate capital and accessing the expertise and connections of the investment community. To help address these issues, the Agency has re-launched the Investing in Business Innovation initiative.
Through the first phase of that initiative launched in 2010, FedDev Ontario funded 43 new businesses in the Greater Toronto Area, with an investment of more than $28 million. This is projected to leverage nearly $84 million from angel and venture capital investors.
As small business owners, you can all identify with the challenges associated with accounting and financial management. Local company Wave Accounting came up with a free online financial management tool for small businesses to help address these challenges. With FedDev Ontario support and funding from private investors, the company was able to enhance its software and bring it to market. It has also expanded from 10 employees in 2011 to 58 employees now, demonstrating how a small company with a great idea can grow with the right support.
Once a business is up and running, it needs support to take it to the next level. The Investing in Business Growth and Productivity initiative will help businesses to expand facilities, adopt new technologies and processes to improve productivity, and increase capacity to participate in global markets. Canada's investment in machinery and equipment as a share of GDP remains among the lowest of its peers, and as a key driver of productivity, it's an area we want to focus on.
While Canada ranks high in innovation and scientific discovery, we are less effective in converting research, new ideas and technologies into products and services that fare well in commercial markets. The Investing in Commercialization Partnerships initiative is aimed at creating business-led partnerships with public sector organizations, encouraging a knowledge transfer that will help the region develop globally-competitive products and services.
It will also help develop innovation platforms, which are structures or services that partners can use to test, refine or develop applications to help bring products from lab to market.
An existing example is the Southern Ontario Water Consortium. This partnership between businesses, universities, municipalities and not-for-profit organizations is enabling the private sector to access research expertise and a cutting-edge platform connected to actual water environments, allowing businesses to develop and test their market-driven water technologies that are in high demand both regionally and around the world.
As a smaller business, being part of this type of collaboration has many advantages, such as access to specialized resources and access to markets that are typically difficult to penetrate. In addition, businesses can benefit from joint exposure with other partners that have been around longer and have a strong reputation.
I encourage you to go out and find other partners that share your vision, so that you can work together to achieve more than what you can achieve on your own.
And, speaking of working together, we need strong communities to attract and sustain economic development. The Investing in Regional Diversification initiative encourages the not-for-profit and private sectors to team up on projects such as cluster development and business incubation to help diversify local economies.
In addition to the four new Southern Ontario Prosperity Initiatives, I recently launched the Advanced Manufacturing Fund. A total of $200 million is available over the next five years across all of Ontario for projects that demonstrate transformative product, process, and technological innovation.
I hope that you will see some possibilities in our new programming and that some important connections will be made here today that will help your company's development.
Thank you for your time.
