The Global Markets Action Plan has revolutionized Canada’s trade-promotion efforts by ensuring Canadian businesses receive the full range of support and services they need to find real export success in global markets, which creates jobs and opportunities for workers and their families here in Canada.
In March 2015, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced a total of $50 million over five years in direct financial assistance to Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) for market research and participation in trade missions. It is expected that this funding will help between 500 and a thousand Canadian entrepreneurs per year reach their full export potential.
The Prime Minister also announced additional funding of $42 million over five years to expand the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service, with $9.2 million per year thereafter. This builds on the government’s recent expansion of Canada’s trade services: Canada recently opened four new trade offices in China, bringing the total number of offices there to 15, with more than 100 trade commissioners; and it strengthened its support network in India, where there are now eight offices and nearly 50 trade commissioners on the ground.
There are now more than 25 trade commissioners embedded in business associations across Canada in order to gain better insight into the needs of export-oriented industries.
Since 2006, the government has taken significant steps to improve support for SMEs, including:
- reducing the small-business tax rate to 11 percent;
- increasing the income limit for the small-business tax rate from $300,000 to $500,000;
- implementing the “one-for-one rule” to cut unnecessary red tape, saving Canadian businesses more than $22 million in administrative burden as of June 2014, as well as 290,000 hours in time spent dealing with red tape;
- improving access to capital for innovative entrepreneurs by launching the Venture Capital Action Plan;
- supporting the hiring of apprentices with the Apprenticeship Job Creation Tax Credit, a non-refundable tax credit equal to 10 percent of the eligible salaries and wages payable to eligible apprentices; and
- increasing the lifetime capital gains exemption (LCGE) for small business owners from $500,000 to $800,000, and indexing this new limit to inflation. On account of indexation, the LCGE limit increased to $813,600 for 2015.
