If We Want to Buy Canadian, Let Canadians Build Canadian

Around the Coffee Table with Dale Jodoin If We Want to Buy Canadian, Let Canadians Build Canadian   By Dale Jodoin Columnist                                               Here's something to argue about over your coffee. If somebody opens a bakery and creates four jobs, why don't we think of that person as an investor? We celebrate when a corporation announces 500 new Canadian jobs. We should. But fifty little businesses creating ten jobs each just created the same 500 jobs. Nobody holds a press conference for them. The young woman baking cakes from home who dreams about opening a bakery is an investor. So is the guy buying a food truck, the woman sewing clothes for a flea market or the mechanic considering a small garage. They are risking their money and their time. Canada needs them. Small businesses represented 98.2 percent of Canadian employer businesses in 2024. They employed about 5.8 million people, almost 47 percent of Canada's private sector workforce. That's millions of paychecks. Yet before the first customer walks through the door, the bills start arriving. Rent. Insurance. Equipment. Permits. Licences. Taxes. Utilities. Of course we need rules. Nobody wants unsafe food or dangerous workplaces. But how much regulation protects Canadians, and how much simply protects paperwork? The Canadian Federation of Independent Business estimated businesses spent $51.5 billion complying with government regulation in 2024. It estimated almost $18 billion represented red tape that could be removed without harming the public interest. Maybe small businesses don't need another government program. Maybe it needs less government. Fewer forms. Lower taxes. Simpler rules. Keep the regulations that protect people. Get rid of the ones that accomplish little except creating another form. We're not asking the government to run the bakery. We're asking the government to give the baker a fighting chance to open it. Canada needs government workers. We need nurses, teachers, police officers, firefighters and people delivering public services. But government employment cannot replace private economic growth. Public services require tax revenue. Canada needs a private economy strong enough to help pay for the services we expect. We need factories, manufacturing, oil and gas, exports and international investment. But those things alone don't create a local economy. A billion dollar investment doesn't necessarily reopen an empty downtown storefront. Local economies grow differently. Someone opens a business and hires three people. Those workers spend money nearby. The restaurant calls a local plumber. The plumber buys parts from another local business. Nobody announces it. Money simply starts moving around town. And here is the contradiction governments need to answer. Canada says it desperately needs jobs, investment and affordable communities. Then somebody tries to create three jobs using their own money, and we make it expensive and complicated for them to do it. How does that make sense? We're also spending enormous energy building housing. We need homes. But a community isn't fifty new houses. It's fifty houses surrounded by jobs, stores, restaurants, garages and bakeries. Without that, we haven't built a community. We've built a subdivision. This matters to younger Canadians. Your first business might be one oven. One sewing machine. One toolbox. One market table. One food truck. One good idea. Government doesn't have to hold that person's hand. But it doesn't need to have its hand constantly in their pocket either. Look seriously at lower taxes for genuinely small businesses. Make municipal fees reasonable. Make permits understandable. Give people room to grow. We keep hearing two words lately. Buy Canadian. Fine. But buy Canadian from whom? If the bakery never opens, the manufacturer cannot afford to expand and the young entrepreneur gives up before getting through the paperwork, there won't be much Canadian left to buy. Maybe Canada's next great business isn't sitting in a corporate boardroom. Maybe it's sitting at a kitchen table tonight. Someone has a coffee beside them, a calculator on the table and an idea that could someday employ five people. They're deciding whether Canada is still a good place to take that chance. So when politicians tell us Canada needs more jobs, investment and stronger communities, perhaps we should ask them one question: When a Canadian is ready to risk their own money and create those jobs, are we giving them a reason to say yes?