Budget 2009 - Small Business & 6 Million in Credit
31 million of Budget 2009 will go to Small Business. 15 m. earmarked for the Canadian Business Networks (fed/prov/terr. agency network). 10 m. to Canada Youth Business Foundation. This leaves 6 million in access to credit for small businesses. In bad compliment to this offering stands the slated EI allotments. 2.7 billion was targeted. 1/3 training programs, 1/3 covering frozen EI contribution rates, another portion paying for increased EI claims, while I am unclear about how the remaining money will be applied.
Mr. Flaherty seems to have overlooked these two separate but highly linked aspects of the budget - EI and Small Business. What of some ambition here in solving our employment ills? People are leaving industries, never to go back again. Their skill sets are valuable and need to find new purpose and service within a shifting economy. The 1/3 of EI's 2.7 billion going to the training programs is evidently not enough given the increasing numbers of unemployed. Already, applications to EI training programs in the Ottawa area have numbered over 115 people a term. At maximum, 50 worthy individuals are accepted. In every city where people are looking to transition into dynamic modes of self-employment, which will over time uplift and upstart the economy (dare I say characterize it?), there must be enough resources to accept and assist as many qualified individuals which apply. Self-employment is an essential part of the new economic normal which is revealing itself over the past year and years ahead. Whereas before EI and low-cost, state-supported self-employment was seen as secondary and unessential in comparison to higher-dollar, larger capital start-ups, now we see in a service and knowledge economy that at most one needs initiative and to be savy. The training programs continue to contract consultants who preach business fundamentals. Their traditional view is sound and necessary. But why are the training programs not collaborating with private ventures, enabling participants to gain skills, which go beyond accounting and include 'social media', net literacy, and contemporary marketing practices?
If a mechanism for giving feedback about Budget 2009 develops, I hope it gives voice to those participating in EI training programs. The more quickly regional voices can be assembled into national forums, the more easily those operating the programs in question can listen, consider, and just maybe - adjust.
