SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
March 6, 2024 09:00AM
  • Mar/6/24 11:50:00 a.m.

I want to thank the member opposite for the question. The Digital Main Street Program was a phenomenal program. Although brought in prior to the pandemic, throughout the pandemic it was key to helping many of our businesses—actually, over 82,000 businesses—to get an online presence and about 24,000 businesses to start or expand their e-commerce journey over two years.

But do you know what’s really exciting, Speaker? The sudden concern for our small businesses by the members opposite. We are talking to our stakeholders. We’re engaging with them constantly. But let me talk about some of the other wonderful supports available to our businesses.

The Digitalization Competence Centre connects companies with innovative digital solutions and helps SMEs across all sectors implement new digital technologies. The Canada Digital Adoption Program—

What would have helped small businesses recently was where the federal government provided absolutely no reprieve for the CEBA loan repayments. When I asked everyone in this House to contact their federal members, they did nothing. They stayed silent.

Another area that could really help our small businesses is if they would pick up the phone, talk to their federal cousins and ask them to scrap the carbon tax, because it hurts every single business and individual in this province. But they won’t do that. They will not call their federal cousins. And Carbon Crombie’s Liberals over there? Silent. They will do nothing.

Pick up the phone. Scrap the carbon tax right now. You can do that for your small businesses today.

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