Canada Small Business Financing Act — 2007-2008

I am pleased to present to Parliament the 2007–08 Canada Small Business Financing (CSBF) Program Annual Report, in accordance with section 20 of the Canada Small Business Financing Act.

The CSBF Program aims to ensure that small businesses with particular difficulty in accessing financing are able to get the financing they need to start up, expand, enhance their productivity and innovate. This report outlines how Industry Canada, working in partnership with lending institutions across the country, helped SMEs access over 9 000 loans worth more than $1.0 billion last year, leading to the creation of more than 20 400 jobs in Canada.

Our commitment as a government to assist Canadian entrepreneurs has been made clear in Advantage Canada, our long-term economic plan, and all recent budgets. Through these efforts we have made great strides toward creating a healthy and sustainable climate of innovation and growth across all sectors of the economy.

Canada’s small and medium-sized enterprises are key drivers of our economic success. The Government remains fully committed to maintaining a positive business environment and appropriate measures and programs of support for them, including the CSBF Program. This commitment is increasingly critical, given the challenging economic climate in which Canadian businesses now operate and the need for constant innovation in response to global competition.

Tony Clement