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This is small business month in BC and I had an opportunity to stand up in the Legislature and recognize the significant contribution small businesses make to our economy and our communities. As a former small business owner, I know, intimately, how much work is involved in trying to make a go of such an enterprise when your only resources are your own sweat and your own bank account.

There are huge personal and family sacrifices associated with operating a small business and most owners discount their own time and energy when they determine if they’re making a profit. If all of the hours of work and sweat equity needed to make a small venture successful are counted into the equation, most small business owners would find they make much less than minimum wage.

Small business ventures are either started as a labour of love and passion, or as a last resort to put food on the table and a roof over one’s head when all forms of paid employment dry up. Unfortunately, more and more new small businesses are the result of the latter: people with skills whose drive and determination to find a family supporting job (with benefits and a pension) turns into a frustrating dead end. Fully 55% of new small business ventures are self-employed individuals who operate without paid help.

In the Legislature, I challenged my fellow MLAs to consider this fact carefully, as it signifies a major shift in the structure of our economy. As we lose high value, benefitted and pensioned, family-supporting jobs, more people will be forced into lower wage service oriented jobs (and often multiple jobs), or will try to set up a business of their own. In either case, the majority of our population will gradually shift to lower incomes without benefits and pensions.

Because of this fundamental shift, we need policies that recognize these new realities. We need to find ways to provide more accessible and affordable benefits to individuals and families who do not have access to such benefits through their employers. We also need to find ways to support individuals to access pension benefits beyond simply RRSP contributions and the inherent risks associated with those.

While this legislative work needs to be done, the best way we can all show appreciation for the contribution small businesses make to our economy is make every effort to shop local.

Bob Simpson
MLA for Cariboo North

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