Prince George, B.C. – The Canadian Federation of Independent Business supports the measures taken by B.C. Finance Minister Mike de Jong in his budget tabled Tuesday afternoon, although it would like to have seen more done for the small business person.

Mike Klassen, the B.C. director of provincial affairs for the CFIB, says “from the standpoint of small business having a balanced budget is a very important detail so we have praised the government for the fact they have balanced the budget. In fact if you ever look at a CFIB survey on that subject you’ll see that 95 to 98% of businesses consider that to be a top priority.  Also, they’ve done a lot of work on restraining spending growth, considered also to be an accomplishment.”

Klassen says “where we felt the budget fell short is the fact that it didn’t really recognize anywhere the importance of small business to B.C. in terms of generating jobs and revenue that the government depends upon.  So I think there are some fundamental issues that the government really needs to take a hard look at.  With the return to the PST, and I know the government doesn’t really like to talk too much about the sales tax, but it unfortunately has made B.C. a high tax outlier with the highest marginal affected tax rate.  So you’d think that businesses would be best off if they had a chance to save some of their costs on paying sales tax for things that grow their business, like machinery , office equipment, computers, things like that.”

And Klassen says “one other small details that we thought was worth raising is the announcement of PRPP, which stands for Pooled Registered Pension Plans.  PRPP was tabled in last year’s budget but unfortunately the legislation did not get passed in the last session in the spring so we’re hoping that that happens this year.  It’s an important tool for small businesses and their employees to start saving for their pension savings and we think that’s coming.  We’ve been told verbally that it’s coming but there was no mention of it in this budget so we’re nudging the government to make sure that happens.”

Overall Klassen is pleased the budget is balanced and happy to see the government is controlling it’s spending while focussing on growth, but says the debt has to be brought down.  “Certainly we want them to focus on debt reduction.  If you recall back during the election the government said they were going to set aside half of their surpluses towards debt repayment.  That’s not happening yet.  I think they’re waiting for some day when they have more money coming in but that debt is continuing to grow so it’s definitely a concern and we want them to focus on debt as much as they can.”