Document 6573601

Parliamentary Office
Constituency Office
Leon Benoit M.P.
Box 300
Mannville, AB T0B 2W0
Phone: 1 780 763-6130
Toll free: 1 800 463-1194
Fax: 1 780 763-6132
leon.benoit.c1@parl.gc.ca
LEON E. BENOIT, M.P.
Vegreville-Wainwright Constituency
Leon Benoit M.P.
Suite 613 Justice Building
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6
Phone: 1 613 992-4171
Fax: 1 613 996-9011
leon.benoit@parl.gc.ca
MP Benoit Message Small Business Week Vegreville - Wainwright
October 23, 2014
As your Member of Parliament, I take great pleasure in celebrating small business week in the Vegreville –
Wainwright riding and across the country. I offer my sincere congratulations to all award winners. It is an
honour to be recognized by your peers for the good work that you do and the contributions to your
community.
For this constituency and for the rest of Canada, small and medium-sized businesses fuel the Canadian
economy. Canada’s small businesses currently employ 70% of the private sector workforce, almost 8 million
Canadians. Therefore, helping Canada’s small business community continue to grow and thrive is essential to
Canada’s continued economic prosperity.
From the Government’s perspective, I will remain a proud member of a Conservative Government that listens
to small and medium-sized business owners, eliminates red tape and reduces small business taxes year after
year.
Our government recently announced the introduction of the Small Business Tax Credit. This credit will lower
small business payroll taxes by 15% for the next two years. It is estimated that this will result in savings of
approximately $550 million for small businesses over those two years.
Our interactions with small business owners form a significant part of our daily lives, and their impact on our
community cannot be understated. They hire locally and pay municipal taxes. They provide many of us with
our first job opportunity, and volunteer their services to local fundraisers. Small business owners are
champions of their communities.
Because of each of you, Canada remains the best place to do business in the world, and we will continue to
stand up for the businesses that take risks – each and every day – to keep our economy growing and
prosperous.
On behalf of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Government of Canada, I thank you for the positive
contributions your small businesses make to the Town of Vegreville, the other communities of this
constituency and the country.
I congratulate each of you here tonight for your ongoing hard work and accomplishments.
Best wishes for yet another successful year,
Leon Benoit MP