Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s also Small Business Week and I want to join in saluting these local engines of our economies and communities.
As Members know from my many statements, small business is what it’s all about for a healthy and enduring economic future. Small businesses pour their benefits throughout our communities. They build the local tax base and grace our streets as a focus for not only our business but our social lives. Small businesses keep our dollars in the community to be spent again and multiply the benefits of local purchasing. Small businesses mean local jobs, providing opportunity, and allowing people to stay in their communities among their families and friends.
Small businesspeople are community-active people. They share their energy through volunteerism, contribution to local sports, cultural events and charities. Small businesses are contagious, providing customers and business partners for the growth of new firms to expand our economies.
As large projects come and go, small businesses provide the service base for the Northwest Territories workers we want living here at home and working on our major developments, not flying to their homes and provinces...