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CANADIAN INDUSTRY ONLINE - JANUARY 2012
EXCLUSIVE:
CFIB TALKS ABOUT
UNIFYING THE BUSINESS
COMMUNITY TO LEVERAGE
CANADA’S POSITION ON THE
WORLD STAGE
T
HE CANADI AN FEDERA-
T ION
of Independent Busi-
ness (CFIB) represents over 108,000
small business owners in Canada.
The organization calls itself the “big
voice for small businesses” and CIO
wanted to get to the source of CFIB
activities as part of our ongoing
focus on Canadian competitiveness.
CFIB has worked for over 40 years
to represent the interests of the
small business, to government at
the municipal, provincial and
federal levels. CFIB has seen many
victories on behalf of small
business, including: introducing a
special federal small business
corporate tax threshold and then
expanding it to every province,
increasing the Small Business Cor-
porate Tax threshold to $500,000,
increasing the Lifetime Capital
Gains Exemption to $750,000,
influencing the federal government
to commit to the reduction of paper
burden by 20 per cent, and reducing
Employment Insurance (EI) premi-
ums since 1994.
The CFIB says it has its “finger on
the pulse of any issues affecting the
full range of enterprises in Canada,
from one-person, home-based busi-
nesses to firms employing hundreds
of people.” The organization regu-
larly polls its members and tries to
represent themas closely as possible.
In order to gain insight into the
full spectrum of CFIB member
benefits and work on behalf of small
business, CIO spoke with Laura
Jones, Sr. Vice-President Research,
Economics & Western Canada with
CFIB. In this capacity she works
with all levels of government to
represent the interests of CFIB’s
small business members in British
Columbia.
EXCLUSIVES - CFIB