new report <\/a>by the organization, calls it an \u201centrepreneurial drought,\u201d which it defines as a year or more in which \u201cbusiness entry rates are strictly lower than business exit rates.\u201d <\/p>\nIt says the drought has been ongoing since 2024, making it the worst period for entrepreneurs outside of the pandemic. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re hearing in Canada is, it\u2019s simply too hard to start, run and grow a small business,\u201d says Brianna Solberg, CFIB\u2019s director for the Prairies and the North.<\/p>\n
More than half of small business owners are discouraging entrepreneurship at this time because of financial risks, regulatory hurdles, trade concerns and long-term uncertainty, according to the report.<\/p>\n
The sentiment is most strongly felt in the hospitality, manufacturing, and transportation sectors.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany businesses say that the ambition is there and the entrepreneurial spirit is there, even compared to our American counterparts, but it\u2019s the environment to actually take the risk and start and maintain business confidence that doesn\u2019t exist here,\u201d says Solberg.<\/p>\n
She says costs for businesses increase significantly once it hits a certain threshold, making even business succession difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere in Canada, you pay heavy capital gains, and it\u2019s difficult to find someone to take that business over,\u201d says Solberg.<\/p>\n
\u201cOften what we\u2019re seeing is American companies coming in and buying up Canadian firms simply because they have the finances and the resources to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an international forum of 38 democracies, says Canada\u2019s productivity growth has averaged 0.86 per cent since the year 2000, which is far behind the U.S. rate of 1.4 per cent. <\/p>\n
It also projects Canada to have the lowest real GDP per capita growth among its members through 2060, averaging only 0.78 per cent per year, which is less than half the expected U.S. rate.<\/p>\n
Trend has been getting worse<\/p>\n
Solberg says the trend of businesses exiting faster than entering the economy has been ongoing since the 1980s, but has gotten significantly worse in the last two years. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing right now in Canada really should be seen as a warning sign for governments and policy makers,\u201d says Solberg.<\/p>\n
She says she hopes governments take action to address the rising cost of doing business by cutting takes, improving labour mobility across provincial borders. and reducing regulatory burden, which exists at the federal and provincial level. <\/p>\n
For example, provinces, such as Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Manitoba, hinder business growth by applying provincial sales tax to capital investments, she says. <\/p>\n
\u201cEven if they\u2019re trying to create an attractive business environment by lowering other taxes, they\u2019re not allowing businesses to write off capital expenditures,\u201d says Solberg.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt kind of becomes this environment where you have to look at \u2018What do business owners need to succeed?\u2019 And at the provincial level, it\u2019s certainly something that governments need to take into account.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brianna Solberg, director for the Prairies and the North at CFIB, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss the decrease…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[198195,198196,198197,28822,138,145223,23708,198198,336,107825,564,10931,48932,198199,48933,17646,26198,23711,198200,124790,93,198201,111,139,69,6269,39653,2738,384,198202,2539,644,2552,198203,5611,84620,11767,9640,24806,198204,198205,2248,19135,6273],"class_list":{"0":"post-381212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-20-29-years","9":"tag-30-39-years","10":"tag-apron","11":"tag-beautiful","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-cheerful","14":"tag-colombia","15":"tag-colombian-ethnicity","16":"tag-entrepreneurship","17":"tag-females","18":"tag-food","19":"tag-food-and-drink","20":"tag-food-and-drink-industry","21":"tag-food-service","22":"tag-food-service-occupation","23":"tag-happiness","24":"tag-indoors","25":"tag-latin-america","26":"tag-latin-american-and-hispanic-ethnicity","27":"tag-lifestyles","28":"tag-manager","29":"tag-manual-worker","30":"tag-new-zealand","31":"tag-newzealand","32":"tag-nz","33":"tag-occupation","34":"tag-one-person","35":"tag-owner","36":"tag-people","37":"tag-positive-emotion","38":"tag-restaurant","39":"tag-retail","40":"tag-service","41":"tag-set-up","42":"tag-small-business","43":"tag-smiling","44":"tag-standing","45":"tag-table","46":"tag-uniform","47":"tag-waiter","48":"tag-waitress","49":"tag-women","50":"tag-working","51":"tag-young-adult"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}