Prime minister visits Edmonton to promote budget, supports for small businesses

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shook hands with entrepreneurs in Edmonton while promoting his Liberal government's recent budget and planned support for small businesses.

Trudeau explained Ottawa's plan to cut taxes for small businesses, highlighting a recently announced billion-dollar plan to create an independent federal innovation and investment agency.

He says his government is committed to positioning Canada as a global innovation leader.

Calgary's lone Liberal member of Parliament, George Chahal, joined Trudeau alongside community business leaders.

While at the historic Mercer Warehouse in the capital's core, the prime minister also took questions from media about refugees fleeing from Ukraine and Afghanistan, the drug overdose crisis and the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

Trudeau was to meet later in the day with members of the local Ukrainian and Afghan communities, then visit a nature-based solutions lab to highlight investments in green technologies.

“Canada has the lowest small business tax rate in the G7 and we want to put that tax rate to work in encouraging more businesses to grow,” Trudeau said Tuesday.

“That's why we're making sure that small businesses can benefit from that tax rate longer even as they grow and scale-up, which means that as they grow, they can use this advantage to invest in themselves, hire more people and grow even faster."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 12, 2022.