VICTORIA, B.C.: Starting a business is an act of hope. It embodies the Canadian Dream that hard work, risk, and sacrifice can still build something better for the next generation.

This Small Business Week, I want to honour the people who open the doors before sunrise, dig into their own pockets to make payroll, and keep hiring young people even when everything feels stacked against them. They are not just economic engines. They are community builders and carriers of the Canadian dream.

But today too many are losing hope. For months, B.C. has sat at the bottom of the country for small business confidence. Business owners are telling us they feel exhausted, unprotected, and pushed aside whiel being weighed down by red tape and taxes. A wave of vandalism and violence fueled by drug decriminalization has pushed our business districts to the brink.

Confidence can be rebuilt, culture can be restored, and downtowns can come back to life, but only if we treat small business not as an interest group, but as the people holding up the future of this province.

These people have not given up on British Columbia, and the Conservatives will not give up on them. We will save small business.

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Media Contact:
Ryan Painter
Communications
Ryan.Painter@leg.bc.ca