On Monday, the government unveiled an amount of approximately $120 million that will be used to better equip and better support entrepreneurs over the next three years.
With an envelope totaling $121.7 million, including $64.4 million intended primarily for business financing, the 2022-2025 Quebec Entrepreneurship Plan (PQE) aims to provide financial assistance to entrepreneurs, provide them with tools and to promote the birth of new businesses.
“The Quebec Entrepreneurship Plan is an important tool for carrying out our [Québec research and innovation strategy], because it will allow us to work on all the elements of the entrepreneurship chain. We will stimulate innovation and we will create wealth for Quebec,” exclaimed the Minister of the Economy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, in a press release.
According to the government, Quebec has approximately 220,000 businesses, the vast majority of which are SMEs. “The province is however the one with the fewest businesses per capita, far behind the Prairie provinces, British Columbia and Ontario,” he lamented in the PQE.
To reverse this trend, in addition to financing projects and businesses, Québec is focusing above all on promoting the profession of entrepreneur and better support for people who start a business.
“With the Quebec Entrepreneurship Plan, our government recognizes the multiple specificities of entrepreneurs and wishes to offer the same chance to all groups from diverse backgrounds to carry out their future projects,” underlined the Minister for the Economy, Lucie The lesson.
The federations react
For the CEO of the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec (FCCQ), Charles Milliard, it is important that entrepreneurship be at the heart of government decisions. He also believes that the development of SMEs "is essential to ensure economic growth that will benefit not only Quebec entrepreneurs, but all of Quebec."
"The work must therefore continue, and other measures to achieve these government objectives unveiled in today's plan can be put forward," said Mr. Milliard in a press release.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) welcomes this plan, given that the business community has suffered greatly from the pandemic over the past two years. "It is essential that particular emphasis be placed on takeovers, because already in 2018, nearly three quarters of SME owners were thinking of selling their business within 10 years", declared the Vice-President for the Quebec at the CFIB, François Vincent.
