New app aimed at helping small businesses launches in Markham

Minister of Small Business and Export Promotion Mary Ng introduces Canada Business App to access federal programs

Yorkregion.com
June 12, 2019
Tim Kelly

Federal government red tape, long phone wait times, confusion over where to turn: small business owners, you may finally have a solution.

Because now there’s an app for that.

The Canada Business App was officially launched on Monday, June 10 by Mary Ng, Federal Minister of Small Business and Export Promotion and Markham-Thornhill MP.

The minister made the announcement and did a hands-on demonstration of the easy-to-use app at The Village Hive in downtown Markham.

“I want small businesses to have no wrong door. We (the federal government) need to give you a door to come into and let us worry about how to navigate you and make it as easy for businesses as possible,” Ng said.

And indeed, the app, available to download wherever you get your apps, is easy to use.

With such handy tabs as: ‘Newest Programs and Services,’ ‘Finance my Business,’ ‘Start my Business,’ ‘Protect my Ideas,’ ‘Find Permits and Licences,’ ‘Hire and Manage Employees,’ ‘Engage with Us,’ ‘Import and Export,’ and ‘File my Taxes,’ and links from each tab, it’s a snap to use.

Aneeta Bains, assistant deputy minister and chief digital officer, explained what business owners told the small business department they wanted the app to accomplish.

“They said, make it really easy for us. We need something that can be placed on our phones. We don’t have time to go and find things because they said, ‘I’m not going to go and pull out my tablet to figure something out.’ "

The app will allow you to immediately access the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) and, within 48 hours, find out if you are eligible for $100,000 in financing.

“We’re trying to put it all in one place, and we want to get feedback; believe it or not the Government of Canada is going to fix it all within one month,” assured Bains.

She also said a feature of the app was to make sure it was easy for small business owners to get in touch with the department. Users can access the call centre through one number or can email or chat.

Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti, who said 9,100 of Markham’s businesses were small businesses with 20 or fewer employees making up 85 per cent of the city’s businesses, embraced the introduction of the app.

“We feel it should be very easy for business trying to do business with government. I applaud the federal government for doing this. It’s going to be easier for a small-business owner,” he said.

Ng pointed out that 99 per cent of businesses across Canada are small-to-medium sized businesses accounting for 1.2 million businesses nationwide.

She said she wanted users of the App to use for when they “might want to do your taxes, how to look for information about intellectual property, and so many other things.”