Quick Facts:
- Toronto has the highest small business growth rate 7.5% between 2008-09: national average is only 2.7%
- 240,000+ self-employed people in Toronto & at 17%, Toronto has the highest rate of self-employment in Canada.
- There are about 84,000 employer businesses in Toronto.
- Toronto serves a constituency of about 300,000 micro-enterprises in Toronto (self-employed + businesses with fewer than 10 employees).
- 1-10 women are self-employed
Mayor Miller won with 332,969 votes in 2006. It is a constituency that can certainly make a difference to a candidate.
Candidates:
• Rob Ford
• Joe Pantalone
• Rocco Rossi
• George Smitherman
• Sarah Thomson
Media Questioners:
• Marcus Gee, Columnist, The Globe & Mail
• Julie King, Publisher & Managing Editor, CanadaOne.com
• Rick Spence, Columnist, Financial Post
A big thank you to the Globe & Mail for making this topic a worthwhile issue. The Ontario Government leadership vote sure did not even mention business until they announced the Family Day Holiday which cost me a day's wages for my staff at a time when the economy was imploding.
So big shout out to Globe & Mail. Also, quite a few of the candidates are business owners so that will be useful.
Finally, stop calling it SMALL business. There was a magazine called that and they had to rebrand. We hate to be called small - early stage, business operator, owner managed, but not SMALL.