Mood of business owners improving
According a recent survey, Canadian small business owners are feeling more optimistic than in the past.
The American Express Small Business Index, which rates the mood of small businesses, revealed that 35 percent of those polled believed economic conditions were improving.
There was also improvement when it came to the grades that small business owners assigned to the economic environment as part of American Express Small Business Monitor. Overall, the small business community gave their confidence in the economy a rating of 66 - or a letter grade of C. It marked an improvement from the C- grade that Canadian small businesses gave in March 2009.
"Since the depths of the recession, small business owners have been telling us that things are slowly improving," said Eric Nielsen, a vice president of American Express Canada.
Unlike in previous years, American Express also studied specific cities in Canada in order to gauge the differences in the business climate. In Toronto only 40 percent of small business owners said that they believed their financial standing would improve, compared with 61 percent in Montreal and 64 percent in Vancouver.
Small businesses in some provinces are bracing themselves for the implementation of the Harmonized Sales Tax. The HST, which will start in Ontario and British Columbia on Thursday, will be tacked on to goods and services as a value added tax.
