As Canadians look forward to the economic recovery and governments herald a new normal, few signals have been given about its policy landscape, and even fewer about the role of small business and entrepreneurs in the post-COVID strategy. With the horizon now in sight, how can governments move quickly to put a shot in the arm of small businesses and entrepreneurs that are operating in disparate and localised challenges and conditions?

In this report, the authors advocate for six policy options that move Canada’s entrepreneurship and small business supports from strength to strength. They do so by leveraging and working within existing structures, policies, and priorities in a manner that can address numerous goals at the same time. In setting out these options, they have attempted to craft policies that offer a place-based framework responsive to local assets, opportunities, and priorities across Canada, without being prescriptive about the innumerable aspirations and opportunities that dot the map.

While recognising a strong cultural and fiscal foundation for entrepreneurship which will follow Canada into its period of recovery, the proposals primarily support three dimensions of a healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem—human capital, market access and institutional support.