Some time ago, after more than twenty years as a professional accountant serving primarily small businesses, it became clear neither I nor most Canadians, really understood the importance of small business to our economy. The problem begins with our own statistical agencies. Statistics Canada has an apparent bias that favours larger organizations. Or rather they downplay the importance of the self-employed, and they refer rather disparagingly to ‘micro-businesses’ with four or fewer staff. They seem to place more importance on what they define as ‘large and medium-sized’ organizations – with 100 or more employees. By contrast, BC Stats – which shares the same data with Statistics Canada – defines a large business in BC differently – as ‘one which has 50 or more staff. They don’t even bother with a ‘medium-sized’ business category. 

By default, Statistics Canada doesn’t include the self-employed in employment numbers, but they combine both the public sector and the private sector together. That was when I began to realize the importance of statistics, and how significant it is to know where to look for good, relatively unbiased data. In all of the social sciences – including the management sciences and public administration – good data is critical. The Main Street Journal is the result of realizing the importance of smaller businesses to the Canadian economy.