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17_V1_WAT_Oct05 Th ursday, October 5, 2017 • WATERLOO CHRONICLE • 17Serving your community since 1856 OCTOBER IS A WEEKEND FOR 2 AT LANGDON HALL HOTEL & SPA *Some Restrictions Apply. See In-Store For Details. MONTH customer appreciation win 1 of 2 grand prizes of BUSINESS Canada's Annual Small Business Week for 2017 will be held from Oct. 15-21. While the event is always important, this year it takes on greater signi� cance. � e Business Development Bank of Canada, or BDC, o� - cially launched Small Busi- ness Week in 1981. It is cur- rently estimated that 99.7 per cent of all national businesses are small and medium sized enterprises with less than 100 employees, a statistic which clearly highlights their impor- tance across all of Canada and provides a substantive reason for recognizing their achieve- ments during Small Business Week. � e importance of this year is considerably amplified as small businesses in Waterloo Region and across Canada have extraordinary challenges. Firstly, at a provincial level, they are disproportionately impacted by the proposed increase in the minimum wage. Last week a coalition of businesses including the Ontario Chamber of Com- merce estimated that the pro- posed minimum wage hike will add $23 billion in costs to Ontario business over a two year period. The economic growth created by a $15/hour minimum wage, estimated at $11 billion, is not su� cient to o� set this cost. Businesses will have to determine how they absorb e v e r y t h i n g a n d o p t i o n s include cutt ing jobs or increasing costs to consum- ers. Earlier in September, the Financial Accountability O� ce estimated the minimum wage would result in 50,000 people losing their jobs. Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau has provided no indication that his govern- ment will make any revisions to his proposed changes to the taxation of private corpo- rations. Data collected from Statistics Canada and other official government sources shows that two-thirds of small business owners earn less than $73,000 annually and half of these earn less than $33,000. � e current system of taxa- tion was implemented by pre- vious Liberal and Conserva- tive governments to support the growth of independent business and reflect the dis- proportionate burden they face in complying with regula- tions and accessing funding. If the goal of the Ontario and federal governments is to ensure fairness for the middle class, then it does not make sense to increase the level of taxation placed on hard work- ing business owners. The current proposals are not the solution and instead create unnecessary uncertainty. Waterloo Region, Ontario and Canadian small busi- nesses require support from all levels of government. The owners of these enterprises also require the continuing support of local customers and in this current climate of uncertainty they all deserve our patronage ••• Ian McLean is president and CEO of the Greater K-W Chamber of Commerce. It's time to recognize small business contributions BUSINESS MATTERS IAN MCLEAN Waterloo-based Black-Berry reported last week that it has returned to profit- ability in its latest quarter. BlackBerry said revenue from its software and services business hit a record in the latest quarter in its continued transition from a smartphone provider to a software company. BlackBerry reported $19 mil- lion in net income in U.S. dol- lars for its fiscal second quar- ter, a big swing from the loss reported during the comparable period last year. Its key software and services revenue for the fiscal second quarter ending Aug. 31 hit a high of $185 million, comprising roughly three-quarters of the total for the period. BlackBerry's shift to produc- ing mainly software and servic- es over the past few years seems to be paying dividends and the company also reported small dividends for the first time in years, last quarter. BlackBerry CEO John Chen says this lastest result, as well as the company's improved mar- gins, is a re� ection of its "trans- formation to a software com- pany. "We made great progress in all our key growth initiatives ... all of these accomplishments position us well for future growth," he told analysts on a conference call last week. BlackBerry has made a strategic shift to producing mainly software and services over the past few years as its smartphones lost market share to Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. � e company's pro� t in the latest quarter amounted to four cents per basic share, reported in U.S. currency. � at compared with a year-earlier loss of 71 cents per basic share, or $372 million in total. BlackBerry's revenue for the three months ending Aug. 31 was $238 million, down from $334 million in last year's sec- ond quarter, but up $3 mil- lion from the previous quarter ended May 31. BlackBerry returns to pro� tability FILE PHOTO BlackBerry reported a return to pro� tability in its third quarter.