Assistance programs: Quebec creates a one-stop shop for entrepreneurs
The announcement was made Tuesday by the Minister of the Economy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, and the Minister of Regional Economic Development, Marie-Ève Proulx.
Share November 10, 2020 2:18 p.m. Share Assistance programs: Quebec creates a one-stop shop for entrepreneurs Jocelyne Richer La Presse Canadienne To help entrepreneurs navigate their way through the multitude of government assistance programs available to them, Quebec is creating a single window.
Business leaders who want to know what support the government can provide to their investment projects should therefore soon be able to contact a respondent, present in each region, who will guide them in finding the right program or the right service.
It is the regional county municipalities (MRCs) that will have to hire the required resources, ie some 200 “brokers”. Each MRC – there are about 100 – will have two brokers dedicated to direct contact with entrepreneurs. Quebec will release $ 90 million over the next five years for this purpose.
This new window, “Accès entreprise Québec”, present throughout the territory, is in a way taking over from the former local development centers (CLDs), abolished in 2015.
The announcement was made Tuesday by the Minister of the Economy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, and the Minister of Regional Economic Development, Marie-Ève Proulx.
At a press conference, thanks to this initiative, Minister Proulx said she was banking on “local support”.
In addition, the RCMs will have to set up an advisory committee, which will be responsible for “guiding the economic development” of the region, the minister specified.
Currently, entrepreneurs “do not know where to go”, do not know which door to knock on, according to Ms. Proulx. However, in December 2017, the former Liberal government also launched a “one-stop shop” to help entrepreneurs navigate the machinery of government. In this case, however, it was a web platform intended to guide entrepreneurs.
“If this has become operational, we have not seen the concrete benefits” of this program, commented Minister Proulx, called on to say how the new single window was going to tie in with the old one.
In the past, she agreed, there have been “a lot of initiatives, but little cohesion” in government action.
The strength of Accès entreprise Québec is that it is a local service, “a gateway” located near businesses, said the Minister.
Quebec has not set specific objectives in terms of the economic spinoffs of this new window, nor more in terms of the number of businesses supported over the next few years.
The service should be available in the coming months, as soon as the brokers have been hired.
At the same time, Quebec is preparing to create “innovation zones”, or delimited territories called upon to become “real engines for the economic recovery of all regions of Quebec”, predicts Minister Fitzgibbon, convinced that this initiative will allow increase the exports of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) while attracting more foreign investment in the regions.
