"Catherine Susan Swift" is Chair of the Board of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

Swift studied at the University of Toronto and Carleton University in Ottawa, receiving a Bachelor of Arts/B.A. (Honours) in Economics in 1977 and an Master of Arts (postgraduate)/MA in Economics in 1980.

Swift has a background with the Canadian federal government from 1976 to 1983, in the Departments of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, Industry and Communications. She was Senior Economist with the Toronto-Dominion Bank from 1983 to 1987.

Swift joined the Canadian Federation of Independent Businessin 1987. She became Chair in June 1999. She previously served as CEO from 1997 and President from 1995.

For the CFIB, Swift coordinates policy issues at the federal and provincial level, and she represents CFIB to government and civil society members.

Swift is a currently the president of the Empire Club and a Director of the C.D. Howe Institute. the Canadian Youth Business Foundation and SOS Children's Villages Canada. She is also the current President of the International Small Business Congress.

She is widely published in journals, magazines and other media on issues such as free trade, finance, entrepreneurship and women small business owners. She contributed the article in The Canadian Encyclopedia entitled Small Business, and

More Catherine Swift on Wikipedia.

It touches everybody to some extent. Many businesses have travel as a component of the business, ... Everybody uses energy to some degree.

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The vacancy rate for the smallest companies---those with fewer than five employees---is four times that of the largest firms in the study.

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There's no simple answer. We're certainly not going to be able to attract enough immigrants who can move in, buy a business and make a go of it, even though that's undoubtedly a partial solution.

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If you have fewer jobs created and less of a boost to the economy overall, then that effect naturally filters out.

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And the number one reason is fuel prices.

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It's just not practical. Seventy-five per cent of businesses in this country have fewer than five employees.

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It's a fairly permanent situation. You can always tough something out for a little while, but it's getting to the point that it's really factoring into people's medium to longer-term plans.

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The growing concern with business input costs such as energy and insurance ... will start to hamper small firms' expansion and hiring plans if action isn't taken. The most obvious course of action would be to lower the overall tax burden to alleviate the pinch small businesses are feeling.

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