Bill C-291: An Act to amend the Department of Industry Act (small businesses)

This bill benefits small businesses across all industries and every province — whether you run a restaurant, a construction crew, a retail shop, or a farm with fewer than 50 employees. It doesn't impose new obligations on business owners themselves; instead, it puts a new requirement on the federal government to assess how proposed laws and regulations will affect you before they pass. In practice, this means more scrutiny of rules that touch your day-to-day operations — like payroll rules, licensing requirements, tax changes, or sector-specific regulations — before they become law. The protection is aimed squarely at small operators, with the 50-employee threshold serving as the benchmark for who counts as a 'small business' under the assessment framework.