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Bailout, bailout, bailout. If you listen to the news, it sounds like the only way to get things moving again is by rescuing big businesses, many of which have been on the ropes even before the recession began. But where's the support for small businesses, or new ventures? If anything is going out to help them, it's certainly not being reported.

Supplying small businesses, especially newer ventures, would be every bit as beneficial as bailing out the big businesses, perhaps more so. Sure, there aren't as many jobs involved with small business, but at the same time, where do most new ideas originate? Keeping small businesses running, and providing seed and venture capital for new businesses, will do more to promote economic improvements, in the long run, than any number of expensive bailouts to slow, lumbering industry giants.

I'm not saying that big businesses shouldn't be bailed out at this time. However, the focus seems to be entirely on keeping those businesses afloat so people won't lose their jobs. And yet the money is just pouring down the same drains as before.

Here in Canada, we could use a lot more funding and promotion of small business, especially in fields where it's hard to break in. For example, we could use new telephony providers, ones who might be able to provide some real competition against the established hegemony of Bell, Rogers and Telus. Alternate fuel ventures might be funded and find new sources of energy, allowing us to close the book on the environmental disaster we know as Alberta. And even local mom-and-pop supermarkets would be good to build, bringing more jobs into the community and keeping money flowing in the same, rather than to Bay Street.

While big business may be the organs of an economic body, small business, and the activities those businesses do, provide the lifeblood of that same body. And it's important to remember that they need assistance, too.

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