The urgency for action remains…

Coming off my post from yesterday, the urgency of needing action from government to protect restaurants and small business hasn’t abated.

I wanted to follow up on what our levels of government have done to protect small busnesses from going under due to rent obligations. I remember that Prime Minister Trudeau had mentioned funding in the form of Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance or CERCA.

However to date, no funds have flowed to small businesses. The hiccup appears to be in navigating the responsibilities of provincial duties over contracts and tenancies. So far the only province to institute any protection for commercial tenants is New Brunswick.

I’m uncertain as to why the provincial governments are reluctant to extend the protection to commercial tenants that they’ve afforded to residential ones. As I’ve pointed out before, we cannot afford to try and rebuild an economy on boarded up storefronts.

Doug Ford and his provincial counterparts, must look at making this a priority. The federal government is clearly looking to invest the necessary funds to ensure that restaurants and small businesses are going to survive. Organizations such as Onetable.ca and Savehospitality.ca have been advocating for exactly what the Trudeau government is offering. We need the provincial governments to find ways to implement it asap.

Update: Just as I posted this Prime Minister Trudeau made this statement in his daily address.

“We’ve reached agreements with all provinces and territories to lower rent by 75% for small businesses that have been strongly affected by COVID-19 for April, May & June,” said @JustinTrudeau. “The gov't will cover 50% of that reduction, with the property owner covering the rest" pic.twitter.com/grSBJbkfIL

— Power & Politics (@PnPCBC) April 24, 2020

I like this reaction timing. It was almost like he was reading my postings. (Most likely not, but you never know.)

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