The CFIB is calling on the Ontario government to tweak the rules.
Small businesses in Toronto and Peel Region are arguing that’s it unfair they should be closed for in-person shopping during the pandemic while big-box stores can sell all manner of goods if they happen to also sell essential products such as groceries.
Retailers considered non-essential in Ontario’s COVID-19-ravaged areas were forced to shut their doors Monday to comply with a new lockdown policy, just as the already hard-hit sector enters the holiday shopping season.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) is calling on the Ontario government to tweak the rules so that small businesses can serve up to three in-person customers at once and salvage some earnings at the end of such a difficult year.
Asked to explain why big-box retailers aren’t restricted to selling just the goods deemed essential, as they are in provinces such as Manitoba, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Monday that doing so “would be a logistical nightmare.”
“They have essential items spread out throughout their whole store, and then on top of that how do they monitor it, restrict people from going in there?” Ford said yesterday. “And as for Manitoba, after speaking with the CEO of Walmart Canada, it’s creating massive problems out there.”
Asked about business closures during a news conference Monday, Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland pointed to government efforts to support small businesses including a new rent subsidy paid directly to tenants—with extra funds for those impacted by new lockdown measures—as well as the extension of an existing wage subsidy program.
“This is a victory for small business owners who are struggling right now to pay the rent and cover bills, and especially for those who are required to close their doors or significantly restrict their operations because of a public health order,” she said.
“All of us know now that there is light at the end of the tunnel with safe and effective vaccines on the way. It would be so tragic for any viable business … to have made its way through most of the pandemic and then to falter just now as the end is in sight.”
Yet many are unconvinced. Dan Kelly, president and CEO of CFIB, told CBC Wednesday that viable small businesses going under is exactly what’s likely to happen.
“Unlike March and April lockdowns, this is happening for retailers in their busiest season, at the time where they make all of their money,” he posited. “If retailers miss out on four weeks in late November [and] early December, they’re done… We’re already estimating one in seven small businesses will permanently close as a result of COVID-19.”
“That number could even go higher in places like Manitoba, Toronto and Peel, where there are broad retail lockdowns now once again.”
