Toronto, September 21, 2021 – The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) congratulates Prime Minister Trudeau and all elected MPs, and looks forward to working with all parties as small business owners begin the long road to recovery.
“With the election behind us, it is critical that we return to the important work of getting Canadians and Canada’s job creators through the difficult months ahead,” said CFIB president Dan Kelly. “Most importantly, with vaccine passports and new provincial restrictions causing additional revenue losses and higher costs, CFIB is calling on the government and all opposition parties to extend the wage and rent subsidies and return them to the maximum 75 per cent level.”
CFIB is calling on the Liberal government to move quickly to implement the best ideas from each party that emerged during the election campaign. These include:
- Extend the wage and rent subsidy until all pandemic restrictions are lifted (NDP/Green Party)
- Reopen the CEBA loan program and raise threshold to $200,000 with 25 per cent forgivable (Conservatives)
- Provide financial support to small business owners required to implement vaccine passports (using the $1 billion fund promised by the Liberals)
- Rethink the Canada Recovery Benefit to ensure it doesn’t contribute to a shortage of workers (Bloc Québécois)
Small business recovery has remained at a stand-still for the past few months, with 76 per cent of businesses reporting they are fully open, 45 per cent fully staffed and 40 per cent back to their usual levels of sales, according to CFIB’s latest survey.
“The average small business has inherited $170,000 in COVID related debt and is struggling to find staff amid growing labour shortages,” added Corinne Pohlmann, CFIB’s senior vice-president of national affairs. “The new government can give business owners some much-needed assistance by acting on ideas that were put forward by the different parties during the election to help businesses deal with these challenges.”
For media enquiries or interviews, please contact:
Milena Stanoeva, CFIB
647-464-2814
public.affairs@cfib.ca
Source for CFIB data
Preliminary results for Your Voice – September 2021 survey. The online survey started September 9, 2021, n = 3,310. For comparison purposes, a probability sample with the same number of respondents would have a margin of error of +/-1.7%, 19 times out of 20.
About CFIB
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) is Canada’s largest association of small and medium-sized businesses with 95,000 members across every industry and region. CFIB is dedicated to increasing business owners’ chances of success by driving policy change at all levels of government, providing expert advice and tools, and negotiating exclusive savings. Learn more at cfib.ca.
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