Good Afternoon All,
I know that this has been a hellish week for everyone. The first part of the week has been dealing with closures and partial closures and major concerns about finances - paying rent, salaries, bills. Your Board Chair, Albert Stortchak, and I had a phone conversation with our MP Julie Dabrusin this morning to discuss the financial situation that our business members are facing. We feel there are 2 important paths: the first being immediate financial assistance to deal with the current crisis; the second is ensuring that the immediate assistance doesn't cause future financial challenges when we come out the other side and try to get everyone reopened and up and running.
Below is a link that outlines the financial measures that the Prime Minister announced this morning. There is significant information for small and medium businesses - please read through the information carefully.
In our discussion with Minister Dabrusin we also covered the following:
- Implementation of a new EI component for self-employed workers and staff who aren't normally eligible for EI. We stressed that this is something that needs to be effective immediately (certainly before the end of the month)
- If loans are made available to businesses they need to be no interest or extremely low interest loans.
- Communication from all 3 levels of government to business landlords to provide assistance to their business tenants during this period. Again we stressed that when we come out on the other side of this we need to make sure that our businesses are still able to open and operate. Julie will be having a conference call tomorrow with our MPP and City Councillor to further work on this message.
Day-to-Day Area Checks:
Given that most of our businesses are closed please know that your Board of Directors and myself are doing regular daily checks through our area to ensure that all is okay with your store and business fronts. If we notice any damage we will be in touch with you immediately. For those businesses that are still somewhat operational we ask that if you see something in the way of damage in the area please take a minute and email me or text me at 416-995-1049
https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2020/03/canadas-covid-19-economic-response-plan-support-for-canadians-and-businesses.html
I will be providing further updates as I receive them.
Please take care,
Susan