Good Evening All, Today the Federal Government announced their plans to continue supporting businesses in need due to the pandemic. I know that many of you have expressed your concern and worry about the various programs that will be ending this Saturday, Oct. 23/21. Toronto has been in one of the longest periods of restrictions; and, although restrictions are starting to lift, some of you are still not allowed to fully open - restaurants, gyms, dance studios. We also know …

Good Morning All, It's that time of year again - our AGM is set for Monday, November 15/21 from noon to 1:30pm. As we did last year, this year's meeting will be held via Zoom. Attached is the full notice. I ask that if you wish to attend please rsvp via an email back to me by November 11/21. The Zoom link will be emailed out to each confirmed attendee closer to the meeting date. Thanks, Susan

Good Afternoon All, The Province has announced that the new Vaccine Certificate with QR Code has launched and is available for all of us to download. For our businesses who need to verify vaccine certificates there is an app that you need to download. For our restaurant members there was no new information on lifting capacities. We have been lobbying the Province this week to get this done and were hoping for an announcement today. According to the Premier they…

Good Morning All, Some of you have been asking me about how you can get the free rapid tests for your businesses. You can register your business for the kits through the Toronto Board of Trade as follows: www.bot.com/rapidscreening I've also attached the release that was circulated back in June - please take a few minutes to read through as it provides some additional information on the rapid test kit program. As always, if you have questions or need further…

Good Afternoon All, I have a couple of things for you today as follows: 1. De-escalation Training Sessions for Businesses (Level 1 and Level 2) have now been scheduled through to February, 2022: The City of Toronto is now offering De-Escalation Training Sessions for Street-Front Retailers. The sessions are geared to managers or employees who interact with the general public regularly and would like to learn strategies and skills for communicating with individuals who may be street involved or displaying…

Good Morning All, First I would like to send our congratulations out to our Federal MP, Julie Dabrusin, on winning her seat in our Toronto Danforth riding last night (included in the bcc line of this email). We look forward to continuing to work with you, Julie, on the economic recovery of our businesses as we see our way through to the other side of this pandemic. Moving on to tomorrow's start of the new Vaccine Proof regulation. Some of…