The grant is available between Feb. 9 and Mar. 11
It has been a long, tough pandemic for all of us, especially for small independent business owners in Ontario. It was already going to be a long recovery for many businesses that had to close during lockdowns before Omicron, which just added salt to the wound. It was especially painful for certain types of businesses like gyms for example, who completely missed out on their strongest month of the year in January.
Ontario has started to reopen again, however small businesses aren’t exactly convinced everything will be back to normal. Omicron was a huge “here we go again” moment that lost the confidence of many owners and it’s going to take time for that to build back up again. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business have been in close contact with their membership, and senior director of provincial affairs for Ontario Ryan Mallough says their members think they are looking at a couple of years to climb out the holes they have been put in.
“And that’s a couple of years assuming that we are actually getting back to the new normal. I hesitate around saying getting back to normal, I don’t think that we’re ever going back to a pre COVID mindset, but I think if everything is good moving forward, we’re still looking at a couple years to clear up the six figure debts that a lot of businesses have taken on from the pandemic,” said Mallough.
There is one thing that will be helping some businesses a lot though. The Ontario Small Business Relief Grant is now available until March 11. It is for businesses that were completely shut down – not restricted – during this most recent lockdown. If eligible, the grant is worth $10,000. Mallough believes it should have came sooner.
“It’s a program that was announced at the beginning of January, it is now February, and it’s only just opening,” said Mallough. “Which means we’re still probably a little while before money gets flowing. It’s good that it’s there, however businesses really needed that money at the beginning of January when they were shut down. So it’s a positive, but it is another time where the government had the opportunity to get something in place immediately, and instead waited.”
Due to the nature of the grant, the $10,000 is flat, regardless if the business needed more or less. Mallough said that for some businesses, it will be the difference, but for a number of others, it’s a “drop in the bucket.”
“I think it’s good that the government recognized there needed to be another round of grant funding but it is unfortunate that they could not get it out quickly enough. It is also unfortunate that we are still taking blanket approaches to these sorts of programs instead of recognizing that the blow from the pandemic is not equal across all sectors.”
Mallough also referred to gyms as an example of an industry that likely needed more than something like retail, who for the most part got through Black Friday and Christmas shopping while open to customers.
Lastly, with Valentine’s Day around the corner Mallough explains the issue facing some business sectors when trying to capitalize on holidays.
“I certainly think you’ll see the restaurant industry in full force, but I think that speaks to a bigger issue and an important one. We need people to be confident to go out and do that and I think that right now government messaging is still very cautious, which really hurts if you’re a restaurant,” said Mallough.
“It’ll be interesting to see what that looks like moving forward. We need government messaging to change from be cautious to get out there. If the government can’t confidently say pack restaurants, pack movie theaters, pack gyms, then we need much more financial support because a business being open and customers being told to stay home just isn’t going to work for anyone.”
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