Firms fall between cracks of relief programs
Before Nico Lady + Baby could reopen Monday, co-owner Nicolette Hunter was assembling Plexiglas shields now all-too-familiar for businesses owners and customers alike in this COVID -19 era.
The two shields costing $560 along with the hand sanitizers and other various pandemic sundries would far exceed profits — and perhaps total revenue — on this first day of her reopening.
By 4 p.m. Monday, only five people had wandered into their store in a south Regina strip mall behind the Southland Mall, further leaving in doubt whether the small family business she started nine years ago with her sister-in-law Nicole Hunter will somehow survive this pandemic.
“We started the day in the negative, that’s for sure,” said Hunter, adding customers seemed uncomfortable about being out shopping and wanted to get what they need and get out as quickly as they could in these uneasy times.
Hunter was truly grateful to have her store reopened after two-and-a-half months of trying to get by with curbside pickup for her customers that reduced her business to about 30 per cent of usual — just enough success to disqualify her from the federal government’s Canada Emergency Commercial
Rent Assistance (CECRA) that only kicks in after a 75-per-cent revenue loss due to COVID -19.
“It feels like we were a brand new startup,” Hunter said, recalling those early days nine years ago when there was no salary for the first few months and only the equivalent of minimum wage.
Patiently, the sisters-inlaw nurtured their women’s fashion business into profitability, eventually adding the “+ baby” to include infant/ children’s wear and then maternity clothes. Hunter proudly recalls how that grand opening nine years ago produced enough revenue to cover the first month’s rent.
That didn’t happen Monday and Hunter said Nico Lady + Baby is already behind on its $8,000-a-month rent for April and May.
Yet somehow, the small business has fallen between the cracks, not only failing to qualify for the federal small business support program but also the province’s $50-million Saskatchewan Small Business Emergency Payment Program (SSBEP) that offers $5,000 to small businesses forced to close.
“I don’t think it’s fair,” she said. “(Governments say) you guys are a big part of flattening the curve.”
The province was quick out of the gate with its April 9 announcement that Premier Scott Moe described in a press release as “a significant first step in our economic recovery” from a government “committed to continuing to work with businesses through this uncertain time.”
While Nico Lady + Baby met SSBEP’S requirements by having fewer than 500 employees and being committed to reopening, what wasn’t disclosed at the time is that it did not apply to businesses that were allowed to open in Stages 1 or 2 of the Re-open Saskatchewan Plan. (Hunter’s business could have opened on May 19 when Stage 2 started, but wasn’t in a position to so.)
She has lobbied hard on not only her own company’s behalf, but on behalf of many other small businesses caught in the same bind. But no amount of communication with Trade and Export Development Minister Jeremy Harrison’s office running the Business Response Team (BRT) has convinced the Saskatchewan Party government that a significant revenue loss like the one Nico Lady + Baby has suffered should qualify them for support.
“I think the province has an expectation that because our businesses are allowed to be open that we’re fine now, and we’re not,” Hunter told the Leader-post’s Lynn Giesbrecht.
Hunter has reason to be miffed over what might be a government program more designed for show than solutions.
The $50-million SSBEP program is proving to be a spit in the ocean of business needs, but perhaps all the Sask. Party government can afford as it faces a provincial economy that was shrinking before COVID-19 and now faces a potential $1.3-billion to $3.3-billion pandemic deficit in the 2020-21 budget.
Sadly, that leaves businesses like Nico Lady + Baby to face the ravages of the pandemic by themselves.