July added to COVID-19 commercial rent-relief program
OTTAWA -- Federal and provincial governments have agreed to extend a commercial rent-relief program to help cover July costs for eligible small businesses.
The move comes with a few changes to the subsidy, as the COVID19-related aid faces questions about whether it is delivering as expected. The amended program had doled out $152 million in forgivable loans to landlords that had agreed to give rent breaks to more than 20,000 tenants as of June 21. It carries a budget of over $2.97 billion, based on the latest federal spending estimates on pandemic-related aid.
The Canadian Federation of Inde
pendent Business said the rent help should run through to September at least, and that the program needs other changes to ease access.
The business group continues to hear stories of small-business tenants aren’t being helped because their landlords have not applied. Landlords have to seek support from the program and agree to cut their tenants’ rents in exchange.
CFIB’s Alberta director Annie Dormuth said an extension to the fall would help companies still recovering from COVID-19 closures and trying to find their footing as public health restrictions are slowly rolled back. Take up of the rent-relief pro
gram was slow at first, prompting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to publicly press landlords to apply for forgivable loans through the program. Finance Minister Bill Morneau sounded more upbeat late last month when he said applications were rising thanks to provinces’ banning evictions during the ongoing pandemic. Landlords that can’t kick tenants out have more reason to seek financial assistance. Still, over the last three weeks, business consultant Jenifer Bartman has seen emails from companies announcing closures, including some deciding to not renew their leases because it no longer makes financial sense to do so.“We’re going to see more of that. We’re going to see more wind-ups and people might say, ‘Oh well, small business doesn’t matter much,’ but it could be 10 jobs, it could be 20 jobs, it starts to snowball ... and that’s permanent.” She said part of the problem in the rent-relief program may be that asking landlords to shave down rents doesn’t address that they too have loans to pay off.