Ottawa urged to put post-COVID relief in budget
Many small businesses want government to address rising costs, industry group says
In their 37 years in business, Wanda and David Beaver have never seen an economic situation rattle their livelihood so heavily.
Despite paying off COVID-era loans by dipping into savings, the owners of Wanda’s Pie in the Sky in Kensington Market have struggled to regain the level of customer traffic they had prior to the pandemic, as well as keeping things affordable in the face of rising costs.
“We use 10,000 pounds of butter every year and the cost of dairy and of goods being delivered have gone up,” Wanda said.
“We also have this big old-school gas bakery oven, and I’m afraid to look at the bill these days with the cost of gas. So I’ll say it’s been difficult, because it’s hard to keep ahead of it (rising costs), and we’re not keeping ahead of it.”
The couple would count themselves agreeing with the 77 per cent of small businesses recently surveyed that want the government to address the soaring costs of doing business in the federal budget to be released April 16. A further 74 per cent in the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses (CIFB) survey want an overall reduction in business tax.
“A lot of businesses are telling us that the greatest challenges limiting their sales and growth is the insufficient demand,” said Jasmin Guenette, vice-president of national affairs for CFIB.
“When consumers are spending less, (businesses) make less sales and generate less revenue. So it’s really important for the federal government in its upcoming budget to not only acknowledge the situation small businesses are facing, but implement policies that would help those small businesses. And the best policy is to reduce the tax burden.”
In a news release last week, the
CFIB said businesses are also facing a jump in the carbon tax to $80 per tonne on April 1, in addition to the increased premium costs they’ve encountered from Employment Insurance and Canada Pension Plan between 2019 and 2023.
To alleviate the financial pressures, the CFIB has made nine recommendations to the federal government, including lowering the federal small business tax to eight per cent from nine per cent over the next two years, and returning the $2.5 billion in carbon tax rebates Canadian businesses are owed from the first five years of the program.
Not only does $1.3 billion of that total belong to Ontario businesses such as the Beavers’, said Guenette, but many small businesses aren’t aware that they’re owed money in the form of rebates.
Ottawa had promised to return $935 million in 2023-24, but recently reduced that amount in February to $623 million when it allocated an increased share of the carbon tax rebates to rural households. The government has not announced when that money will flow.
“I didn’t know myself until fairly recently, so it would be a nice cushion,” Wanda said, adding that although the money may not seem like a lot to some businesses, it still serves as “a big drop in the bucket” for most. “It would be nice to be able to have more of a comfortable feeling of how you schedule people and you’re not trying to send people home early because things are slow.”
In addition to co-owning the business, David is also secretary of the executive board of the Kensington Market Business Improvement Area (KMBIA). He said pressures on small businesses haven’t spared anyone in the market, and most of their issues mirror the results of CFIB’s survey.
Although he admits the federal government needs to step in and help with the cost of conducting business, he’s not worried about the survival of the market as turnover is what adds to the area.
“Everybody always worries that places are closing, but there’s always something opening here as well,” David said. “This a very dynamic place and it’s always been that way. It’s been a market for over 100 years, so it will change, but that’s the main thing about the market — it’s always changing.”
Regardless of the outcome of the budget, the Beavers are prepared to buckle up and maintain business as usual.
“I mean, we’ve done it for 37 years,” said David. “We weathered the worst of it with the government’s help, so, honestly, I think that we’ll be able to do it.”