RETAILERS BREATHE SIGH OF RELIEF
Kenney apologizes for `stupid' decision to shut down small businesses in the spring
To say Alberta's new COVID-19 restrictions came as a relief to retailers and other small businesses is a gross understatement.
“It's a huge, huge relief,” said Annie Dormuth, Alberta director of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, referring to Premier Jason Kenney's announcement Tuesday of new measures to flatten the COVID curve while keeping as many businesses open as possible during the vital weeks leading up to Christmas.
Dormuth says a recent survey of CFIB'S 10,000 Alberta members (that has yet to be released) shows that Alberta small businesses are in a fragile position and another lockdown would have been devastating.
“About 45 per cent of small businesses are losing money every day that they are open, and 40 per cent are reporting they would not survive if locked down a second time,” she said.
“A blanket lockdown would have pushed Alberta small businesses to the brink of closure. These new limited measures will give small businesses a fighting chance to survive the holiday season,” said Dormuth.
When you consider that 98 per cent of Alberta businesses are small enterprises with fewer than 99 employees, knocking out 40 per cent of them would deliver a wallop to individual lives and Alberta's economy as a whole.
Another 1.8 per cent of Alberta businesses are defined as medium-sized, with anywhere from 100 to 500 employees. Together, both categories employ 91.3 per cent of working Albertans.
Effective Friday, retail businesses and services will remain open but are restricted to 25 per cent of occupancy limits.
Salons, hotels, professional services and other businesses are restricted to appointment only.
“What we see in many parts of the country, including Toronto and Peel Region, is an unfair application of public health measures that basically allows big box stores to remain open because they sell food or pharmaceuticals and are considered essential. Meanwhile, they're closing the small businesses, so we're delighted that didn't happen here, particularly in these critical weeks before Christmas.”
While Kenney would not acknowledge that his government has mishandled the COVID pandemic in the past month as cases steadily rose and then spiked — setting records — he did apologize to small and medium-sized businesses for the 10-week lockdown in the spring of non-essential shops and businesses.
“This government made, I think, a grave mistake in the spring when we made, I think, a stupidly arbitrary distinction between essential and not essential retail businesses that had the unintended consequence of allowing Walmarts and Costcos to sell darn near everything because they have a grocery section or they sell pharmaceuticals, while shutting down thousands and thousands of small-and medium-sized retail businesses,” he said in answer to a question.
“I talked about the fifth-generation family in my remarks running a store in rural Alberta. One hundred per cent of their business went to the big U.S.owned box store down the street or online for 10 weeks because of that frankly stupid mistake that we made, for which I apologize,” added Kenney.
Of course, back in the spring, the government's own modelling predicted a worst-case scenario that would have seen 32,000 deaths from COVID in Alberta by August. Thankfully, that never materialized, but 492 Albertans have lost their lives from this virus and that is a terrible toll.
“But we are not doing that now, unlike other provinces. We are putting in a capacity limit because we have to do some things to limit general social and community transmission,” said Kenney.
He acknowledged that retail stores have contributed very little to the spread of COVID infections when compared to social gatherings, which are responsible for 40 per cent of all infections in the province. Most social gatherings outside of one's own immediate family are now against the law in Alberta.
University of Calgary economics professor Aidan Hollis says the government appears to have found “the right balance” to stop the spread of infection and prevent widespread bankruptcies at the same time.
“The Christmas season is the bread and butter for many retailers and other small businesses,” said Hollis.
“This is the time of year that retailers normally make a large share of their income. The usual story is that retailers basically stay in business all year to make their profits at Christmas. A shutdown would have been devastating.”
Kenney says his government decided to declare a public health emergency with new mandatory restrictions on social gatherings, worship services, businesses and schools following an eight-hour meeting of the COVID Cabinet Committee based on recommendations from Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta's chief medical officer of health.
Masks are now mandatory in all indoor workplaces in Calgary, Edmonton and surrounding suburbs, where 83 per cent of cases originate. This limited mask mandate is a missed opportunity. Making mask wearing mandatory costs nothing and protects the vulnerable.
During that committee meeting, which ran until midnight on Monday, Kenney read out several of the hundreds of letters he has received that covered every angle of COVID, from the devastated widow who lost her husband following an outbreak at a long term care facility, to the aforementioned fifth-generation business, to the anguish of a parent “as they watched their children suffer increased anxiety over the virus,” while another woman wrote of her husband “who took his own life as he faced the extreme stress” of the restrictions in the spring.
“I did so to remind myself
— and all of us who carry the burden of leadership at this time — of the profound human impact of this crisis and our decisions.”
Kenney says he also spent much of the weekend talking with health-care professionals.
He spoke with “an emergency doctor whose hospital has no COVID cases, but said that half of his patients are hurting from anxiety and depression due to the drum beat of bad news and the effect of the COVID recession.”
Kenney has a message for those who would like to see even harsher restrictions.
“I would ask people who have the certainty of a government paycheque to think for a moment about those individuals whose entire life savings are tied up in (their small) business.”
“For some it's a little bit easy to say, `just flick a switch and shut `em down.'”
Kenney says a couple of weeks ago he met “a new Albertan” at a food court, “a refugee from Venezuelan socialism” who had just opened a little food kiosk. “She came up to me and she broke down in tears in front of me saying, `sir, I've put my entire life savings as a refugee into this little business, I've just opened and we're struggling to pay the bills, if you shut me down I'm going to lose it all — everything — and I'll be in abject poverty.' You tell me what the health consequences are for that woman and her family.”
Is this the right balance? Time will tell. It's up to all of us.