Federal subsidies `a solid option' for struggling firms
$600 million to offset employment costs as economy recovers from pandemic
A new federal financial support program to help businesses struggling during the pandemic hire new staff, increase wages or add hours is being welcomed by the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce.
In a virtual event last week, organized by the Edmonton and Calgary chambers of commerce, federal Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade Minister Mary Ng provided a breakdown of some of the subsidies and other supports in the government's recent budget.
The Canada Recovery Hiring program offsets a portion of extra costs businesses take on as they reopen, with the goal of rehiring laid-off workers or hiring new staff. The roughly $600-million program runs from June to November.
Janet Riopel, outgoing president and CEO of the Edmonton chamber, said the program will do a lot to boost employment.
“The Canada Recovery Hiring Program provides yet another solid option for businesses who need financial assistance to withstand the ongoing pandemic and grow their businesses for the long run,” she said in an email.
“With new hiring incentives from both our provincial and federal governments, Alberta's job creators will have strong support in growing their companies and getting more Albertans back to work.”
In the virtual event, Ng boasted the Liberals had provided the “most small-business-friendly budget in Canada's history.”
“This is really about giving businesses the ability to think about who they might need to bring back — what kind of human capital they're going to need as they are planning for that road to recovery and opening back up,” Ng said.
The budget also extends the wage and rent subsidies, due to expire in June, to Sept. 25; pushes back the Canada Emergency Business Account application deadline to June 30; and provides $1.4 billion over four years to improve access to digital technology. Ng said the pandemic has changed how workers and customers expect to do business as more transactions occur online.
“More businesses have moved online in the last six to 12 months than have happened over the last decade,” she said. Ng 's comments came before the province brought in new restrictions to curb a surge in COVID-19 cases.
Meanwhile, Alberta's gross domestic product fell by 8.2 per cent in 2020, the largest provincial decline and the fourth such contraction in 12 years, according to a Statistics Canada report last week. In comparison, Ontario's GDP fell five per cent and Quebec's by 5.3 per cent.
Alberta's hardest-hit sectors during the first year of the pandemic were goods-producing industries such as agriculture and mining, down 10.1 per cent, and services-producing industries such as retail, down seven per cent. Oil and gas extraction fell 6.4 per cent based on weak demand and an abundance of oil on world markets, the report said.