UNEVEN LOCKDOWNS ACROSS THE COUNTRY LEAVE SOME SMALL BUSINESSES DISADVANTAGED.
Lockdown rules ‘ inconsistent,’ chamber says
An uneven approach to pandemic- driven lockdowns across the country is putting some businesses at a disadvantage, particularly independent retailers that are facing major losses during the crucial holiday season, industry groups say.
“This is being pitted as big business versus small business, but it’s actually an issue with inconsistent and piecemeal restrictions seen across Canada,” said Alla Drigola, director of parliamentary affairs and small business polic y at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
In Manitoba, for example, businesses are permitted to sell only essential items such as food and pharmaceuticals regardless of the full inventory they carry, she said. Meanwhile, Ontario’s restrictions for the hot zones Toronto and nearby Peel permit big- box businesses to be fully open as long as they also sell some items deemed essential.
“We need to ensure that there is a level playing field and that regulations … are not picking winners and losers,” said Drigola, who also oversees small and medium-sized business policy at the chamber.
Stores in Toronto and Peel, which are shut down to in-person shopping unless they sell essential items, usually ring up sales comparable to all of Manitoba and Ottawa combined, according to Diane Brisebois, president of the Retail Council of Canada. Now, she said, those retailers have been reduced to whatever sales they can pull in from curb- side pickup and delivery and online orders, if they have the capability.
In contrast to Ontario, Alberta recently adopted much looser rules for its hot zones, aimed mostly at controlling the number of people who can congregate in stores through capacity limits.
Premier Jason Kenney went as far as to apologize this week for a spring lockdown that shuttered momand- pop stores while allowing consumers to buy a variety of goods at big box retailers such as Walmart and Costco that also sold food or pharmaceuticals.
“This government made ... a grave mistake in the spring when we made, frankly I think, a stupidly arbitrary distinction between essential and non- essential retail businesses,” Kenney said in a video posted to his Twitter account.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business is pushing for the adoption of capacity- based restrictions and caps across the country, as well as appointment- based alternatives for small retailers and service providers to avoid completely shutting down.
Brisebois said consistency is “not just important, it’s crucial” to the viability of some businesses that are losing out. Many specialty retailers such as toy stores count on this holiday season for between 25 and 40 per cent of their annual sales, and it carries them through the first and second quarter of the year when they are in the red, she said.
“You can imagine if you are an independent how much is done at this time of year,” Brisebois said. Even with online sales, “there’s no way you’ll survive.”
The varying approaches to shutdowns across the country — and the definition of what is essential — have led to confusion and outcries about what is fair. In Toronto, for example, a downtown Hudson Bay Co. store briefly opened this week at the beginning of the latest lockdown in the city because the building contained a grocery outlet. The Bay at that location has since closed.
Opponents of widespread shutdowns also argue that not enough consideration is being given to how COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, is being spread.
Brisebois said recent figures out of the Peel region revealed that just 18 out of more than 8,000 cases came from retail.
However, Ryan Imgrund, a high school teacher and biostatistician who posts daily charts on Twitter tracking rates of COVID-19 infection and spread in Ontario, said studies in the United States based on cellphone data show that transmission does happen in grocery stores and big retail stores. While mask- wearing regimes differ in Canada, he said there is reason to believe there is transmission here as well.
“Masks are just another layer of protection,” Imgrund said.
He suggested that large retailers, if open, should be restricted to selling only essential items, as opposed to the Ontario regime that allows them to open for consumers to buy everything from medication to toys.
“If Mastermind can’t be open to sell toys then Walmart shouldn’t be able to sell toys either,” Imgrund said.