Charlottetown chamber wants province to create lack of foot traffic fund
Chamber's provincial budget wish list also includes personal basic amount increased to $12,000, business tax lowered to one per cent
The Greater Charlottetown Area Chamber of Commerce is calling on the provincial government to create a fund to help downtown businesses adapt to the negative financial impact of more people working from home and less customer foot traffic during the pandemic.
"As we saw with the onset of the pandemic in March of 2020, there was really an overnight work-from-home transition for particularly government employees as well as some private sector (employees). And, while we understand this was to ensure people were safe, the uncertainty that return to work, particularly for federal government employees, has left a lot of businesses who base their business model around a certain amount of traffic in the downtown, struggling at times, particularly our service industry," said Penny WalshMcGuire, the chamber's CEO.
She added that the fund is intended to compliment the province's Telework Adaptation Fund, which was created to help businesses and organizations with up to 75 per cent (to a maximum of $2,500, non-repayable) of eligible costs between April 1, 2020, and Feb. 28, 2021, to have employees work from home.
Walsh-McGuire wants to see the new fund to help downtown businesses be of equal or greater value to the Telework Adaptation Fund.
Some of the ways the fund could be used to help businesses adapt could involve having an e-commerce strategy and implementing different delivery services.
"We're uncertain when that workforce population, particularly the daytime commuters, will be returning to the downtown," she said, adding that it's also uncertain what the tourism season is going to look like for downtown foot traffic.
The P.E.I. government's online pre-budget consultations ended on Jan. 22. The current provincial operating budget was released on June 17 with expenditures estimated at $2.4 billion and a $172.7 million deficit.
The chamber's fund recommendation was part of the chamber's pre-budget submission - Prepare, Persevere, Prosper: Supporting a Resilient Island Economy. Other recommendations include:
LOWER SMALL BUSINESS TAX RATE
Since 2018, the tax rate has been reduced from 4.5 per cent to two per cent (as of Jan. 1). The chamber is now calling to a further one-percent reduction to bring the tax rate down to one per cent. By comparison, the tax rate (lower end) in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia is 2.5 per cent and three per cent in Newfoundland and Labrador. P.E.I.'s governing Progressive Conservatives previously said they were planning to lower the tax rate to one per cent by 2023, but the chamber wants this done quicker.
INCREASE BASIC PERSONAL AMOUNT
The chamber is also asking for an increase in the basic personal amount from $10,500 to $12,000 to support low-income workers paying income taxes. The current $10,500 tax exemption is the result of a $500 increase in June's budget.
Leading up to the 2019 provincial election, the Progressive Conservatives pledged to increase the personal amount to $12,000 over three years.
SUPPORT POPULATION GROWTH, RETRAINING WORKERS
The chamber is also recommending that the provincial government provide financial support for some of the hardest-hit businesses to help with fixed expenses, such as property tax, mortgages, insurance or rent. This would be for businesses that are ineligible for federal government programs.
As well, the chamber is asking for financial support for workers looking to retrain for new opportunities as a result of COVID-19, ensuring that sufficient resources are in place for public health to help keep the economy open, and continuing with aggressive immigration targets similar to the federal government's and supporting that growth with programs, and maintaining support for entrepreneurial and professionally skilled newcomers through programs, such as the chamber's P.E.I. Connectors program.