Step up for small business

Small businesses are the small engines powering our local economies. But during this COVID-19 pandemic, now in its 15th month, they have repeatedly been stalled and stopped and allowed to partially start up to the point where some of them have had to shut down.

You can’t follow even the best business plan when you never know how long you’ll be allowed to have your doors open.

It’s tough to stick to a budget, let alone plan for expansion, when you can’t possibly anticipate if an outbreak around the corner will stop your business cold.

It’s difficult to create jobs and reward loyal employees when you’re finding it difficult to make the rent.

And all the “shop local” campaigns in the world — as wonderfully supportive as they are — won’t save small businesses if they can’t stay open long enough to build up a loyal customer base.

Across the Atlantic region, small business owners have been frank about the difficult times they’ve been facing.

In St. John’s, Tom Davis runs Frontline Action, which offers indoor and outdoor activities like paintball and Lasertag. In a guest column for Saltwire Network May 8, he talked about the drastic measures he’s taken to stay afloat: cutting his spending by 40 per cent, his paycheque by 25 per cent and pivoting to add new services.

“Over the last year, I never stopped being vigilant,” he wrote. “I have treated every $100 like $1,000. Without this approach, I would not have survived. Government help only goes so far.”

In Prince Edward Island, a group of business owners and CEOS have banded together as the Business Continuity Group to try and “generate ideas, discussion, and content to help businesses cope with COVID-19 conditions in a safe and expeditious manner while we renew, revive and rebuild P.E.I.”

In Halifax, Taye Landry, owner of SPINCO, which offers outdoor, indoor and online fitness classes, took to social media to plead her case to the government: “You have asked us to pivot, we have done this several times… now it’s your turn.”

Landry said businesses need an action plan that allows them to slowly and carefully open up as circumstances warrant.

“We are looking for specifics,” she wrote. “We need a timeline. What does the case count need to be in order to reopen our doors and what does reopening look like?”

With the dream of a fully reopened Atlantic bubble seeming more like wishful thinking, given the new outbreak in Newfoundland and Labrador and lockdown measures still in place in Nova Scotia, small businesses need stability. Most have followed the rules and just want a blueprint for safe operations.

Governments need to consider how crucial small businesses are with every step they take.