Support for small businesses facing impacts of COVID-19

For small business owners and entrepreneurs across the country, the past few weeks have been heartbreaking. Many of you have had to slow down operations and, in some cases, you’ve even had to close up shop for the foreseeable future. We recognize these are tough decisions to make, and we’re here to help you however we can.

Yesterday, our government announced significant measures to help you and your business pull through this period of uncertainty, and I wanted to outline them in more detail here.

For those of you who’ve had to slow down or stop your operations because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we want to make sure you can keep paying your staff, so we’re increasing the temporary wage subsidy up to 75% for qualifying businesses. We’re going to backdate this subsidy to March 15.

We’re also launching the Canada Emergency Business Account in case your small business is struggling with cash flow. This will allow banks to offer $40,000 loans - guaranteed by the government - to qualifying businesses. These loans will be interest-free for the first year, and a quarter of the loan is eligible for complete forgiveness.

On top of that, we’re providing $12.5 billion through Export Development Canada and the Business Development Bank of Canada to help out your small or medium-sized business. You will be able to apply for a guaranteed loan when you visit your financial institution to get help as you weather the impacts of COVID-19.

And if you’re struggling to get by and have a GST/HST payment due at the end of the quarter, we’ll give you more time. These payments - as well as duties and taxes owed on imports - will be deferred until June so you can use that money to cover your immediate needs instead.

With these new measures, our hope is that employers who are being pushed towards laying off people because of COVID-19 will think again. For those who have already had to lay off workers, we hope that you will consider rehiring them. And we’ll continue to make sure you have the support you need to get through this.