It’s well known that small businesses located throughout Williams Lake, 100 Mile House and every other small community in the Cariboo are hurting drastically due to the pandemic. Most are hoping to survive long enough until vaccinations are completed by mid-summer.
Given the significant challenges that business owners have been suffering for the past year, you would think that our provincial government would be doing everything possible to help save small businesses - the very basis of our provincial economy.
The good news came in the form of an announcement that all three parties at the Legislature had agreed to put partisan politics aside, and work together in order to get our economy back on track.
Last September, small businesses welcomed the announcement that the provincial government would therefore set up a $300 million pandemic assistance fund. While this fell well short of the $680 million that just the tourism industry had requested earlier, at least it represented some hope for ailing small business owners.
The package permitted grants up to $30,000. However, it came with a host of conditions, including businesses showing at least a 50 per cent revenue loss and a “viable path forward” to continue operations.
John Horgan and the NDP estimated the grants would “protect more than 200,000 jobs province-wide” including many in the tourism sector with an additional $10,000 grant top-up.
Unfortunately, the program was immediately put on hold and businesses were forced to wait when Horgan called a snap election last fall - right after making the $300-million announcement.
Six months later the small business community is still on hold, as this week it was revealed $31 million is being spent to administer this program, yet only $50 million has actually been distributed to businesses in need of assistance.
In other words, hundreds of millions of dollars are just sitting there while many business owners can’t sleep at night because they have exhausted their lines of credit and maxed out their credit cards.
This is completely unacceptable, especially when all three parties set politics aside for the good of the province.
At a time when the small and medium-sized businesses are on the brink, somehow the NDP has managed to spend more on administration than actual program delivery.
The sad reality is that you can see how businesses are suffering in our local communities and just how much this money could make the difference between survival and bankruptcy.
It is mind-boggling that a government would sink an emergency grant with so much red tape, to the point that the entire fund hardly benefits anyone.
Even with some adjustments made after businesses complained about the stringent eligibility requirements, the program still hasn’t served them well.
But one good thing has come from that advocacy by the business community and the Official Opposition. We just learned the government has finally agreed to extend the application deadline from March 31 to August 31.
Hopefully, this gives businesses more time to make sense of the NDP’s bungled program and get the support they need. But the program’s strict requirements could still be relaxed a bit more - and that’s something we’ll continue to press.
I know I will continue to use every effort to get this government on the move so that we can get money out to the people and businesses that desperately need the support.
newsroom@100milefreepress.net
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