Restaurant owners and representatives in B.C. are calling on the federal government to postpone or eliminate the repayment of a pandemic-era loan of up to $60,000.
Hundreds of thousands of small businesses and non-profits accessed the Canadian Emergency Business Account (CEBA) during lockdowns, but the due date to pay it back interest-free is fast-approaching.
“We still have a mountain of debt. We had debt before this as well. At a certain point you just run out of money,” said Clif Leir, owner of the Fol Epi bakery in Victoria.
“Arguably, we would have been better off closing mid-COVID, probably.”
Fol Epi recently had to close its second location due to financial hardship. Leir said the bakery has fallen about $100,000 behind in GST payments.
CEBA is one of the smaller loans the business access, he added, but he’d still like to see the federal government waive it.
“I hope they’re looking at long-game, what this does to our economy and where this is going to leave us if we don’t steer this in the right direction,” he said.
The bakery owner said it was an “honour” to stay open during the pandemic, employing people and feeding families, but today’s economy isn’t helping them recover. Labour shortages and inflation are making slim margins even slimmer, and fewer people are forking out cash to dine out.
“Small businesses really can’t compete and are really getting shoved out of this whole process,” Leir added, noting that large corporations also took government loans during the pandemic and could weather that storm more easily.
According to Restaurants Canada, bankruptcy filings in the food service industry have increased 116 per cent since last year, and more restaurants are expected to shutter in the coming months. Nearly 20 per cent of restaurants that haven’t repaid CEBA yet won’t be able to — partially or at all, it said.
The advocacy group is calling on Ottawa to provide struggling small businesses with a three-year extension on CEBA repayments with a “scale-down model” on the forgivable portion.
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In response to industry concerns, Adrienne Vaupshas, press secretary for Federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, has said the CEBA deadline was already extended by a year — from Dec. 31, 2022, to Dec. 31, 2023. She did not address calls for a three-year extension.
According to the federal government, up to $20,000 will be forgiven and no interest will be charged on a loan that is fully repaid by the end of the year. Afterward, interest of five per cent per annum will take effect, with the principal due on Dec. 31, 2025.
“We’re really concerned about independent restaurants right now. We’re concerned about consumer spending. We’ve got increasing costs every which way,” said Ian Tostenson, president of the BC Restaurant and Food Services Association (BCRFA).
“We can only charge so much for a burger … we’re in survival mode, which is really quite surprising. We came out of the pandemic strong, then the world went sideways.”
In addition to propping up Restaurants Canada’s call, the BCRFA is calling on the B.C. government to support the food service industry with labour costs.
The minimum wage is set to increase to $16.75 per hour on June 1 and the government’s mandatory minimum of five employer-paid sick days for each eligible employee took effect in January.
“We’re not saying we want free money. We’re not saying that at all. But we are saying that most restaurants are on the verge now,” Tostenson said. “You’ll just force people to go out of business and then there’ll be no money for the federal government.”
In a written statement, B.C. Minister of Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation Brenda Bailey said restaurants are “vital to the social fabric of communities” and it understands the challenges they’re facing.
“That’s why we provided $530 million in grants, rather than loans, during the pandemic to help them keep serving their communities and paying their staff,” she wrote in an email.
“We have also helped restaurants lower their costs by permanently allowing access to wholesale alcohol, and by putting a cap on fees charged to restaurants by food delivery companies.”
Bailey said the ministry is open to continuing the conversation with restaurant owners and stakeholders.
It’s a sentiment shared by Jeff Bray, CEO of the Downtown Victoria Business Association, who also noted restaurants are struggling under increased property taxes.
“We’re calling on the federal government to take a big look at the way they manage this repayment and perhaps consider waiving some portion … there was no point in spending all that money during the pandemic to just have that money now actually be the reason the restaurants are closing,” he said.
Bray said he would also like to see the B.C. government encouraging more staff to work at downtown offices, noting that “downtown economies were built around office workers,” and restaurants are struggling now that many of them have disappeared.
Restaurants Canada, meanwhile, applauded Ottawa’s recent initiative to lower credit card fees for small businesses. The group is urging MPs to address the CEBA repayment challenge before the House of Commons rises for the summer on June 23.
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