First and foremost, when it comes to the more rural businesses, this pandemic has hit everybody very hard. In the rural ridings or rural areas of the country, I think it has been slightly less of an issue only because the small businesses in those communities are more well known. Individuals try to do what they can to help them in a bigger way than you'll find in some very large urban environments, which are completely decimated and ghost towns now.
That said, there's no doubt that it's still equally tough in the more rural areas. The issues are similar, though, in that it's again going back to the need for financial assistance now.
As an example, some of the recent announcements around the change in the CanExport program allow folks to not only get funding for export opportunities but also get funding to help them go more digital, to build a website or to be able to get involved in virtual summits. These are good things that we're trying to push out to our members to make them aware of so that they have options, because I think sometimes what's keeping some businesses from pivoting to another area is the associated cost. When you're already feeling as though you're so much in debt and your business cash flow is basically nil, pivoting to something new sometimes takes an investment that you just don't have. Therefore, making sure that there are programs out there that can help them figure out how to do that and can help them also fund that change will be very important.
I want to make one final comment on the regional relief and recovery fund. It has worked well in some circumstances and not well in others.
For example, it was meant to provide opportunities for those businesses that were falling through the cracks of the general support programs, and some of them don't do that, so I think some retooling there could help.
I know it has helped quite a number of businesses in the rural regions, which is great, especially the development corporation grants. Those have worked super-well. However, they were supposed to provide, for example, help to sole proprietors and those really microsized firms, and we've been hearing that they haven't necessarily been able to do that as effectively as we had hoped.
That's my final comment.