Madam Speaker, one thing that I wanted to touch on, which is affecting many small businesses in my riding, is a need for commercial rent assistance.
I was glad to see that the government is committed to extending the wage subsidy, because we know that small businesses have two major fixed costs. One is labour, which will be handled with the emergency wage subsidy, but the other is commercial rent assistance. The problem so many small businesses are having is that when they have an uncooperative landlord, who is unwilling to engage with the program, they are left with no options.
I had a business in my community that was called Sports Traders. It ran for 25 years and was a bedrock member of the small business community of Duncan, but it went under because of an uncooperative landlord.
I would like to hear the parliamentary secretary's comments on how the government is going to fix this program and make it so that tenants are not dependent on landlords to access those funds.