Mr. Speaker, like all members of Parliament, I have been in regular contact with small businesses in my riding. We know the two major fixed costs for small businesses are labour and rent.
I am thinking of organizations such as a social enterprise in my riding, the V2V Black Hops Brewery, which was unable to qualify for the wage subsidy because it was a new start-up company. Therefore, the eligibility rules were too restrictive. I also had a small business that had been in the community of Duncan for 25 years. It went out of business because it had an uncooperative landlord and could not access commercial rental assistance.
Does the member share my concerns? The rental assistance, in particular, was not even mentioned in the throne speech? For many months now that has been one of the biggest areas of concern we have heard repeatedly and the Liberals need to act on it.