Madam Speaker, I had asked a question earlier in the week about supports for small businesses, particularly around the rent relief program.
As we all know, COVID-19 has hurt small businesses. I walk around Edmonton Strathcona, around my constituency, and I see far too many businesses have shut their doors, potentially forever.
We know that small businesses are the livelihood of the Canadian economy, that they employ nearly 70% of private sector workers nationwide and they employ 74% of private sector workers in Alberta. We need to recognize that every one of those small businesses represents a hard-working Albertan, a family that is being supported by that business. These people have spent years building these businesses in some cases, investing their own money, their own time and their sweat equity into these businesses.
We were happy to see some of the supports that the government put forward during the pandemic. It was nice to see that the Liberal government was able to listen to the NDP and increase the wage subsidy to 75%, and to make rent and wage subsidy programs available.
However, the supports took so long and sometimes they just were not done properly. These supports were vitally important, but they were frustratingly limited and complicated. I have spoken to small business owners who could not complete the forms because it was so difficult to do that. The goal was to exclude family businesses, new businesses, the self-employed, those who were paid with dividends. They were locked out of the emergency business account loans for months.
CECRA, the rent assistance program, is a prime example. Many businesses in my riding are gone forever because they were not able to access that program. Part was because the rent program was for developers and real estate companies, for landlords, not for those individual companies that were paying the rent. Many organizations could not access that program.
Some other businesses turned on a dime. I was so proud of many of the organizations in Edmonton Strathcona, but if they did not meet the criteria of the 70% loss, they were out of luck. If they had a 60% loss or a 69% loss, they were out of luck.
For those businesses that could access the commercial rent assistance program, it was a lifesaver. Hundreds of small businesses in my riding were able to ride out the storm, thanks to the program. More than 100,000 small businesses nationwide can say the same thing.
That got us through to September. Now what are we going to do? Why would the government throw a lifeline to small businesses if it only throws them overboard as the second wave of COVID-19 hits?
Small businesses need rent assistance now and they will continue to need rent assistance for months to come. We need to know from the government that it will be putting forward a plan that will make it easier for businesses to access, with the same loss in business standards as the wage subsidy. We need to know that it will be backdated from the beginning, because businesses are already broke. We need to ensure that it is tenant-driven for small businesses.
We asked our small businesses to close their doors. We asked them to stay closed for the safety of our communities. Now we have to do what we can to protect those small businesses. We need a rent replacement program, we need it now and we need it to be done much better than it was done the first time.