Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley.
I want to thank the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge for the excellent motion he presented today. It is very important. I am very pleased with it, and I will be supporting it strongly.
I want to break down the motion a bit.
Part one says, “the pandemic has had devastating consequences on Canadian workers and businesses, especially in the restaurant...and tourism sectors”. It has been 12 months since the coronavirus showed up in China, 11 months since the Prime Minister and the health minister were warned about it, 10 months before Canadians started getting sick on cruises, nine months since the first cases in Canada and eight months since small businesses were hit with declining or disappearing revenue.
One of the first messages I received was from a small manufacturing business in my riding. The constituent wrote, “The government’s support for small business in this COVID-19 situation is entirely inadequate. Avoiding layoffs is the critical issue right now. Our production line is idle and we need action now. The government has provided 10% salary support...and it's not enough.”
It turns out that this business owner was far more perceptive than the government. The government's big idea was a 10% wage subsidy. Business owners knew intuitively this was not enough. Other countries had already implemented higher subsidies. The U.K. had a subsidy of 80%. Business owners understood that if businesses were not supported, individuals would need help one by one.
I received another letter in March. It states:
I just wanted to let you know that Bateman Jewellers would be celebrating 75 years in business this year. But due to COVID-19 we are going to have to shut down for a while until this pandemic passes. The 10% special wage subsidy is not even close for us to continue to run our business. As a result, we are adding to the already 500,000 going to EI for support. We will add five more this week. I ask you to try and get the government to do more for small business. Small business has carried this country for years and it is time for the government to support us.
It is clear that the average business owner in Canada could clearly see where things were going, yet the government was slow to act. Yes, the government eventually increased the wage subsidy to 75%, but it was because the opposition continued to bring forward the business point of view in the House. Unfortunately, for most businesses it was too late. People had already been laid off and were applying for CERB. In the months since then, small businesses have continued to suffer, creating an economic crisis in our country.
The second part of the motion asks us to “immediately pause the audits of small businesses that received the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy until at least June 2021.” We have had eight months of economic hardship and uncertainty, and now the Prime Minister wants to audit the same small businesses he promised to help.
I spent 20 years as an accountant and 12 years as a small business owner. This morning I was quite amused that the member for Guelph had the audacity to suggest that business owners appreciated audits and that audits could be helpful and a learning opportunity. Let me help this member and the rest of my colleagues opposite better understand the anatomy of an audit call.
After answering the phone, a business owner will hear, “Hello, Mr. Smith. The CRA has selected your file for audit.” Let me paint a picture of what happens at that moment. His knees will get wobbly and he will have to sit down. His entire business life will flash before his eyes. The vast majority of business owners are honest, but the system is complex. Mistakes can be made, so the next thought is “I am going to be in trouble”.
At this point, he has to take a deep breath and calm down. Once settled down a bit, he has to start to figure out what to do next. Usually the first call is to the accountant. However, for many small businesses, the business owners are the accountants. They are calling themselves. They have to dig out a bunch of records and spend a bunch of time with the auditor. Remember, the small business owner has likely laid off much of his support staff, if he had any to begin with. He may be cooking in the kitchen. He may be delivering orders. He still has to run his business. He is struggling to pay his bills and the last thing he needs is to deal with an auditor.
The bottom line is that we assume small business owners are honest, hard-working Canadians. They are not tax cheats like the Liberals would like us to think. Small business owners are our best asset to deploy in this pandemic. They will get Canada working again and will generate revenue for employees and for the government. They need to be focused and they need time to do their jobs. I believe it is very reasonable to provide CRA with info in 2021 once these small businesses have filed their paperwork for 2020.
The third part of the motion asks us to “immediately introduce legislation to enact promised extensions and amendments to support programs”. I want to remind the House that the government shut down Parliament in the spring. It replaced Parliament over the spring and summer with a sham committee system that kept the government unaccountable and then, of course, prorogued Parliament. The Liberals had seven months to introduce legislation for this, but instead they acted late and their actions were inadequate, although they still managed to find ways to launder money to their friends, like the Kielburgers.
The fourth part of this motion asks us to “provide additional flexibility in the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy, the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, and other support programs.” This is what my party has wanted for nine months. Businesses with mortgages were treated differently from businesses with leased space.
I have another letter from a constituent. It says:
I own a small business called The Backyard...we took out a mortgage with BDC to complete this expansion and currently the only relief offered...is to defer principal payments, but they still require payments of interest. As we have been ordered to be closed now for nearly a month, we obviously have no income and no ability to pay the...interest they are requiring. I fail to see how it makes sense that a bank who is federally mandated to serve entrepreneurs, and had a net income of $886M in 2019, should continue to collect interest from small businesses and entrepreneurs such as ourselves who have been ordered to be closed.
Clearly, many of the criteria were too rigid.
I have another letter. It states:
I wanted to...give my feedback regarding the 75% rent relief announcement made by the Prime Minister.... My company has been ordered to close by the Provincial government.... Despite my doors being closed I have done my best to operate in some way to generate some sense of revenue online. Had I not taken these steps I would likely never re-open my doors.... Essentially, over the 2 and a half months of closure.... This accounts for [about] 50% of our pre-covid [income]...or more importantly an entire month and a half's worth of revenue. I'm sure you can understand how devastating that is to a small business. To say that our business has been kneecapped due to the governmental responses to covid-19 is an understatement.
The biggest problem with the rent relief program was the requirement that the landlord had to initiate the application. One of my constituents, Sherry, had a restaurant that was on the verge of going bankrupt. She asked many times for the landlord to make an application for her for the rent relief program. She asked me to see if I could help, so I phoned the commercial leasing agent. I was told that they were not going to apply to the program, even though they have many commercial tenants, because the application process was too onerous. Then Sherry got behind in her rent for July and August and the landlord would not renew her lease.
We can see that the design and implementation of these programs were entirely inadequate. They only helped a narrow swath of businesses. The results of these programs speak for themselves. The wage subsidy program has been very under subscribed. The rent relief program was seriously under subscribed. Originally, businesses had to lose 70% of their revenue to qualify, and the results show that this did nothing for 90% of businesses in Canada.
The Conservatives immediately called on the government to address this flaw, and the redesigned program was announced October 9. For five months, the Conservatives called for a new program with the introduction of a sliding scale instead of requiring a hard 70% reduction in revenue. The Liberals have finally made these changes, but they were announced a full week after the program expired. Why was this not done in August? It was because of the prorogation. The legislation was only introduced in the House of Commons yesterday.
What is missing in all of these programs? Why are we debating this motion and not Bill C-9? It is all about flexibility. Once again, the Liberal government has unilaterally made programming changes without proper consultation.
The Conservatives have supported COVID programming in the past, warts and all. Why? It is because Canadians need help. We would rather get some help to them, flawed or not, than leave them with no help. The Liberals are in the all-or-nothing club. We must vote for the Prime Minister or he will make something a confidence vote, triggering an election. The Conservatives do not operate like that. We do not play brinkmanship with taxpayer dollars, we do not play brinkmanship with people’s jobs and we do not play with people’s health. That is why I am supporting this motion.