Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to rise today and talk about small businesses: the economic generators in our small communities, job creators and cultural innovators.
I am happy to be sharing my time with my colleague, our finance critic, the member for New Westminster—Burnaby.
Today, we are talking about those small business owners that I outlined and the sacrifices that they have made. Many have closed their doors to protect public health, and they have made the ultimate sacrifice. Many have created products to help people in our communities, including distilleries for our hygiene coordination and whatnot. It has been a tremendous effort, and we saw small businesses rise up, which they always do. In our communities, we know that they are the first ones to donate to our charitable organizations or volunteer to support those communities. Many owners are the coaches of our sports teams or teachers in the classes we take in our community. We owe them a ton of gratitude.
When I think back on when I was a small business owner and a chamber of commerce executive director, I think back to 2008 when the last recession hit us. The Conservatives were in power, and I watched the government of the day bail out its friends: the big corporations and big banks. With horror, I saw the sales in my own business drop 75% overnight, and there was no relief or help.
I was delighted when the leader of the NDP called to ask me what needed to be the priority for small business, and I identified that we could never let history repeat itself. We could never let another 2008 happen where small business owners and their workers took the brunt of the economic crisis. Instead, we needed to make sure that we helped everybody we could, especially small business owners, to get through difficult times.
I am glad to see this motion come forward today, especially the part about auditing small businesses, because there is nothing worse than being in a financial crisis and CRA is knocking on the door asking a small business owner to report to it with documents, which is not always an easy task when one is scrambling or pivoting to adjust to stay afloat, especially in times like this. It could wipe somebody out with the enormous time and energy that could be required.
I want to talk about the importance of parliamentarians working together and, for the most part, we have been doing that in this crisis. I think about the unprecedented actions, including the leader of the federal NDP and myself signing a letter with Dan Kelly, the head of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, and organized labour asking the government to increase its original rollout of the Canada emergency wage subsidy from 10% to 75%. The government has continued to roll out programs to support workers, but has always come out well below the bar of what is necessary. It has designed programs that are flawed, that do not get people the help they need right away.
This unprecedented effort of working together, organized labour, small business owners and New Democrats working with their colleagues across the floor kicking and screaming to get the government to fix these programs, has made an enormous difference to help many Canadians, such as getting sick days, which has helped support small business. The New Democrats have been there every step of the way, supporting indigenous-led businesses in the tourism sector or eligibility around the wage subsidy and bringing forward the Canada food procurement program idea.
One program that I worked very hard on with my colleague for New Westminster—Burnaby in early April was the idea of a Canada emergency rent assistance program. Of course, we expected that the program would be directed at the small business owners who needed help. What baffled me, and everybody across our country, especially those in need the most, was that this program was designed specifically for landlords who had mortgages, which no one can really explain to this day, and many small businesses were left out. In fact, at the end of the program, even in its extended version, only 128,000 businesses were able to access the program. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business cited that there were 400,000 businesses that wanted to apply, but only one-third of them were eligible.
By not fixing the program, the government left $1 billion unspent. That brings us to today. Many of those small business owners, including many in my riding, are steeped in debt or are facing bankruptcy and are under enormous pressure, because they could not access a program like the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program, the same program that their neighbours or their competition got.
In all fairness, the government has admitted its failure with that program by tabling the legislation it is going to table tomorrow, the details of which are public knowledge. We are glad to see those changes happening. However, we are really disappointed that the government is not going to go back to April 1 and allow the small business owners who were left out to have access to those funds. Those are taxpayer funds that they should have equal access to.
We are seeing a massive deficit that could be $400 billion to support small businesses and workers, gig workers and people across this country in this pandemic. At the end of the day, it is going to be those people or their children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren who will end up paying the debt on that, when it actually should be the big corporations and those who profited, as we have heard about from the New Democrats.
At the end of the day, that money is going to be paid back by everybody. It is absolutely unfair to those folks who have not been able to access those program. The government has a duty and an obligation to go back and fix that program, and to ensure that those people get access to it.
I am urgently urging the minister and the Liberal government to fix this program, and urging my colleagues to get on board. I did not hear the Conservatives answer my question today, whether or not they agree the government should backdate that program so that people get access to it.
We heard that businesses in Port Alberni, for example, that rent from a local government agency could not access the program. They were disqualified, just for renting from a local government that, under its own legislation, could not provide relief to them.
The government continued to watch small businesses either fail or rack up debt, and many of them could not access the loans because of the qualifying measures of the loan programs the government was rolling out, especially for the BCAP. These programs have been very restrictive. The small businesses need help; they do not need more debt. They are in fear right now. I know what it is like to be in fear of losing a business that they built over many years.
We urge the government to support this motion today, to back off on audits but also to come back and fix this program. I see my time is running short. We are glad to see these things roll out, things that have been asked for, including the extension of the emergency wage subsidy.
One thing we have not talked a lot about is that we do not see any strings attached to protect workers. For example, in the tourism and hospitality industry, laid-off workers have no guarantees from their former employer that they would be recalled to work, so that when the jobs are restored they get put back on the seniority list or taken care of.
Indigenous-led businesses and organizations, many of which were disqualified until we went to bat for them on the wage subsidy, or the indigenous tourism organizations have not had full participation to have an indigenous lens on the important programs that the government is rolling out.
We need the government to roll out the programs. A lot of these supports come a little too late. We need the government to come back with a recovery plan to support small business, but also to invest in social infrastructure. As we are seeing, child care is absolutely essential to support small business. Pharmacare, dental care and reformed EI are needed, so that those workers who are now on the new CERB can get the training they need to meet the labour market needs. Many of them do not qualify, because initially they did not contribute to EI.
We need the government to take more action and to have a more robust rollout. Instead of threatening Canadians about going to the polls over opposition day motions, the government needs to get this program across the finish line so that small businesses are not worried that they are going to have to wait months for the support they need.