Madam Speaker, it is a huge honour and privilege to rise today on behalf of New Democrats and small businesses. Today is bittersweet. We have a bill coming forward, finally, with the changes that we, along with small businesses, chambers of commerce, business organizations and labour, have been asking for to get the support to businesses that they desperately need. The government shows it is listening to the changes we are asking for. However, there is not a lot of clarity about moving forward.
We are asking the Liberals, now that they have admitted they failed in the design of their programs, to fix them, not just to fix them moving forward but to make them retroactive. We just heard the finance minister and the Minister of Middle Class Prosperity talk about how they will do anything and everything to help people. They will support an equitable recovery and they are willing to back-date the commercial rent assistance program to September 27. The pandemic did not start on September 27. In fact, we know the previous program was dated for April 1. We do not understand why they would not back-date it to April 1 to make sure it is fair to everybody across this country.
Every day we hear of another business closing its doors permanently. Many could not access the commercial rent assistance program in the first place because their landlord would not apply, even though their neighbour's landlord applied and got access to it. One in three businesses had a landlord that was willing to go to bat and apply for the program. The other two-thirds did not have the same support and were left hanging out to dry. As we know, many are closing their doors as a result of this failed design of a program.
Lisa Bernard Christensen in my riding wrote that it is “too little, too late. I needed it 3 or 4 months ago, now the damage is done.” There are people like Lisa right across the country who want to see this program back-dated because they are steeped in debt or facing bankruptcy. This is about being equitable. The government talked about an equitable recovery. In all fairness, I do not know how the Liberals can justify not back-dating it, when they admit the program was flawed and broken and they are coming forward today with the fix.
We know we are going to have a huge deficit to pay for this global pandemic we are all enduring. In all fairness, it is going to be on the shoulders of everyday Canadians to pay this deficit back. It should really be on those who profited the most, the superwealthy, those who can afford to chip in and help us get through this and who are going to benefit in the long run.
Likely, most of this will be left on the backs of everyday Canadians, our children, our grandchildren and even our great-grandchildren. It is not fair. If all Canadians are going to share the responsibility of paying these very important emergency funds back, those who were left out are also going to be responsible for paying them back and they are not getting access to them.
We will be putting forward an amendment calling on the government, and the Conservatives, who have not indicated their support, to back-date that program to April 1. We urge all parties to collectively come together and save many people from bankruptcy, many who are steeped in debt and need help to get back on track.
We have seen the government continually delay the rollout of these programs. They could have tabled this legislation in the summer, but they chose to prorogue Parliament. They made announcements that they were going to deliver a bill in early October, but here we are in November. They are delivering a bill and we are going to have to fast-track it through Parliament so that people can get the help they need. We do not even know when Canadians are going to be able to apply for the benefits from this new program. We do not know what the wage subsidy is going to look like in January, February and March.
As a tourism critic and as the member of Parliament for Courtenay—Alberni, which is a highly visited tourist destination, I know how important it is to have certainty and to know what it looks like. Otherwise, we are going to see more layoffs and more people not knowing if they are going to have a job moving forward. We need the government to take a look at moving forward, come up with a proper recovery plan and identify what the extension of the wage subsidy will look like.
We need to also ensure that the government fixes its broken finance programs. Many businesses are facing liquidity issues, especially hotels and those in the tourism industry. Right now, the Tourism Industry Association of Canada says that only 12% of tourism applicants so far have been able to get access to the BCAP. Forty-three per cent have been outright denied. The government needs to fix these programs. Also, the LEEFF program needs to be fixed. Only two applicants have been approved.
We have so much work ahead of us and we need the government to act urgently. It keeps coming in with these programs after the fact. Here we are, again, talking about legislation to help people with rent that is dated back to September 27. That is not good enough. Rent was due on November 1, and that was missed. The way it is going, we will miss December 1 in supporting these businesses on these important fixed costs. We are now in the second wave. Are we going to get support in the third wave? Again, we do not know what that will look like.
We are hearing from indigenous businesses. They have not been included in the discussions for a lot of the rollout. On the wage subsidy, indigenous-led corporations were left out. We fought tooth and nail so they could get included in the wage subsidy program. The Indigenous Tourism Association represents many indigenous-led tourism operators across the country, and they are the most vulnerable tourism businesses. It took months to get the support needed to save many businesses. These businesses are looking forward. They need support now and some certainty. They have not had a lot of dialogue with the government on these programs to all them to offer their opinions. The design of many of the programs are flawed and do not serve their needs. The government needs to reach out to these important stakeholders.
We are also learning that a lot of employees in the tourism sector, for example, do not have certainty around their jobs. Nothing in this rollout would protect hospitality and tourism workers by having conditional sectoral support on establishing the right of first refusal for laid-off workers. Laid-off workers have no guarantees from their employers that their jobs will be restored or even offered when the pandemic subsides. We want to ensure these workers, who have given years of their lives to their workplaces, are given the first right of refusal, protecting them from further restructuring or being replaced by workers at a lower wage. We want to ensure the pandemic is not an opportunity for companies to restructure and cut labour costs.
We welcome these important changes, but we want to ensure the government goes even further, that it backs up its statement on ensuring it is an equitable recovery. We need the government to backdate the commercial rent assistance program to April 1 to ensure that all those businesses that have been left out get access to those programs. Again, more and more businesses are going out of business, racking up debt or facing bankruptcy. The government needs to come to their rescue.
The government has left $1.2 billion on the table from the previous commercial rent assistance program. It only spent $1.9 billion of the allotted funds. According to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, 128,000 businesses did get support from that program, but 400,000 businesses would have qualified had the government made it a tenant-driven program.
Another flaw in the previous program was that businesses which rented from a local government or government agency were immediately disqualified from applying for the program. I think of All Mex'd Up, a local taco shop in Port Alberni. It rents space at the Harbour Quay from the City of Port Alberni. It has been excluded. Now the government says that it will make it retroactive to September 27. It is too bad for those restaurants that closed their doors for public health and to protect everybody during April, May and June. The government is not going to help them for all those months.
I am urging the government to support us, backdate that program and support small business.