Libby Znaimer is joined by Ted Mallett, Vice President and Chief Economist of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), Dennis Darby, President and CEO at Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, Jon Shell, Co-founder of the advocacy group Save Small Business (SSB), and Kevin MacDougall, Managing Partner at Merci Mon Ami- a local restaurant in Liberty Village.

We have just heard from the Prime Minister about some new measures to help small businesses many of whom are on the verge of closing their doors forever. They include broadening the eligibility for the government-backed $40,000 loans. They have been expanded to include businesses with payrolls ranging from $20,000 to $1.5 million. And, they are also promising to introduce help with commercial rent. The name of that benefit will be the Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Benefit and it will help small businesses – whatever the definition of that will be – with rent for April, May and June.

Yesterday we heard about a top-up to the CERB emergency benefit that would allow workers earning under $1,000 dollars a month to also collect the $2,000/month benefit. We’ve put together a panel representing a range of businesses.

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