{"id":548,"date":"2021-02-05T20:15:17","date_gmt":"2021-02-05T20:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/?p=548"},"modified":"2021-02-05T20:15:17","modified_gmt":"2021-02-05T20:15:17","slug":"thousands-of-businesses-close-as-covid-19-lockdown-persists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/2021\/02\/05\/thousands-of-businesses-close-as-covid-19-lockdown-persists\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands of businesses close as COVID-19 lockdown persists"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Many businesses are struggling to stay afloat with the continuous rise of COVID-19 cases and subsequent implementation of public health guidelines and lockdown restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The number of business closures rose in all provinces and territories from September to October 2020, except in Prince Edward Island and Yukon, according to a recent Statistics Canada <a href=\"https:\/\/www150.statcan.gc.ca\/n1\/daily-quotidien\/210125\/dq210125b-eng.htm\">report.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ontario, New Brunswick and Quebec saw the largest increase in percentage of business closures during this time period.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ontario saw a 6.7 per cent drop in active businesses from the beginning of the pandemic to October 2020, despite the number of business openings exceeding that of closures for the third consecutive month, the report stated.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"flourish-embed flourish-bar-chart-race\" data-src=\"visualisation\/5183382\"><script src=\"https:\/\/public.flourish.studio\/resources\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>No data was available for Nunavut as well as educational services and health care and social assistance industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-wp-embed is-provider-flourish wp-block-embed-flourish\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" src=\"https:\/\/flo.uri.sh\/visualisation\/5202761\/embed#?secret=YZLV1h0aIq\" data-secret=\"YZLV1h0aIq\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" height=\"575\" width=\"700\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The impact of these changes and information regarding subsequent months will be disclosed in future releases, according to the report.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Advocacy group calls for limited reopening of businesses<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses (CFIB) urged members of provincial parliament to reopen all Ontario businesses at 20 per cent capacity when current lockdown measures expire, in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cfib-fcei.ca\/sites\/default\/files\/2021-02\/Ontario-Reopening-Letter-to-MPPs.pdf\">letter<\/a> on Feb. 3, 2021.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>CFIB represents 110,000 small and medium-sized businesses in Canada, of which 42,000 are located in Ontario.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cEven with help from government support programs, it is simply not possible for many businesses to hang on much longer,\u201d the letter read. \u201cThe only way to save small [businesses] is to reopen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Recognizing the importance of health guidelines, members of the CFIB stated that they believe there is a middle ground between a full lockdown of the economy and business as usual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>New loan program launched to assist businesses&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Monday, the highly affected sectors credit availability program <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bdc.ca\/en\/special-support\/hascap\">(HASCAP)<\/a> opened to applicants from small and mid-sized businesses that were heavily impacted by COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The program offers loans of $25,000 to $1 million to businesses that saw at least a 50 per cent decrease in revenues due to the pandemic.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While some business owners and experts view this program positively, others question its viability.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;My worry is what&#8217;s happening at a high level is that we&#8217;re pushing what will be a slew of bankruptcies or insolvency just down the road,\u201d said Eric Morse, a professor of entrepreneurship at the Ivey Business School at Western University in a CBC <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/business\/government-s-new-pandemic-business-loan-program-gets-mixed-reviews-1.5898446\">article<\/a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many businesses are struggling to stay afloat with the continuous rise of COVID-19 cases and subsequent implementation of public health guidelines and lockdown restrictions. The number of business closures rose in all provinces and territories from September to October 2020, except in Prince Edward Island and Yukon, according to a recent Statistics Canada report. Ontario, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/298"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}