The provincial government is introducing legislation to help protect small business owners.
Premier Doug Ford says the proposed changes would temporarily halt evictions of businesses that are eligible for the COVID-19 Commercial Rent Relief program.
The federal/provincial rent assistance program has provided more than $900-million of forgivable loans for small businesses.
Ford says the ban would be effective June 3 and last until August 31.
Although there are no known cases in northwestern Ontario, Ford says he is still hearing stories of landlords locking out commercial tenants or seizing their assets.
Ford says he’s here for the “little guy”, noting small business owners are the backbone of our communities.
“Now more than ever, we all need to support them. So please get out there and buy local. Support your local small businesses. We all need to support others right now. And together we will come back stronger than ever before.”
Meantime, the NDP Opposition critic for Economic Growth and Job Creation Catherine Fife says “Small business owners and BIAs have been urging Doug Ford to ban commercial evictions for months now. This decision is long overdue. There’s no excuse for Ford’s failure to act while businesses were going under and workers were being laid off.”
Fife adds “Now, the protection is too restricted. A business needs to have lost 70% of their income. That’s excluding thousands of businesses that are in crisis and need help. As this measure only begins on June 3, this does nothing to save the business owners who have already been evicted by their landlord during the pandemic.”
Small business across Ontario need support – and we're supporting the little guy.
We're introducing legislation that will ban commercial evictions for those who qualify for the commercial rent relief program.
This ban will be in effect from June 3 to August 31, 2020. pic.twitter.com/Sd0tiOAVK4
— Doug Ford (@fordnation) June 8, 2020
