St. Albert-Edmonton MP Michael Cooper says federal COVID-19 supports need to be opened up and distributed faster to small business owners blocked from accessing relief.
Cooper is a member of the parliamentary finance committee, one of two committees currently sitting during the pandemic. He said he has raised issues of gaps in federal support programs to his upper Conservative colleagues, who were expected to ask these questions to the Minister of Finance Bill Morneau on April 16.
"What we need are supports that are rolled out quickly, and easy to access. What we have seen instead, in some cases, are complex programs that have been announced slowly," Cooper said. "The wage subsidy is a prime example of that."
Cooper said the government was slow out of the gate with the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy by setting the cap for coverage at 10 per cent, an amount that "simply wasn't enough" for small businesses to keep employees on the payroll.
The government has since recognized this by bumping up coverage to 75 per cent, but even then, it could take months for small businesses to access those funds through the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) online portal because it still needs to be developed, he said.
"If the dollars are not going to be out the door until perhaps June, that doesn't provide much comfort to businesses who need those dollars today, and it doesn't do anything for a business that is effectively shut down and laid off all of their staff."
A small business who relies on a credit union, not a bank, is currently blocked from accessing the federal Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA). No Alberta credit unions have been listed by the federal government as approved lenders for the loan, an issue Cooper said he's pressed hard for the federal government to change.
"That is a major problem because there are tens of thousands of Alberta businesses whose primary financial institution they use is a credit union," Cooper said.
"I understand that process in the case (of) some of the larger credit unions in Alberta is well underway in terms of getting them online on the list of approved lenders, but it hasn't happened yet."
To give small businesses access to cash flow now, the federal government could also refund all GST remittances to small businesses that have been collected for the last 12 months, he said, a relatively simple action that could offer much-needed relief.
"There are a lot of businesses that don't necessarily have payroll, they've taken a dividend, and they're shut out. They're ineligible for the interest-free loans, they're ineligible for the wage subsidy, and they're ineligible for the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) unless they effectively completely shut down."
Over the last week, the federal government has made changes around eligibility criteria for the CERB and CEBA programs.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the CERB has since been expanded to include workers who earn up to $1,000 per month, which now allows them to access the $2,000 per month benefit up to 16 weeks. Before, part-time or seasonal workers were shut out from the program, even if they worked minimal hours.
The next day, Trudeau announced the expansion of the CEBA payroll test to companies that spent between $20,000 and $1.5 million in payroll in 2019. Previously, these targets were limited to between $50,000 and $1 million.
Since the loan program launched last month, businesses have taken out 195,000 loans worth a total of $7.5 billion, Trudeau said.
It's not that these programs are bad, Cooper said, they're all good programs. The problem comes down to the implementation of them, both in delivery and eligibility criteria.
"Frankly, it's just not happening fast enough," he said.
According to new survey results by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) taken over the long weekend, nearly half - 47 per cent - of Alberta’s small businesses are concerned whether their businesses will survive if the current economic conditions continue until the end of May.
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