Page 4 - CFIB

and other COVID-related restrictions caused many to provide our full services to all Canadian small
businesses to be entirely closed for months on end.
Several businesses, like gyms, bowling alleys, and
indoor restaurant dining were closed in the City of
Toronto for over 400 days. Ontario holds the record
for the world’s longest lockdowns. The impact of
these restrictions has left many businesses hanging
on by a thread. The average small business across
Canada has been left with $160,000 in new COVID-
related debt. CFIB is projecting that 180,000
businesses will permanently close as a result of the
pandemic.
Q: How was CFIB able to offer support during the
last 18 months?
A: I’m immensely proud of what the CFIB team was
able to do to support Canada’s small businesses
through the pandemic. Even though my association
is nearly entirely funded by membership fees from
small business owners, we made an early decision
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businesses, regardless of whether or not they
could afford to pay our annual fee. We’ve served
thousands of small businesses who have never
been paying members as well.
We helped in several important ways. One, CFIB
surveyed our members regularly throughout the
pandemic and used this data to push governments
to create or improve several of the key small
business support programs. I can report that the
wage subsidy, rent subsidy, CEBA loan program,
and provincial small business grant programs would
either not have existed or not functioned nearly as
well had CFIB not conducted detailed surveys and
lobbied the heck out of politicians.
Two, we took over 100,000 calls directly from small
business owners to provide one-on-one counselling
and support since COVID began. Many of these