By Chris Brown

'Backbone of the economy'

Alberta announces supports for small businesses

Jun 5, 2020 | 12:18 PM

The Alberta government is lending a hand to small- and medium-sized businesses struggling to stay afloat or reopen.

Premier Jason Kenney announced the province will offer one-time relaunch payments of up to 15 per cent of monthly sales revenues, up to a maximum of $5,000.

Businesses of less than 500 employees are eligible for the payment which is intended to help pay for costs of reopening rent, wages, buying supplies and replacing inventory.

Kenney also said the government is committed to helping tenants through the Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance (CECRA) program, by providing repayable loans of up to 50 per cent of monthly costs if landlords reduce the rent by 75 per cent and promise not to evict the tenants.

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The CECRA is a joint program of the federal and provincial governments. Kenney said many commercial landlords not signing up for the program, which he says is unacceptable during this unprecedented economic crisis.

“We want to ensure we are providing support to those businesses that have been forced to closed or severely curtailed due to the public health orders in place,” said Tanya Fir, minister of economic development, trade and tourism.

Fir said Albertans did the right thing and “we are relaunching our economy because of the hard work and sacrifice of Albertans as part of that we need to ensure small businesses are given the tools they need to survive.”

Kenney called these small businesses the backbone of the economy

He said that he hopes and believes Stage 2 of the economic relaunch will come sooner than expected and that more must be done to ensure small- and medium-sized job creators “can help catapult Alberta into economic recovery as quickly and as strongly as possible.”

The province previously provided support measures such as deferral of Workers Compensation Board premiums and a program to pay half of those for small- and medium-sized businesses.