'Handed a death sentence': Canadian restaurants decry pending end to federal subsidies that have kept them afloat
At Lazy Daisy’s Café in Toronto's Little India neighbourhood, the cappuccino machine is still whirring and the biscuits are being buttered—but 20 months into the pandemic, it hasn’t been easy to keep the kitchen running.
“We’ve been treading water,” owner Dawn Chapman said Friday. “I’ve been trying to keep my staff paid, I’ve been trying to make sure all our suppliers are paid, and just trying to push through to get through to the other side.”
The federal emergency wage and rent subsidies have been the restaurant’s saving grace, said Chapman, and even with the financial assistance they’ve barely been able to break even.
“I spoke to my accountant the other day and I said ‘where would I be if we didn’t have the subsidies?’ and she said, ‘you’re in the red.’ So I said ‘well, what will I do when the subsidies end?’”
Chapman will face that reality this weekend, when the Canada Emergency Wage and Rent subsidy programs expire. Restaurants will be able to apply for financial assistance from the incoming Tourism and Hospitality Recovery Program, but to qualify will need to demonstrate an average monthly revenue loss of at least 40 per cent for the first 13 qualifying periods of the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) and a revenue loss of the same amount in the current month.
Lazy Daisy’s losses have been been just below that 40-per-cent threshold, said Chapman, meaning they won’t qualify for the new support program.
“Many restaurants are operating at 20-, 30-, 35-, 39-per-cent reductions in revenue,” Todd Barclay, president of Restaurants Canada said Friday. “Because of the thresholds, they’ll no longer be able to receive any type of subsidy.”
According to the association, seven in 10 restaurants are still relying on the wage and rent subsidies to stay alive, and 50 per cent of them will no longer qualify for the new support program due to the revised criteria.
“Many restaurants across the country, based on the announcement yesterday, have been handed a death sentence,” said Barclay.
The options for many: raise prices, or cut staff wages or hours—an alternative that could have a ripple effect through the industry, according to Bea Bruske, president of the Canadian Labour Congress.
“When employers are able to offer only part-time or very fluctuating hours of work, that also means those workers need to make a decision on whether they can take that job or hold out for something that’s more permanent, and more consistent in terms of their paycheque,” Bruske said.
At the east-end New Town Family Restaurant, owner Prasanna Hettiarachchi has been working solo seven days a week since the start of the pandemic because even with the existing subsidies, couldn’t afford to pay any staff.
The pandemic wage and rent programs have kept his business alive, he said—barely—and losing them may mean he’ll have to shutter his doors for good.
“How am I going to pay if I don’t have anything?” he told CTV News Toronto, “How am I going to pay, the rent, hydro, gas?”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Bodies found by U.S. authorities searching for missing B.C. kayakers
United States authorities who have been searching for a pair of missing kayakers from British Columbia since the weekend have recovered two bodies in the nearby San Juan Islands of Washington state.
Amid concerns over 'collateral damage' Trudeau, Freeland defend capital gains tax change
Facing pushback from physicians and businesspeople over the coming increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland are standing by their plan to target Canada's highest earners.
'It's discriminatory': Individuals refused entry to Ontario legislature for wearing keffiyeh
Individuals being barred from entering Ontario’s legislature while wearing a keffiyeh say the garment is part of their cultural identity— and the only ones making it political are the politicians banning it.
BREAKING Mounties will not be charged in shooting death of B.C. Indigenous man
Three Mounties in British Columbia will not face charges in the killing of a 38-year-old Indigenous man on Vancouver Island in 2021.
Canada's favourite sport to watch is hockey, survey shows
The 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs have already delivered a fever level of fan excitement in Canada.
Douglas DC-4 plane with 2 people on board crashes into river outside Fairbanks, Alaska
A Douglas C-54 Skymaster airplane crashed into the Tanana River near Fairbanks on Tuesday, Alaska State Troopers said.
Tom Mulcair: Park littered with trash after 'pilot project' is perfect symbol of Trudeau governance
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
'It's just so hard to let it go': Umar Zameer still haunted by death of Toronto police officer
“It's just so hard to let it go. I mean, everyone is telling me, ‘you have to move on,’ but I know someone is not here [anymore]. So I don't know how I will move on." That’s what Umar Zameer, the man recently acquitted in the death of a Toronto police officer, told CTV News Toronto in a sit-down interview on Tuesday.
NASA hears from Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, after months of quiet
NASA has finally heard back from Voyager 1 again in a way that makes sense. The most distant spacecraft from Earth hadn't sent home any understandable data since last November.