Restaurants Canada Twitter
With local restaurants still closed for indoor dining, an advocacy group is calling on the federal government to provide a sector-specific support package to help the industry recover and bring back jobs.
Restaurants Canada says the sector is key to feeding our recovery, but first they need to survive.
Officials say restaurants and bars won’t have the working capital to keep the doors open if subsidies are scaled back too soon.
According to a Restaurants Canada survey, 8 out of 10 foodservice businesses have been operating at a loss or barely scrapping by through the entire pandemic, with 45% consistently losing money for more than a year.
It also found 7 of 10 restaurant operators continuing to lose money expect they’ll need at least a year to return to profitability.
The non-profit association says if the industry is forced to contend with less and less government aid and rent subsidies, many will have to give-up and close their businesses for good as they won’t have enough money to make the transition.
Among the recommendations from Restaurants Canada:
-An exemption from the scheduled scale-back of the rent and wage subsidies for the highly affected foodservice sector, and an extension of these vital programs for restaurants until at least April 2022.
-The option for any restaurants eligible for the wage subsidy to also apply for added funding through the Canada Recovery Hiring Program.
-Partial forgiveness for all government-backed loans and an extension of application deadlines for existing programs.
-Tax credits to defray costs of COVID-19 health and safety expenditures.
According to Statistics Canada, more than two thirds (70.9%) of the 503,000 jobs still missing from the Canadian economy in the wake of COVID-19 are from the foodservice sector.
