Trudeau Government Announces New Measures to Help Small Businesses

This morning, the Prime Minister announced additional measures to support small businesses during the COVID-19 crisis. The Prime Minister indicated that the details of these new measures are being finalized, and will become available between today and Monday, March 30.

These measures come on the same day that the Bank of Canada cut its benchmark interest rates by 50 basis points to 0.25%.

Actions include:

• Increasing wage subsidy to 75% from the initial 10% for qualifying SME businesses. The subsidy will be backdated to Sunday, March 15.
• Through a new Canada Emergency Business Account, banks will offer $40,000 loans to small businesses, interest free for the first year, and $10,000 will be forgivable for qualifying businesses.
• $12.5 billion in additional loans through the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) and Export Development Canada.
• Defer all HST/GST on import / export duties until June.

As this situation continues to evolve, we will keep you updated. For more detail, please reach out to your Sussex representative directly or to the Federal Government Relations Team.