Dear Client and Friend,
I hope you all had a wonderful Canada Day.
On Canada Day the government extended the CECRA (Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance) to July.
Newspaper articles have described how complicated the application process has been for the government rent relief. I have applied for clients for the initial April through June period with virtually no problem; they have all received their relief payment within a few weeks.
Apart from a few clarifying questions from the government, the applications were processed in a very timely manner. The government provides agreement templates that need to be filled out by both the landlord and tenant (please refer to Covid -19 Update on my website – It’s Time To Open Up). Canada has more than one million small businesses and it is sad to read that as of early last week, only 24,500 entrepreneurs have received funding or were approved for the CECRA, a Finance Ministry spokesperson said. Approximately 47% of small business owners said the CECRA was the most important government program to their survival, compared with 21% who pointed to the emergency loan program and 19% to the wage subsidy program (Globe and Mail, July 7, 2020).
If you require any assistance with the application process, please do not hesitate to contact me.