Event based businesses have impacted greatly by the pandemic and the NDP opposition is calling for more support to help them.
Culture Critic Nicole Goehring was on the Trending 55 Hot Seat and says one thing they’d like to see is the reintroduction of the Small and Medium Enterprise Relaunch Grant.
“Having small businesses impacted by the fourth wave of COVID, we believe each impacted business should receive up to $25,000, and an additional $10,000 be available to bars and restaurants impacted by the 10 pm curfew. Second, we’re calling for the reinstatement of the commercial eviction ban and thirdly we’re also calling for a ban on business utility shutoffs for a further six months.”
The NDP has also proposed a vaccine passport that could be implemented at all non-essential businesses across the province.
Goehring adds that event based businesses have been frustrated by how the pandemic has been handled by the provincial government, saying a vaccine passport should’ve been implemented, instead of the mask mandate and 10 pm liquor curfew.
“They’re just so frustrated with the lack of leadership that this government has had and they’re pleading for this government to do the right thing and to implement vaccine passports. There was performances that were expected to go ahead, and with the new restrictions in place it unfortunately caused a lot of performances not to be able to go forward. There was no consultation and no insight into this coming.”
We talked to Goehring on the Trending 55 Hot Seat, you can hear the full conversation below.
– Kyle Moore, Trending 55 Newsroom
