TORONTO A group of city councillors are pushing for the introduction of a new property tax subclass to support struggling small businesses but they say that they can’t do it without the province’s help. The Ford government announced in November that it would permit municipalities to reduce the cost of property taxes for small businesses but it has not yet released technical regulations that will lay out the parameters for the program and with Toronto council scheduled to approve their budget later this month, time is now running out for the city to provide the relief to businesses in 2021.
TORONTO Although COVID-19 spread in Canada remains far greater than it was last spring, many Canadian employers seem ready to abandon the hiring freezes and bare-bones workforces that got them through 2020. A recent survey conducted on behalf of staffing agency Express Employment Professionals (EEP) found that 31 per cent of hiring decision-makers expect their company to increase hiring in 2021, while only 10 per cent expect less hiring this year. When a similar survey was taken at this time last year, only 16 per cent of hiring managers expected their company to take on new workers. Of course, 2020 didn t play out the way anyone was expecting it to last January. Last year s survey was taken before COVID-19 had even been given that name, much less become a serious concern among Canadians.
Ontario changing direction of vaccination plan amid dose delay
The province is currently dealing with a delay in deliveries of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, with no shots expected to arrive this week.
The government says the shift in the focus of its vaccine plan means all long-term care home residents, high-risk retirement home residents and First Nations elder care residents will get the first dose of the vaccine by Feb. 5.
That s sooner than a previous goal of Feb. 15, but the earlier plan had included the vaccination of long-term care staff and caregivers as well.
The government says it expects 26,325 Pfizer-BioNTech doses next week, which are far fewer than the amount originally expected.
A man in his 50s had returned to Toronto from Wuhan, China and within a day started to feel ill. He was treated at Sunnybrook Hospital and discharged days later. Since then, the number of daily reported cases of COVID-19 and deaths related to the disease has skyrocketed. What started as a handful of infections related to travel or close contacts soon doubled, tripled and quadrupled. The military was called in to deal with outbreaks at long-term care homes and Ontario residents were forced by law into their homes, permitted only to leave for essential reasons such as work or groceries.
“Unfortunately the highlights are dire for Alberta small businesses,” said Annie Dormuth, Alberta Provincial Affairs Director for CFIB. “This is an updated report from one we did back in July of 2020. Unfortunately for small business across the province, we are seeing an increase in local entrepreneurs and small biz owners at risk of closing. “As we saw in the summer, Alberta is still leading the nation or has the highest number of small businesses closing at 22 per cent. We are seeing an increase in province such an Ontario and Quebec, which are around 20 per cent, which did increase in June and July, obviously those provinces have much stronger restrictions and lockdown measures on small businesses compared to Alberta.”