Canadian business hotlines now fielding suicide calls during coronavirus outbreak

“Just last week alone we’ve had five small business owners talking to us about suicide,” said Federation CEO Dan Kelly. “That is how dark this has quickly become for so many small business owners.”

“I can’t underscore enough just how dark and dangerous these days are for so many small business owners,” Kelly continued. “I’ve spent twenty-six years working with and for small business and have never seen anything like this.”

The House of Commons will meet tomorrow, followed by the Senate, to pass the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy designed to alleviate pressure off of businesses dealing with the coronavirus fallout.

“A lot of this is now too late for businesses, and the prospect of them rolling back some of the layoffs is limited,” said Kelly: “They just don’t have the cash flow to be able to survive.”

Official estimates show that Canada has 650,000 small businesses that employ four people or less. Many have been shut down due to public health orders from federal and provincial governments.

The Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, which was originally designed to pay 10 percent rebates to private employers and was later increased to 75 percent, will pay out as much as $847 per employee, to businesses who can prove they've had a 15 percent drop in revenue in March 2020 compared to 2019.

Kelly believes the thresholds set by the Canada Revenue Agency could cause problems for Canadians seeking the subsidy. “It’s the documentation that would be required,” he said. “For a lot of businesses, even knowing on a precise basis how far your actual booked revenue is going to decline is not the easiest calculation to make, and the Canada Revenue Agency is not known for being particularly lenient.”

It's not just Kelly who thinks so, either, as lawyers and MPs let their confusion be heard in the house.

Tax lawyer Kim Moody told the Commons finance committee that the program seemed complicated, saying: “Small business owners are worried and scared and in some cases their lifelong efforts which required blood, sweat and tears to build are in danger of disappearing."

Conservative MP for Charleswood-St. James Marty Morantz said that there were members of chambers of commerce who were also confused by the subsidy, which has changed details numerous times since being announced.

I had a call with some of our local chambers of commerce here in Winnipeg, and I have to say there is really massive confusion out there right now,” said Morantz. “The wording on the government’s website has changed over a number of issues, on eligibility for a number of requirements.”

“Everybody’s drinking from a fire hose, and the changes are coming pretty quickly,” said Attorney Moody. “But we’re dealing with stuff that is very, very complex, and the average person simply cannot interpret tax legislation.”

“That’s usually reserved for tax lawyers and tax accountants who have years of experience,” replied Moody. “And so, to try to put all of this stuff into plain English when you’re relying on press releases that are put out by the Department of Finance, in many cases—I mean, the Department of Finance is doing its best, I certainly know that—but there are errors.”

“As a matter of fact, yesterday there was an error that caused significant angst in the tax community and it was all because they missed the word ‘not’ when they talked about the emergency wage subsidy announcement,” said Moody.