Trudeau bailout will NOT support businesses who sell booze

“Any government measure to support workers and businesses must have clear, consistent and fair criteria,” said Calgary-Nose Hill MP Michelle Rempel Garner, after supposedly receiving complaints that the $10 billion credit disqualifies businesses with liquor licenses.

“Businesses that have been deemed ineligible to apply for COVID-19 related emergency assistance are those which are ‘inconsistent with generally accepted community standards of conduct and propriety’,” said Rempel Garner. “This includes bars, lounges, cabarets, casinos, discotheques, video arcades, pool and billiard halls and similar operations. Many workers in the service industry which has been decimated by COVID-19 are employed by these businesses.”

It wasn't just the Tories who were receiving complaints, either. Liberal MP for Mississauga-Erin Mills Iqra Khalid said she had also received complaints from institutions with liquor licenses who could not be approved for loans. “I have constituents who applied for loans through the BDC and were rejected for the loans because they sell alcohol, or thirty percent of their sales come from alcohol,” said Khalid.

“I’m wondering if there can be any exemptions made for the restaurant industry which has basically shut down at this time,” she said.

Algoma-Manitoulin MP Carol Hughes also noted that the $40,000-first-year-interest-free-loans provided by the Canada Emergency Business Account demand that companies have at least a $50,000 payroll threshold to be eligible. Hughes said that "that wasn't made clear in the announcement."

“People must have $50,000 in payroll in order to be able to access those loans,” said Hughes. “It makes no sense to a business that consists of a couple.”