Still no lifeline for struggling businesses By: Editorial Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Wednesday, Apr. 15, 2020

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/04/2020 (1620 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Talk, as the old folk wisdom reminds us, is cheap.

Most times, this hoary adage is unholstered as a criticism, an admonition that deeds — not words — are required to achieve a desired outcome.

But here in Manitoba, Premier Brian Pallister seems instead to be banking on the phrase as an economic truism that will backstop his strategy for surviving the fiscal impact of COVID-19. Bluntly stated, the premier seems to have concluded that if he keeps talking about the small-business sector’s importance to Manitoba’s economy, he won’t have to spend any actual provincial-government dollars supporting local enterprises driven to the brink of insolvency by the forced closures deemed necessary to control the spread of the coronavirus.

Mr. Pallister, whose oft-repeated hardscrabble-roots mythology includes references to his entrepreneurial success and ardent support of small-business ambition and work ethic, has inexplicably decided at this survive-or-die moment for many Manitoba companies that the province will not offer a financial lifeline to those at greatest peril of financial failure.

In maintaining this position, Mr. Pallister leaves Manitoba as an outlier in terms of direct provincial aid to augment the federal support measures unveiled by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. To date, the province’s support for small business has come in the form of property-tax deferrals and other middling measures requiring no cash outlay from government.

The mind reels.

During the past week, the premier has spoken repeatedly about small business being the backbone of Manitoba’s economy. In this regard, he is correct. Its importance to the province’s overall financial well-being cannot be overstated.

But many small businesses operate on the thinnest of margins, and when the province mandates closure of all non-essential enterprises, the loss of day-to-day activity pushes those businesses toward or beyond the financial brink.

The federal government was relatively quick to act with its $82-billion relief package, but many small businesses do not qualify for the supports it offers. Other provincial governments have introduced measures to fill the gaps in order to ensure local operators that fall through the federal-program cracks find a regional safety net waiting below.

In Manitoba, Mr. Pallister’s response this week was to introduce an information service to help local businesses fill out the paperwork to apply for federal-support funds.

In other words, not much immediate help with the whole sink-or-swim thing.

That’s a bit like encountering someone thrashing madly in the water in the middle of a Manitoba lake, and instead of tossing a life preserver in their direction, handing them a cell phone and the number of a boat dealership in Ottawa.

In other words, not much immediate help with the whole sink-or-swim thing.

But the lack of direct-aid action is very much in keeping with this premier’s approach during the pandemic, which has also included lobbying — under threat of layoffs — for reduced-work-week concessions from public-sector employees (a.k.a. small-business customers) and a high-profile announcement Wednesday of (up to) $1 billion in “additional spending authority” (read: not actual spending) to assist the province’s COVID-19 fight.

As he continues to espouse an “all hands on deck” approach to the pandemic crisis, it’s time for Mr. Pallister to use one of his hands to open the province’s wallet. There are businesses and people in desperate need of cash assistance, right now.

Denying them aid in order to mitigate COVID-19’s longer-term impact on the province’s bottom line is a strategy that will break the effusively complimented backbone of Manitoba’s economy. Talk might turn out to be very expensive, indeed.