Hacker News Reader

Comment by designium | Hacker News Reader

Being in Canada, I think that helped a lot of my friends who had expensive rent to pay in Downtown Toronto. But, it's not clear how the financial aid will help the small businesses; I can see that a lot of the restaurant in Downtown are not going to recover and those people who eventually weaned off from the government support, won't have a job to go back. Expecting that some other business will fill those gaps won't happen suddenly.

View on HN

What about the support available for businesses (ie. https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/economic-respons...)?

Initially at least it was mostly loans but I know a lot of owners would rather closer now than close later and have a loan to pay off

There are support for business to pay up to 75% and for small businesses a $40K loan with $10K forgivable. At least in Downtown Toronto, those support won't do much specially because the rent is super expensive. Expensive in the range of $5000 and up for a small restaurant in downtown area. You can also find news from BC, where the rent relief for landlords are not being adopted because landlords are not willing to register for the support and the business tenants are not getting support because of that. News don't say why that is happening but it's something interesting to think about.

The small business support also maxes out at $2000/mo, so if you make more than $17/hr then your employer is getting <75%.

Being the son of a Canadian small-mid business owner, I can say that what's unique about CERB is the "limbo" status of it. The employer doesn't need to formally lay off the employee, nor produce an ROE, etc. They basically just stop paying the employee and then the employee claims lost wages and gets (some) reimbursed by the government. The end result is that if those jobs DO come back (some have already), from an employment standpoint it's like the employee never left.

> people who eventually weaned off from the government support

I actually don't think we go back. Two of our parties love giving stuff away in regular times and will gladly use this crisis to bankrupt the country. The next election will basically be a race between who can give the most free stuff away - to a much higher degree than we normally see. This time it will be literal "vote for me and I'll give you $5,000 per month - that's $1,000 more than my opposition!".

The election after that one will be interesting though.

On the other hand though reducing taxes and spending less on services results in the community being impacted. In this case, if Canada hadn't stopped supplying PPE and stock piling it, early on there would have likely been more supplies available for long-term care homes and nurses which would have helped fight the spread and protect the vulnerable early on. Also, in theory going back to 15% GST instead of the 13% HST would bring back a lot of money to offset the CERB payments. It's tough because there doesn't seem to be a correct answer as if we do spend more money on government initiatives it goes to lobbying/bureaucracy/friends and family.

Here is a link to Canada's net debt to GDP figures:

http://www.rbc.com/economics/economic-reports/pdf/canadian-f...

The Liberal Party has different priorities than the Tories, but we're not wild eyed spenders. This year is different, but generally speaking we strike a balance between priorities.

The people they employ will more likely be available?

Not sure if I understood your comment, but for sure the employees once having nowhere to go back will be more "available" in the market just like many others in similar situation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com