Post COVID: Small Business Success

December 8, 2020

The Empire Club of Canada Presents

Post COVID: Small Business Success

Chairman: Antoinette Tummillo, President, Board of Directors, Empire Club of Canada

Moderator
Adrienne Batra, Editor in Chief, Toronto Sun, Radio & TV

Distinguished Guest Speakers
Dan Kelly, President, CEO, and Chair, Canadian Federation of Independent Business
Alan Liu, Owner, Salad King Restaurant
Kristyn Wong-Tam, Councillor Toronto-Centre, Ward 13

Introduction
It is a great honour for me to be here at the Empire Club of Canada today, which is arguably the most famous and historically relevant speaker’s podium to have ever existed in Canada. It has offered its podium to such international luminaries as Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, Audrey Hepburn, the Dalai Lama, Indira Gandhi, and closer to home, from Pierre Trudeau to Justin Trudeau; literally generations of our great nation's leaders, alongside with those of the world's top international diplomats, heads of state, and business and thought leaders.

It is a real honour and distinct privilege to be invited to speak to the Empire Club of Canada, which has been welcoming international diplomats, leaders in business, and in science, and in politics. When they stand at that podium, they speak not only to the entire country, but they can speak to the entire world.

Welcome Address by Antoinette Tummillo, President, Board of Directors, Empire Club of Canada
Good afternoon, fellow directors, past presidents, members, and guests. Welcome to the 117th season of the Empire Club of Canada. My name is Antoinette Tummillo. I'm the President of the Empire Club and your host for today's virtual event, Post-COVID Small Business Success. We have assembled a very knowledgeable panel to share their insights with us today, which I will be introducing shortly.

But first, I want to take a moment to recognize our sponsors, who generously support the Empire Club and make these events possible. Our Lead Event Sponsor is the Carpenters Union, and our Supporting Sponsors are Mr. Discount and What the Fest. Our Season Sponsors are the Canadian Bankers Association and Waste Connections of Canada. I also want to thank Phil Gillies of the Ontario Construction Consortium, who sponsored the first event in this construction workplace series, who was a great resource for our team, and helped them with this event. And lastly, thanks to our Event Partner, VVC and livemeeting.ca, for webcasting today's event.

Before we begin today, I have a few logistical items to share. If you're finding your Internet feed is slow, please see below and click the "Switch Streams" button. And don't hesitate to press the "Request for Help" button if you are experiencing technical difficulties; our team will be happy to assess—to assist you.

It is now my pleasure to call this virtual meeting to order. To start, we would like to show a short video from our Lead Event Sponsor, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters. The Carpenters Union is one of Canada's oldest private sector member-driven unions. It provides training and works with governments to ensure workplace safety. Their support for a livable community led them to work with us for this event, and we appreciate their support. Thank you, Mike Yorke, for sharing that video with us.

Video Opening Remarks by Mike Yorke, President, Carpenters District Council of Ontario
Good morning. My name is Mike Yorke, and I'm the President of the Carpenters District Council of Ontario, an organization representing 30,000 men and women working in all sectors of construction, including fields as varied as exhibit and display, and in health, healthcare, long-term care, where we have 3,000 members, primarily women, and primarily working as PSWs. Although we see a proliferation of construction cranes in the GTA, many industries are really hurting, including tourism, hospitality, and small businesses; many in the sectors I've just mentioned.

So, in this context, it gives me great pleasure to be a sponsor of today's event, Post-COVID Small Business Success. I know from my own experience in the construction industry the crucial role of small businesses in our economy. The vast majority of my members work for small businesses, and we see the pressures on them every single day in this pandemic. And those are the same pressures on small businesses in other economic sectors, on Main Streets, downtowns, and suburbs in communities large and small across Ontario. We all have a role to play in supporting one another, our Main Streets, and, in my case, our next generation.

This year, with COVID, so many have been impacted. Let's take a short look back to celebrate with our next generation of young men and women of the carpenters' graduating class of 2019.

[Video of Carpenters' Union Graduating Class of 2019 is Played]

Continued Video Remarks by Mike Yorke
I trust that you've enjoyed the video. We all want to get back to celebrating better times and rebuilding our communities. However, to do so, we need a solid plan and good insights into the way forward. I truly believe that the Empire Club panel today has the expertise and the insights required. So, without further delay, ladies and gentlemen, today's panel.

Antoinette Tummillo
Thank you. That's a great entrée into our topic today on small business. We've heard many times that Main Street is the backbone of the community, small businesses are the largest employer in the country, there is no better security system for our neighbourhood than a thriving small business sector. These are some of the phrases traditionally used to describe small businesses in Canada. The challenges they have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic are unique. How many of them will survive? How many will thrive? What does the post-COVID world hold for this foundation of our society? Our panel today will attempt to answer these questions on the future of small businesses in Canada.

First, let me introduce our panel. Kristyn Wong-Tam, Toronto City Councillor, Ward 13 Toronto Centre. Councillor Wong-Tam was elected to Toronto City Council in 2010 and has an extensive career in investing in the city, through both the public and private sectors. Kristyn is currently the Vice-Chair of the Toronto Board of Health and Chair of Toronto's Accessibility Advisory Committee, which provides advice to City Council on the identification, prevention, and elimination of barriers faced by people with disabilities. Kristyn is also a founding member of the Toronto Biennial of Art and was voted Toronto's Best Councillor by Now Magazine readers from 2015 to 2018. Welcome back, Councillor.

Dan Kelly, President, CEO, and Chair, Canadian Federation of Independent Business, also referred to as CFIB. Dan joined CFIB in 1994 as a policy analyst for the Prairies, and soon after became Director of Provincial Affairs for Manitoba. In 1999, he moved to Calgary to become CFIB's Western Vice-President, and was named one of Alberta's 50 most influential people. In 2009, Dan took on the role of Senior Vice-President, Legislative Affairs, and CFIB's Board of Governors appointed him as President and CEO in June 2012, and Chair in June 2014. In 2015, Dan was named one of the Top 100 Most Powerful and Influential People in Government and Politics by Power and Influence Magazine. He has served on dozens of provincial and federal committees and task forces and has represented Canada’s small businesses at the International Labour Organization in Geneva. He currently serves on Finance Canada's Payments Consultative Committee, also known as FinPay, and the Canadian International Trade Tribunal Advisory Committee.

Alan Liu, Managing Director of Salad King Incorporated. Alan was a director of Messaging and Multimedia Services at Bell Mobility. During his 13-year tenure at Bell Mobility, Alan was heavily involved with building Canada's wireless networks. By the time he left the wireless business, Alan had launched three mobile data networks, and was the first person to connect a smartphone to a digital data network. In May 2011, however, he decided to switch careers and became his parents' exit strategy. Now, Alan is heavily involved in the day-to-day workings of the restaurant, from working side-by-side with staff during service, to fixing repairs around the restaurant. In his spare time, Alan spends a lot of time thinking about food, defining what is good food, and the cultural impact of food. He’s also a snowboard and martial arts instructor. Alan believes in giving back to the community and is currently a member of the Downtown Yonge BIA board. Previously, he has also served six years on the board of Carefirst Seniors and Community Services Association. Alan holds an Honours Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo.

And our moderator today is Adrienne Batra, Editor-in-Chief, Toronto Star. Adrienne began her career at the Saskatchewan Legislature as a researcher with the Opposition Caucus Office. She then moved on to be the Manitoba Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. In 2010, Adrienne was Director of Communications for the Rob Ford for Mayor campaign and moved on to serve in the Office of the Mayor as Ford’s Press Secretary. Upon leaving City Hall, she became the Comment Editor and Columnist for the Toronto Sun and Political Commentator on Newstalk 1010. In 2015, Adrienne was appointed as the Editor-in-Chief of the Toronto Sun and 24 Hours Toronto. She also served in the Canadian Armed Forces, obtaining the rank of Lieutenant, and was nominated for a YWCA Woman of Distinction Award in 2013. She was awarded the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal and serves on the Board of Governors for the National Newspaper Awards and the Canadian Journalism Foundation and is a board member of the Randolph School for Performing Arts.

Please join me in welcoming our panel. But before I hand things over to Adrienne, I just want to remind everyone on this call that this is an interactive event. So, please send in your questions; Adrienne will reserve some time at the end to direct those to our panel. Over to you, Adrienne.

Adrienne Batra, Editor in Chief, Toronto Sun, Radio & TV
Thank you so much, Antoinette, and good afternoon to everybody. This is such a significant and important conversation, and very grateful that the Empire Club is giving this, their platform, and the people on this panel the opportunity to speak about it. And I couldn't imagine three better people to discuss it. We're talking about someone who is representative of the industry, someone who is a public policymaker and is, and is, in part, responsible for many of the decisions that are being made, certainly at the municipal level, and¬ arguably most importantly—a restaurant owner who's on the ground, and is dealing with this on a daily basis, with employees, and just the true nature of what has been going on in our small business sector.

To put this into context and to begin with our discussion, I want to have a slide that will be instructive, I think, where we can sort of launch our conversation. This information comes from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business—so, thank you, Dan. If we could see that, you can see there will be a large amount of discussion focused around this. I'm just going to give you all a moment to look at some of those very compelling, stark, and scary numbers. It is, it is alarming.

We, you know, at the beginning, did hear about the way to keep a thriving neighbourhood and a safe neighbourhood is to have, you know, bustling businesses in and around you. We all certainly know that the City of Toronto is a big city with, with small communities, and part of that is, is the local shop. Those local shops are going away. So, thank you for, for keeping, for showing us that slide.

And so, now we're going to move on to discussing these issues. I see the questions from our audience that have joined us this afternoon, the questions are coming in, so I will do my best to get to them. So, please continue to send them in. To all of our panellists, welcome, and thank you for your time. Dan, I do want to start with you, since that information was provided by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Let's use that as a launching pad to put some context around that, those numbers. I think, Dan, I think you have to unmute yourself....

Dan Kelly, President, CEO, and Chair, Canadian Federation of Independent Business
You'd think after the 500th Zoom call, I would've figured this out by now.

Adrienne Batra
We would've figured this out, yeah.

Dan Kelly
But thank you, Adrienne, and, and thank you, everyone, for joining us this afternoon. This is a really important conversation. Look, I mean, COVID, of course, started as a giant health emergency, and still remains one. But very closely following that was the economic emergency created by COVID-19. Typically, when, when worldwide recessionary times come, they affect the large businesses, and then trickle down, over time, to the small. This really had the reverse effect, where it started and affected, most fundamentally, those small Main Street businesses in hospitality, retail, the service sector, and then started to escalate, affecting some in other parts of society; affected people in losing their jobs, particularly some of the most vulnerable Canadians that are, that are earning very modest levels of income, working in those same sectors. And of course, very fundamentally, the business owners that, that operate these, these same small firms.

So, we are really, really still struggling nine months in. It is desperate times for most business owners. You know, the data that Adrienne shared just a second ago showed only 15 percent of small business owners in the City of Toronto are at normal levels of revenue. And that's making it very tough. Over half of them are losing money every single day that they are open. And the question becomes, for them, how many more days—not weeks or months, but how many more days—are they going to be able to continue to open, with almost a third thinking about permanently closing their doors? We at CFIB are expecting a hollowing out of the business community like we just have not seen in Canada, with 160,000 permanent business closures across the country. That's one in seven small firms. My estimate, though, is that in the cities like Toronto, and the Region of Peel, Manitoba, my home province—Adrienne, you've spent some time there too—where there are additional retail lockdowns, those areas are likely to see an even deeper bleeding of their small business community, because many of these firms shut down at the Christmas season is making them incredibly vulnerable, as we go into the lean months that we're all expecting in January, February, and March.

So, that's just a little bit of the context from, from our perspective. These lockdowns are, you know, are fundamentally harming small and medium-sized businesses, and there are big questions on the part of many of our members as to whether we're getting the balance right in Ontario, especially as we allow large firms to continue to sell the same products that small firms were, are basically, being denied the opportunity to sell in person.

Adrienne Batra
Yeah, and Dan, we're gonna get a bit more granular into that. I want to bring Councillor Wong-Tam and Alan into the conversation, as well. Councillor, I want to get your sense of those numbers that we, that were just presented—just sort of your overall impression of what is, sadly, a troubling trend.

Kristyn Wong-Tam, Councillor Toronto-Centre, Ward 13
And thank you, Adrienne, for that question, and Dan, for the work that your organization has been doing is just—your, your voice right now, with respect to advocacy, is so critical. Adrienne, I think Dan's research and the slide he showed us to sort of kick off the conversation is important, because it highlights the big notes of what we need to pay attention to. But I think, myself, as a downtown councillor who represents an area of the city that's driven by tourism, that's driven by employment clusters, we’re looking at this from a very different perspective.

The lockdown-induced recession, as I’d like to call it, is not impacting all businesses the same. Yes, there's actually the big box retailers that seems to have not been harmed, and of course, the, the grocery stores. But for us in the core, we are paying disproportionately high fixed costs, as well as property taxes, to be downtown. So, we rely on very different economic drivers in order for our small businesses, mid-sized businesses, and, and at this point, even large businesses to, to thrive. And so, when the government programs do come out—and we thank both orders, three orders of government, for all their hard work—but we do need to make sure that there is not necessarily a one-size-fits-all approach. So, that would be one of the things I think that we need to dive into even further.

It's, it's hard to imagine that we're 9 to 10 months into the pandemic; we haven't been able to, to more finely-tune those programs, to make sure that businesses that are disproportionately and harder hit get more support, and not necessarily have a one-size-fits-all approach. And that's what we're going to need in a downtown core in order for us to recover from this, from this pandemic. Because our recovery is going to be, I think, closer to the end. People are going to need to know from their employer, is it safe for them to go back to the office towers, which we rely on. We will need visitors and, and tourists to come back into the city, which means that the national programs around immigration, as well as tourism destination travel, will have to affect us.

And so, we're really hoping that there has to be a strategic plan that will support urban centres—just like Toronto's downtown, but right across the country—that will have to be devised, in order for us to actually save the small businesses that are in such a dire situation. Many of them will not make it over the holiday break. I know that. I've spoken to them and walked the streets. And it's just been heartbreaking, because they keep waiting and waiting and waiting for those government programs to each meet them. Despite the announcement, the details have been really slow and lagging. But more importantly, they feel that the programs have not been designed to meet their specific needs. And that's probably the, the worst thing of all is that they've asked, government has asked all sorts of questions. How can you, how, how can we meet your needs? How can we support you? But somehow, the programs continue to fall short for certain sectors that have been disproportionally hard hit.

Adrienne Batra
And I think that's been one of the biggest challenges throughout this entire pandemic from the beginning, was the communication strategy behind that; how government's been talking to citizens and business owners. And we will certainly try to unpack a little bit about what that recovery could look like. But I want to bring Alan into this conversation, not only as, you know, taking over the family business with Salad King; long tradition, long history. Alan, you are exactly who we are talking about in terms of keeping our economy alive. Your, your company, you employ many, many people. I think it would be very worthwhile for, for those that have joined us today to hear from you directly about what has been going on on the ground. Not only do you have to meet payroll weekly, daily, whatever it may be; you are still in the business of doing business. So, talk to us a little bit about that.

Alan Liu, Owner, Salad King Restaurant
Yeah. Well, we started having to deal with this even back in March when, you know, there were rumblings about this virus coming over, that was, you know, coming over from Asia. And I had to, my team and I had to start thinking about, what would we do if it comes in. We had some staff that were travelling back from visiting, you know, Vietnam, Thailand, what have you. And the first time I did really deal with this was when some of my other staff here were like, I don't want to work with them if they don't quarantine at home for 14 days, So—this is back before the shutdown—so, you know, you've got staff coming in that they need to make money, and then you've got staff that are very worried about the risk of exposure. And then there's a cost to it, there are not many programs. What do you do? How do we balance that out? So, that was the first time we had to start thinking about it. And when the shutdown happened, now we're into trying to plan ahead, try to figure out what we can do to survive this thing.

And as soon as that happened, it was, in a sense, almost kind of relieving, because the decision was taken out of our hands on, you know, having to decide what should we do; should we shut down? Should we not shut down? Should we cut staff? Should we not cut staff? So, when it happened, it was survivable, right? We just got the staff on whatever programs you could get, trimmed so the options are slim, and we were fortunate that our suppliers and our landlords were—we have a very good, long-standing relationship with them. So, they also helped out. So, for the first three months it was, there were days when it was me, another staff, and maybe two other people in the kitchen, and we have four people running the whole restaurant—so, doing dishes, closing up, cleaning, taking orders, doing all of that stuff by ourselves. Because we really didn't know, we didn't know how long this was going to last, we don't know how much this was going to cost us. So, we had to run as slim as we could.

And after a while, that started to get really exhausting. So, we tried to bring one or two more staff, but still very, very careful about our cost, because we really didn't know how long this was going to last for. And you know, throughout that, we're also, I'm very cognitive of the fact that if we made the wrong decision, if for example we took too much risk, we didn't follow the right policies and, and we just made a bad call with regard to safety, with regards to reopening—a lot of my staff live in multi-generation households. So, if we made a mistake, someone got sick and they brought it home, my decision could cause someone to die. And that's always in the back of my mind, that no matter what compromises we make, we need to be confident that we do the right thing. So that's always in the back of my mind, and that's why, you know, we tried to make the right investments into the right PPE, the right equipment, and that all costs quite a bit of money as well, so.

So, so that's kind of been our experience. As I said, we're fortunate we have great suppliers, we're fortunate that our employees, I have employees have been with me for close to 25 years, a lot of them over 10 years. So, they do have a degree of confidence in our decision-making. And we talk about it a lot, we, we work through it together to say, hey, what should we do? What are the risks that we're willing to take? What are we comfortable with so that, you know, we can build the decision together. But it's—yeah, I, I'm worried about the business, I'm worried about the community, I'm worried about the seniors living in the long-term care home, and we're worried about, obviously, the business as well. So, those are things that always run across my mind, every single day.

Adrienne Batra
Appreciate that, Alan. Councillor, I think that's sort of the big word is worry. We do look forward to hope on the horizon with a vaccine. You know, I just saw the first, a 90-year-old woman in the United Kingdom was the first person in the world to receive the, that vaccine. So, there is hope on the horizon—but it's still a long way away—in order for us to get back to some semblance of normalcy.

So, I want to go back and touch on that notion of the unfairness. These are some of the questions that are coming in from our audience, and, and I want to have all three of you weigh in on it. But, but the background to this is today, they're, in a courtroom in Toronto, Canadian Appliance—many of you may be familiar with that—they are making the argument that they are being unfairly treated by the municipal bylaws, because they, too, are an essential service, as they're selling appliances that are essential to, to Canadians to have. So, under that backdrop of that, you know, push against the lockdown rules, Councillor, I'm wondering if you can address the question about the unfairness of shutting down the small business owners, allowing the big box retailers to continue to stay open.

Kristyn Wong-Tam
Yes. Thank you, Adrienne. I actually entirely agree that there is a level of unfairness in the way the, the policy has been interpreted. And I think that it's been very confusing for operators, not just even the Canadian Appliance, but also many different types of operators. Because it's unusual for one store to sell one product, there, usually, it's a range of products. And, and when you see stores like, you know, Costco remaining open—which sells just about everything you can imagine under the moon and under the sun—people are not going to necessarily restrict themselves to just walking the grocery aisles. Which means that everything is available. And having—I mean, I don't have a Costco membership myself, but I have been to Costco, and I know that they are very busy stores. It doesn't matter what time of day you go. People say, oh don't come on the weekend, because it's too busy; but I think that they just tend to be busy all the time. And then compound that, if they're the only operators, you know, storefront retailers that are permitted open, there is definitely, what I believe is an uneven handedness to it. And having also been in Canadian Appliance, I can tell you, I don't think I've ever run into too many people at the same time in those appliance stores. And it's rare if there's even more than perhaps, even, you know, five different shoppers in the showroom.

So, I just don't, I mean, I honestly believe that we need to be much more strategic and careful and communicate to individuals, including the business community, why we need to do something. And if we don't explain it really carefully, even if there is a very clear policy perspective on why it needs to be done, but you don't explain it—and actually, at this point in time, also offer the data to back up your explanation—there is this continued erosion of trust. And my big fear at this moment in time is that there is now a growing gap between what governments are saying with respect to public health protocol, and what entrepreneurs and what community members are feeling on the ground. Because there has been, I believe, an unevenness in the way we've actually applied the rules. And, and I don't think that we can just shrug our shoulders and say, well, that's just too bad. I think that Canadian Appliance, of course, they have the right to court challenge. I'm actually surprised that, actually, we haven't seen more of it, to be quite honest. Because I've been hearing the rumblings in different neighbourhoods, in different communities have gone to, who've been asking critical questions on why something is happening. I lean back to the Board of Health because I sit there as a member. I ask those same questions to Dr. de Villa, sometimes, in private, and I communicate their responses. But there are times, I will admit, that there are times where I feel, you know, even as a member of the Board of Health, that perhaps we could do more, or, or work in, in clearer concert with the provincial government to explain why better. And of course....

Adrienne Batra
Dan, can you—oh. Sorry. Go ahead, Councillor.

Kristyn Wong-Tam
My apologies. And when we—and I'll just finish on this point, and I forgot—but when we actually ensure that there are restrictions, we need to also announce those restrictions at the same time as we are announcing with, in full detail, what those financial supports will be to offset the restrictions. And that has not been happening in concert. And, and that's the, the big, one of the biggest communication failures I see that we've endured as government. Thank you.

Adrienne Batra
Thank you, Councillor. Dan, communications failure, as the councillor puts it quite aptly, I think. Recently, I, you know, running a newspaper, we followed this stuff day in, day out, this rule, that rule. I signed one of my reporters. I said go back and look at all the rules, the regulations, what was coming from the feds. They said we—it's impossible, it's impossible for anybody to navigate this. I think even those that are, are on those calls and making those decisions have maybe even lost track.

So, with already very busy small business owners, Dan, who have already had to wade through hours upon hours of red tape and paperwork. We can't expect them to also then, really, you know, follow everything so closely and, and that's sort of where your organization comes in to help them navigate a lot of this stuff. But we talk about the uneven nature of it, the big box, I mentioned the Canadian Appliance. For starters, are you surprised that these rules haven't been challenged before? And secondly, what are your members telling you, in terms of what they need or want you to do to push back against this?

Dan Kelly
Thanks very much. And look, I think Councillor Wong-Tam really said it incredibly well, some of the public policy challenges that we're facing. Look, I just want to say for the record, I, nobody in small business believes that—nobody serious believes that Doug Ford, or John Tory, or Eileen de Villa, or anybody else is doing this maliciously, that this is part of a plot to, to shut down the small business community and replace them with large, with large firms. You can see the pain on the Premier's face as he's announcing some of these measures. And I get that, and I feel for him, and for governments, in terms of trying to manoeuvre this themselves. It's incredibly challenging.

The other thing I want to say is that business owners understood during the first round of lockdowns that governments were dealing with something just like we were. That nobody knew what the heck we were—what was facing us, and so, had to take very immediate and blunt actions to try to ensure that the public was as protected as possible. And I have to say, I remain incredibly impressed that Canadians, Canadian businesses, responded in the way that they did during the first rounds of the spring lockdowns, at huge harm to those businesses that had to put measures in place that really just kiboshed their businesses, with no clear roadmap to any support whatsoever during that period of time. And I think we have to remember that, as Canadians; cause this was, you know, they really pulled together well.

What's different about this round, the second wave and these new lockdowns that we're facing, is that we do know more. We don't certainly have perfect information by any means, and we're still dealing with a lot of unanswered questions, but we know a lot more of what to do and what not to do. And I guess one of the reasons that business owners have moved from frustration to anger is that they see in other provinces, public health officials and governments making decisions that have allowed businesses to stay a little bit more alive than is the case here in the grey zones in Ontario. BC never shut down the retail community, not even in the first wave. Every other province has reached a different pathway and has not replicated the spring policy of shutting down small and allowing the large to remain open.

And now, business owners are in the position of not just talking about this from the fairness perspective, but also asking questions about whether or not this makes sense from a health perspective, and asking, taking that customer out of that independent bookstore that may sell to three or four customers a day—perhaps ten, in a busy season—and shooting that customer over to the big lines at Costco, standing with the big long table with two hundred other people. How is that helping?

My story is going in right before the lockdowns to an independent lighting shop to fix a light in my bedroom, and I was the only customer; the business owner and one employee were there. And the business owner was in tears. And she said to me, "Okay, yes, this is going to kill my business that I'm having to close again on Monday; but how is it helping COVID to shut me down, when you're the only customer in my business that I'm serving with loads of room for physical distancing; but yet, that customer can line up at the Home Depot that's right around the corner with hundreds of other people?" And so, people are asking questions, not just about the fairness. And, of course, your paper, today, Adrienne, is running a story about some new polling data that shows that Canadians also are asking questions and saying it doesn't—these policies in Ontario, as they're applied, don't make sense. When that happens, you have the public raising questions about whether the restrictions make sense, and you have business owners motivated to take action themselves. So, that could be through lawsuits—which, of course, is their right—but it also can be actions like the BBQ Guy flouting the law. And that's not a good thing for anyone to push people in those directions.

And it has been impossible to get the government to rethink—not eliminating restrictions, but finding restrictions that make common sense, that are supported by data, and really don't lead to huge unintended consequences. And I know they're dealing with an emergency, and it's tough. But we're counting them on, on them to do this. And as the councillor said, if you're not going to do that, if you're going to shut them down and say you've gotta close to protect society, then it is, I think, an obligation on the part of governments to ensure that there are full supports for those businesses to ensure that they can make it to the other side. And that still, nine months in, is just not in place.

Adrienne Batra
It doesn't appear to be coming anytime soon, either.

Dan Kelly
No. No.

Adrienne Batra
And you know, though, there, you know, there's been little attempt to, to communicate any of this. Alan, you know, there's so many programs that have been put out there. There's so many different communications strategies that have been put out there. But for you, as an owner, as an employee—excuse me, an employer—this is, this is reality for you every day. Going forward, let's just, for argument's sake, say you had an audience with Premier Ford, Mayor John Tory. What would you tell them? What do you and your fellow business owners need? Is it a reduction in assistance and fixed costs? Is it, is it more rent relief? What is it that we are going to need, come 2021, in order for many of these or businesses to survive?

Alan Liu
Well, first, I just want to start by saying that I have a lot of restaurants as friends, and not a single one of us supports what the BBQ guy did. So, if you ever hear otherwise, I don't know of a single restaurant that supports what he does, because it was just irresponsible. It tells you what we need. I think one of the things that, as an entrepreneur, one of the things that I would love to see is more clear—and I think Dan and Kristyn alluded to this—is more clear entrepreneurship, right? One of the hallmarks of small businesses is that we're quite adaptable, we are quite creative people. But we need clarity. Like, we need to be able to plot our ways out. If we know, we have confidence in the leadership, if we know what's going on, we can plan our way out of the situation, right? It's going to be tougher for some, but easier for others—but right now, things are up and down. You know, we were shut down in a grey zone, and the only thing that we really know is whatever we've been doing, the numbers are getting higher and higher. So, we don't know. We don't know if we're going to be opening, if downtown is going to be opening in two weeks, just before Christmas or Boxing Day. We have no clue. If it opens on Boxing Day, we will have one plan; if we don't open for Boxing Day, we, you know, we have another plan. So, the lack of foresight, the lack of leadership there, is making it really difficult for us to survive. Small businesses do well when we can predict what's happening. It's not just about accommodating our needs. Give us the predictability, so we can move ahead and handle it. So, that's the first thing I'd ask for is just stronger leadership, right? Make decisions.

The second thing I would ask for is, you know, help us with some of the resources that we need. You know, some of the policies, quite frankly, have been designed to download the risk onto us. I'll give you an example: masks, right? The way the policies are written, it's kind of up to me to stand in front of the anti-maskers when they come into my restaurant. And I've had to do that a few times, tell them to politely leave. And then, when they threaten me with a human rights lawsuit, I kind of have to call the bluff and stand there. And I'm pretty sure, Dan, you're hearing that a lot from a lot of your independent businesses, and so, Kristyn, you probably hear the same thing from people local to the neighbourhood. That's not the kind of risk that I can take, right? That's, this is the kind of risk that, you know, a government, whether it's Mayor Tory or Premier Ford, can make it very clear. Put stronger, put the resources, go hire the lawyers, go hire the people to help us figure this out, so that us as small businesses—I don't have the resources. Help us with that stuff.

And finally, at the end of the day, you know, it comes down to financial support, right? When we come to the end of this pandemic, small businesses are probably the most flexible, most creative, most dynamic. We will help the economy recover because we have that flexibility. But if we don't make it to the other side, not only will it mean that it will take longer for the economy to recover, but all that destroyed capital, all those businesses that, you know, have shut down, that capital has gone, right? That has disappeared. That's vapourized. It's going to take so much longer. So, help us get to the other side and it will pay back, because we'll make things come back faster. We also have to, by the way, look out for the new businesses that open. I have a couple of neighbours that they signed a lease back in 2019 or early 2020—and Dan, I know you wrote about this quite recently—and they're kind of stuck because they don't, they can't get at any of those supports, and, you know, they have to just kind of survive or lose everything they invested over the past year.

One other thing, sorry, just to add to kind of what Kristyn said is, it's also very different, depending on the region. Downtown, our rents are through the roof. So, every single business here, if you want to be a business, we—right off the bat, we miss a lot of the financial supports that are out there. They don't apply to us because, you know, we're still a family business, we're still a small business, but we're just slightly just—we miss it by just that much, right? I couldn't get the 40,000-dollar, even though I'm going to use it because I have a—we're a service sector. I have a lot of staff, right? And that's the same with a lot of my colleagues; we just missed those.

And, and a lot of the programs, the BDC program, apparently—I was talking to a broker today. There's a threshold. So, under 100,000? You can get it like that. Above 100,000? I've applied for it. Do you know how long it took me to get my BDC loan? Two months. It took me two months to apply for that. So, we're fortunate that we have, you know, we, as I say, we have the support of our community, the support of our suppliers, that we're able to survive. How many businesses can sit and wait for a loan for two months for the money to go through? And this is supposedly a back program. So, you know, if you, if you need 100,000, if you're on a certain threshold, you get the money right away. But downtown restaurants, downtown business, we're on that size that we just happened to miss all of those parameters. So that's, that's one thing I would say, you know, really pay attention to Downtown, look at what we need. But leadership resources to help where we cannot really provide the resources, and, you know, the right economic programs to help us in the right way, in the right sectors, but right area.

Adrienne Batra
Thanks, Alan. Councillor, you know, when you hear that, you know, you represent a ward that has a bustling business community—everything from the restaurants to retail, including arts. And what is one of the most significant parts, not only for our mental health, but our economy, is our arts community, and the beauty of having that thrive. But it's sadly non-existent. So, let's, let's get a little bit granular, here, and talk about certain sectors, in terms of how you see a recovery happening. Because you have the opportunity to be at those tables. You know, we say, "Show your work, show your work." You get to ask those questions to our officials, and to those that are doing the modelling to say, okay, what is the spread rate in these certain areas, in certain sectors? So, walk us through a little bit about how you see certain sectors coming back and being able to recover.

Kristyn Wong-Tam
Yeah, thanks. I think that was a really interesting and very important point that you raised in terms of, you know, which are the sectors that have, have been hit. And also, the fact that we, we work in an ecosystem that allows these different clustering effects to support one another. Because I'm a downtown councillor, I'll just speak to the things that we're really going to need, in order for us to restore the core—not just in this particular downtown, but right across the country. So, recognizing that the culture industries generate about 6 billion dollars of revenues right across the, the country from coast-to-coast. As a major tourist destination in the City of Toronto, we've often times had to lean into that. So, we actually attract a lot of those visitors, the tourists that come in specifically to fill our theatres, to fill the concerts, to participate in our festivals. And they, when they're here, they need to stay in our hotels, they, they shop locally, they dine locally because they're not going to be cooking their meals. All of that feeds into an economy that, that actually can support restaurants like Alan's, who are right in the downtown core—where they do have much higher fixed costs, to be quite honest, than some of the suburban malls, they have higher wage costs and transportation costs. Just everything is more expensive if you're going to operate in the core.

So, my proposition to Minister Freeland and Marcy Ien, who's my new Member of Parliament representing Toronto Centre, is that we need to create a Downtown Recovery Plan. So, therefore, we're not going to be the first one that's hardest hit when the COVID lockdown happened, and then the last to recover. You're going to have to really design programs that are going to support and bring the downtown back in equal pace with the rest of the opening of the economy. Because if that doesn't happen, then I know for the, for the folks that I've spoken to, they're fearful that even with a vaccine with a line of sight on the horizon—and it's coming—we know that for us in the downtown core, bringing people back downtown, bringing people back into the core, is going to take some time. And it is not unreasonable to think that if we don't do anything, people might stay away for another year or two years. And that is, that's going to decimate the core.

So, when it comes down to talking about neighbourhood vibrancy, the fact that we have a major residential population that lives in the core, we were on track to doubling our population, both through an employment cluster, as well as residential numbers by 2031, we were going to be doubling the size of our population pre-COVID. I'm not sure if we're going to be on track for that same growth. And I would say that, you know, if we don't necessarily focus—both the province, and the city, and the federal government—focus on the downtowns which produce, in our case, 51 percent of the GDP for Toronto, we're not going to be able to capitalize their coffers at Queen's Park or in Ottawa with their income and sales tax. So, they're really gonna need to think through how to invest in the core, and in downtown-specific areas, so they can bring the economy and supercharge it back into existence when we're ready to re-open. And, and that's something I am really, desperately looking for. Because it's not just for Toronto's sake, it's for—or not just for my sake as a downtown Councillor—but it's for the sake of this city, to be this economic driver for the country. And that's why, you know, there has to be a very specific, a very specialized, tailored program to restore the downtown cores across Canada. Because if that happens, the suburbs will get back to work, and so will all the smaller communities to support the core.

Adrienne Batra
Dan, there is a frustration amongst—me in particularly as you—as Westerners, you know, we talk about Toronto being the economic engine of the country, and know it's a reality, as much as some of us from out West find that a bit frustrating. But the reality is, there is an entire community and economy in a very small space, and all of those office buildings are empty. And underneath all those office buildings is the PATH. And for any of us, any of those that have joined us here today at the Empire Club that either work in the financial industry, or in law firms, or in an insurance, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Those spaces are empty. Many of them are gone. And many of those were small business owners, you know, creating one or two jobs, but that supported their family. And for each person that had to either get let go or laid off, that's one less person paying property tax, one less person paying, you know, being able to pay their mortgage. This is the reality on the ground. So, what is it that you need to see from government? What do your, your supporters need to see from government? More subsidy programs, more rent relief—how do you look at the recovery?

Dan Kelly
Sure. Look, you know, I did a, I did a rant on the last one, so let me let me change up speeds, here, a little bit. There are some good support programs in place now, nine months into the pandemic. The Wage Subsidy is, is largely working—less generous than it was in the spring, but it's there—the Rent Subsidy, they finally, finally, finally, they have, we have a program that actually makes sense, with additional support for those businesses that are shut down a second time. So, that is, is good news. The [indiscernible] Loan Program, Alan has missed out, but 800,000 businesses have received a 40,000-dollar loan, which is now going to become a 60,000-dollar loan with a forgivable component. We've given out, as I said, 73,000 calls so far, much of them related to these government support programs. There is a lot. Ontario has been pretty bad, I would say, in terms of provincial supports. But the feds have actually stepped up, and we've had good conversations with Chrystia Freeland along the way.

What's missing—there are gaps in every single one of these programs, though. Businesses, particularly new firms, as Alan noted, are ineligible; micro-sized businesses, ineligible; self-employed people, ineligible in many of these programs. So, we need to make sure that we shore up those programs and ensure that they are there to help businesses get across the finish line. But nothing is going to help these businesses until they're able to make sales. I mean, we, subsidies are really helpful. But every business owner wants to replace subsidies with sales. And it's going to be a long time, and as the Councillor noted, it's going to be a particularly long time for downtown cores to get that back.

I was just, I did another session like this with another group just yesterday, and my co-panellist was talking about how, right across Canada and the US, that we're probably not going back to normal, even post-COVID, because of the societal changes that this has prompted. And I deeply worry about downtown cores right now. Because many of those, you know, the new trend with working from home, especially for the—again, I represent half the economy that can't work from home. You don't cook the pizza in your home and deliver it to a customer. But for those that can, the absence of those workers, particularly the reluctance to get in giant towers and take the elevator, even months and months after we've had the vaccine, that's going to mean that a lot of people are going to now ask to work from home on a permanent basis, at least for a few days per week. Just that will mean an erosion of all the customers that patronized the restaurants, shops in those downtown areas. Tourism will bounce back, I'm sure. But will it be enough to supplement that? And so, he was predicting the, a greater "doughnut effect," where downtown cores really suffer, and suburbs, actually, become the winners, where there's more room for physical distancing. We're going to have to really rethink how we go about this. And entrepreneurs, I mean, I worry that we're going to see just a lot of boarded-up shops. Not just for the next few months, but for years and years and years, as we have this drag effect. So, I, look, I'm looking for reasons for optimism. But it's getting tough to find them.

Adrienne Batra
It really is, Alan, and it's becoming more and more of a challenge. If there's anything we know about entrepreneurs, they are capable and able to constantly evolve, and change, and adapt. Adapt is, I think, is one of the first things that comes to mind first, Alan, when you think of an entrepreneur. But you all have adapted. It doesn't matter if you're in the retail sector or if you're in the food industry. This is, this is something you have all been asked to do, and you have done it, you've got the PPE. Prior to this call, Alan, you and I talked about how much money you invested in all the, the thousands upon thousands of dollars for PPE and, and you know, refurbishing the hardware around your, around your restaurant, so did so many others. And now they're all shut down. And when we talk about the governments showing their work and showing the numbers, do you find that they haven't been able to do that? Do you find that, when all of you in your industry are talking to one another, the source of frustration—what, what is it that you're hearing?

Alan Liu
We basically don't know what's happening. We can't, we, you know, the key thing is, we shut down the restaurants, and the numbers are going up. That really comes down to the crux of it: we've done all this stuff, and the numbers keep going up.

Adrienne Batra
Right.

Alan Liu
So, we can't tell. I don't know if what we're doing is ineffective, is insufficient, or is incorrect, right? I, we just don't know. And that doesn't give us a lot of confidence. Like, we don't see the end at the, you know, the light at the end of the tunnel right now. The vaccines are great, but the vaccine is going to take another 12 months or more. And as everybody alludes to, that may not, you know, people may still not come back down. But we don't know. We don't know. We, you know, my, my colleagues and I, we felt that we've done what we can, we felt we want to get to the end of this. You know, people are all willing to do the right thing, provided we get to the end of it. But we just don't know if what we're doing is making a difference or not. And so, that's, that's, really, we don't know. We can't tell.

Adrienne Batra
Well, we don't know, and we can't tell. And this is just one of many discussions that are going to be happening, and the challenge that we're all, that the business community—small and large, frankly—going into the holiday season locked down, it's going to be tricky. And I think we're all going to have our hands full. Many more questions came in; apologies for not getting to them. I hope that we did, at the very least, touch on some of the things that were on your mind. A big thank you to our panellists, Alan Liu from Salad King, Dan Kelly from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, and of course, Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam, for your time today, and to the Empire Club for hosting this important conversation. Antoinette, I'm going to hand it back to you for, for final thoughts.

Note of Appreciation by Antoinette Tummillo
Thank you. When I think of our new reality, it's so blurry, and this conversation just kind of underscored that. But I do believe, Adrienne, we are resilient. You know, people will hopefully get through this—and hopefully more rather than less, Dan, so, and I know you're doing lots to help in that area. So, I want to thank everybody. Adrienne, I see I made you the Editor-in-Chief of the...

Adrienne Batra
Editor of the Toronto Star.

Antoinette Tummillo
...the Star and the Sun. Like, man, you're really good! Like...

Adrienne Batra
And the Sun. So, I'm just building my media empire at the Empire Club.

Antoinette Tummillo
...how did you do that? No, I'm very sorry about that.

Adrienne Batra
It's quite all right.

Concluding Remarks by Antoinette Tummillo
My error. But thank you, everybody, for taking the time to be with us today. I think this was an important conversation to share with our audience. Thank you to our audience for joining us. We've got one more event for this year—stay tuned for January; we're lining up a lot of great things. But on December 10th, we've got our signature event that we're really excited about. It is our Nation Builder of the Year Award. And last year—Councillor, you remember—we basically took over City Hall when we gave it to the Raptors. This year, unfortunately, we have to do it virtually, but the award is going to frontline workers. Who else is more deserving? It's at noon on December 10th, so please join us. We've got a great roster of celebrities, VIPs, and great testimonials from frontline workers. So, hope to see you at that event. So, thank you all. This meeting is now adjourned.