Six of every ten restaurants in Canada could go out of business by November if the government offers no aid, according to a new study by the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions.
Twenty-nine percent cannot operate at all under current social distancing mandates and 31 percent say they can survive no longer than 90 days without help, Statistics Canada reports.
Sales in the food services sector totaled $93 billion in 2019 and was trending to surpass $100 billion this year. Now the sector is estimated to lose between $22 billion and $45 billion in sales in 2020.
Business associations are urging the government to extend the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy program past the end of this year, when it expires. The program pays a portion of wages, which enables restaurants to keep people employed and also gives the population a little extra cash, some of which could be spent at restaurants.
The groups also are urging the government to revamp its rent relief initiative, which targets landlords for aid, but few have used it. They also have suggested the government imitate a British program in which the government pays a portion of diners’ restaurant tabs.
The province of New Brunswick is offering residents a 20-percent rebate on food and drink, as well as accommodations, activities, and travel expenses, such as car rentals or parking fees, to encourage “staycations.”
Restaurants themselves are innovating in an attempt to survive. Thousands have created take-home “meal kits;” one in five will continue offering them after the shutdown eases.
TREND FORECAST: The meal kits and other “innovations” will, at best, marginally make up for lost revenue. Any government cheap money pumped into the system will only temporarily inflate it. The economic devastation is now beginning to take its toll.
As we have reported, some 80 percent of those who died from coronavirus in Canada were elderly people from nursing homes.
And, of the nation’s 37.817 million people, to date, 9,232 have died of the virus or 0.02441percent of the population… yet its rulers locked it down and inflicted untold economic havoc on its citizens.
