As many as 225,000 Canadian businesses are at risk of permanently closing their doors because of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB).
Before the second wave of infections, the CFIB estimated 160,000 businesses in Canada would fail before the pandemic ends. However, the CFIB has now raised that number to 225,000, or more than one in seven.
The CFIB is urging the federal and provincial governments to make shutdowns short and targeted to minimize the impact of a second round of business closures.
The CFIB’s revised numbers come one day after the City of Toronto extended its ban on indoor dining for another 28 days, and Manitoba announced it is forcing non-essential stores to close in an effort to contain the virus spread.
"Our advice to provincial governments is: 'Please don’t put in place blanket shutdowns of the entire economy. If there are cases where you need to do that, make it surgical for those sectors or business activities where the problems are coming from – and lift them soon as is possible,' " said CFIB President Dan Kelly in a televised interview.
