Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a new rent assistance program for businesses and plans to ease criteria needed for small and medium companies to get a loan.
The new Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance program will help small businesses cover their rent for April, May, and June. The assistance is being rolled out in collaboration with the provinces and territories as it’s within their jurisdictions.
The government is also loosening up eligibility criteria for the Canada Emergency Business Account. The program, targeted at small- and medium-sized businesses, offers government-guaranteed loans of up to $40,000 to cover the costs of keeping their enterprise afloat during the COVID-19 crisis.
The current eligibility requires applicants to prove that they paid between $50,000 and $1 million in payroll in 2019.
Now with the loosened criteria, companies who paid between $20,000 and $1,500,000 in total payroll in 2019 will be eligible to receive a loan.
According to Trudeau, more than 195,000 loans have been approved through the program, meaning that more than $7.5 billion has been doled out so far.
