Over the last month so many have lost so much. We’re thankful for the heroes in our midst but small businesses have been hit hard and the restaurant industry has been decimated. Many of us are asking what can be done? In Canada we’re watching our leaders  wisely react to science while rapidly developing a variety of societal and fiscal response measures. Thankfully weve seen our laid-off workers largely getting the help they need with more program the way. We’ve also seen a variety of good intentioned social media initiatives helping improve our morale and driving take out sales. What does this industry really need though? We need room to breathe while we manage our future. To get there we need absolute focus on rent relief not deferral. This is a different issue @innatbayfortune where we own our mortgaged  land but for the vast majority of restaurants it’s vital. Postponing rent only benefits the landlord, delays the inevitable and hobbles a businesses ability to reopen. As an industry we’re also advocating for a return of our 2019 HST remittances. Do the math. This could save all small businesses giving us the flexibility we need to pay rent, order supplies and open back up. In the best of times opening a restaurant is a tremendous challenge, how will we get back on our feet in a few months? If you’re in a position to help please do, raise your voice and keep our policy makers focused on long term pragmatic solutions #onetable @justinpjtrudeau @restaurantscanada @chefmarkmcewan @chef_lynn @charcut @mallardcottagechef @eatdrinkvijs

• The Guardian (Charlottetown), Canada
• Aug 11, 2020
• A1
• ALI­SON JENK­INS LO­CAL JOUR­NAL­ISM INI­TIA­TIVE RE­PORTER ali­son.jenk­ins@jour­nal­pi­oneer.com @Jour­nalPEI

CON­TRIB­UTEDPe­tra Ross is fed up with pay­ing for high speed in­ter­net and re­ceiv­ing down­load speeds of less than 1.5 mbps.

Some Breadal­bane res­i­dentsare fed up with the slow in­ter­netspeeds and lim­ited op­tions for

ser­vice in their com­mu­nity.

Res­i­dents have just two choices for in­ter­net — dig­i­tal sub­scriber line (DSL) from Bell Canada DSL or satel­lite in­ter­net from Xplor­net.

Some of the com­mu­nity is slated for an up­grade to Bell Fi­bre-Op, but homes in­side vil­lage lim­its, along three kilo­me­tres of the Dixon Road (Route 246), are not on the list for up­grades.

Pe­tra Ross, a Bell client liv­ing on the Dixon Road, says com­pa­nies like Bell should do bet­ter for their ru­ral cus­tomers.

“We’re not talk­ing about a tinycom­pany, we’re talk­ing about ahuge cor­po­ra­tion that eas­ily could

ex­tend fi­bre-op­tic to ev­ery­where,"she said. "They’ve got mil­lions ofdol­lars from our tax money toame­lio­rate our ser­vices and (inthe mean­time) we’re told

we’re get­ting high speed and we’re not.”

In 2010, the P.E.I. gov­ern­ment promised high-speed in­ter­net ser­vice to ev­ery Is­land house­hold and signed a deal with Bell (then called Aliant). The telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pany would spend $8.2 mil­lion to in­stall the in­fras­truc­ture. In re­turn, the provin­cial gov­ern­ment agreed to re­new their con­tract for land-line ser­vice for five years, a $12 mil­lion value.

At the time, then premier Robert Ghiz called the deal, “too good to be true”, as Aliant fur­ther dis­counted the prov­ince’s land-line tele­phone ser­vice by $2.5 mil­lion.

But what seemed like good value for money in 2010 is not hold­ing up for cus­tomers 10 years later.

For the last four years, Ross

said her down­load speeds havehov­ered around 0.24 mbps, oc­ca­sion­ally peak­ing at 1.2 mbps, yetshe is billed for high-speed ser­vice.

“You can’t even send pic­tures,” she said.

“The gov­ern­ment of­fices are closed, and you need to use the in­ter­net to get your CERB, or what­ever. Any in­for­ma­tion on any­thing through the gov­ern­ment needs to be done over the in­ter­net. And here we are sit­ting in this (in­ter­net) hole and we can’t get that. So I think the gov­ern­ment is re­spon­si­ble — like a big deal re­spon­si­ble — for not al­low­ing th­ese ser­vices to reach ev­ery­where.”

An ed­u­ca­tional as­sis­tant, Ross says the poor ser­vice also has im­pacts for ru­ral stu­dents.

“It’s not a mat­ter of not hav­ing enough com­put­ers, be­cause you can­not op­er­ate more com­put­ers than one, at best,” she said.

A spokesper­son from BellAliant said their DSL lines are get­ting old and are not the lat­est

tech­nol­ogy. How­ever, Bell saidthat the com­pany con­tin­ues tomeet the con­di­tions of the 2010deal when high-speed in­ter­netmeant speeds be­tween 1.5 and 7mbps.

Jeff Rahn, who runs a li­censed tourist ac­com­mo­da­tion on the Dixon Road opted for Xplor­net satel­lite in­ter­net ser­vice for his busi­ness. His ser­vice doesn’t seem to be any bet­ter.

“When peo­ple are here, we can have six or seven peo­ple on their de­vices, stream­ing,” he said. “(The con­nec­tion) is 25 mbps, but we have a 100G data cap per month, so when that 100G runs out, we’ve got noth­ing, ba­si­cally. You can chew through 100G in no time.”

Rahn isn’t op­er­at­ing a B&B this sum­mer, keep­ing on his two win­ter ten­ants in­stead.

Still, half­way through the billing cy­cle, they’ve reached the 100G data cap and in­ter­net speeds drop to nearly noth­ing.

“There’s a busi­ness case to

make for hav­ing high-speed in­ter­net to ad­e­quately op­er­ate. If theprov­ince wants to en­sure theecon­omy is op­er­at­ing as it shouldbe — your tax dol­lars and what­not— you’d think the pri­or­ity wouldbe to en­sure that this sec­tion ofthe com­mu­nity is picked up.”

In March 2019 the prov­ince an­nounced $36 mil­lion of the P.E.I. Broad­band fund would go to fi­bre-op­tic in­ter­net ser­vice for ru­ral ar­eas of the Is­land.

In March of this year, the prov­ince signed fed­er­al­provin­cial agree­ments with Bell Canada, Xplor­net and Air Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Inc.

Rahn was at a pub­lic meet­ing in De­cem­ber where he heard MLA Brad Trivers and Joseph Rowledge, a se­nior pol­icy ad­viser with the prov­ince, say Xplor­net would be in­stalling fi­bre-op­tic in­ter­net from the hall, down the Dixon Road to the com­mu­nity lim­its.

Rahn has since heard that isno longer the case, but he hasn’t

been able to con­firm what’splanned in­stead.

The prov­ince wasn’t able to pro­vide an up­date to The Guardian ei­ther.

“Xplor­net is cur­rently in the de­sign phase of the project, which in­cludes de­ter­min­ing the fi­nal lo­ca­tions and con­fig­u­ra­tion of tow­ers and fi­bre rout­ing across the Is­land. There­fore, we can­not pro­vide spe­cific lo­ca­tion de­tails at this time,” said an email from the Tourism and Eco­nomic Growth Depart­ment.

Email in­quiries to the In­ter­net Plan (in­ter­netrfp@gov.pe.ca) were not re­turned.

Bell Canada con­firmed that while fi­bre-op­tic net­work con­struc­tion is on­go­ing in Breadal­bane, Dixon Road is not part of the cur­rent plan.

“The scope of projects in allcom­mu­ni­ties across the Is­landwas de­vel­oped in part­ner­shipwith the gov­ern­ment and basedon an ap­proved list of civic ad­dresses in each com­mu­nity,” said

the spokesper­son.

Mean­while, Ross is con­sid­er­ing join­ing a class-ac­tion suit against Bell.

“They’re charg­ing us for ser­vices we’re es­sen­tially not get­ting,” she said.

The rep­re­sen­ta­tive from Bell said the P.E.I. gov­ern­ment is open to dis­cus­sion about spe­cific ad­dresses not cov­ered in the cur­rent plan and sug­gested res­i­dents con­tact in­ter­net­plan@gov.pe.ca or reach out to Bell’s net­work team who can dis­cuss it with the P.E.I. gov­ern­ment.

A pub­lic meet­ing on the topic MLA for the area, Brad Trivers, is sched­uled for Aug. 12.

• The Guardian (Charlottetown), Canada
• Jul 31, 2020
• A4
• AN­DREW ROBIN­SON THE TELE­GRAM

SALTWIRE FILE PHOTOThe Cana­dian Fed­er­a­tion of In­de­pen­dent Busi­ness sug­gests thou­sands of small and medi­um­sized busi­nesses are at risk of clo­sure due to the COVID-19 pan­demic.

an­drew.robin­son @thetele­gram.com @CBNAn­drew

One in seven small- andmedium-sized en­ter­prises (SMEs)

are at risk of clos­ing acrossCanada ac­cord­ing to a Cana­dianFed­er­a­tion of In­de­pen­dent Busi­ness (CFIB) re­port re­leased Wed­nes­day.

In At­lantic Canada alone, al­most 8,500 SMEs are es­ti­mated to be at risk, ac­count­ing for about 12 per cent of all SMEs in the re­gion.

"I think ev­ery busi­ness as­so­ci­a­tion and or­ga­ni­za­tion across the coun­try un­der­stands the im­por­tance of re-em­pha­siz­ing this mes­sage to con­sumers — that they can make an enor­mous dif­fer­ence with their buy­ing de­ci­sions," said Jordi Mor­gan, CFIB's vice-pres­i­dent for At­lantic Canada.

"This is not to say that peo­ple arenot go­ing to go out to the big boxstores, but if there's an al­ter­na­tivesmall busi­ness that you feel wouldben­e­fit from your pa­tron­age,we're ask­ing you peo­ple to givethat con­sid­er­a­tion. These are yourfriends, your neigh­bours, the peo­ple that con­trib­ute to your com­mu­nity, and we think whenthey're hav­ing a tough time, theap­pro­pri­ate con­sumer re­sponse isto pro­vide what­ever sup­port isnec­es­sary."

The CFIB re­port com­piled, low-end, mid-range and high­end es­ti­mates for all prov­inces and ter­ri­to­ries. The high-end pro­jec­tion for clo­sures in At­lantic Canada jumps up to 12,459 SMEs, al­most 18 per cent of all those cur­rently ex­ist­ing in the re­gion. The lowend es­ti­mate of 3,645 SMEs ac­counts for about five per cent of those in At­lantic Canada. The es­ti­mates are based on in­for­ma­tion com­piled in a mem­ber sur­vey con­ducted June 26 to July 2.

"I think what you're see­ing is a

lot of un­cer­tainty from busi­nessown­ers, and that ex­plains some ofthe range here as well," said Mor­gan, who is based in Hal­i­fax. "Theun­cer­tainty also stems from whatkind of eco­nomic ac­tiv­ity they'rego­ing to be see­ing over the nextnum­ber of months. Will you see are­bound in con­sumer spend­ing?"

CHAL­LENGE DO­ING BUSI­NESS

Vaughn Ham­mond, di­rec­tor of provin­cial af­fairs for CFIB in New­found­land and Labrador, said with many pub­lic health re­stric­tions still in place, busi­nesses are find­ing it chal­leng­ing to op­er­ate and are still sort­ing out the best way to move for­ward.

"The ques­tion then be­comes, how do we make sure that we don't lose those busi­nesses that are at risk?" he said. "We ar­gue that cer­tainly the gov­ern­ment has to pro­vide sup­port, and if the con­sumer is able to, then they should do so as well."

A num­ber of sup­port pro­grams and mea­sures have helpedSMEs so far, with Ham­mond

laud­ing the Canada Emer­gencyWage Sub­sidy and Canada Emer­gency Busi­ness Ac­count as pro­grams that have been well usedand

ben­e­fi­cial. But, he said, the Canada Emer­gency Com­mer­cial Rent As­sis­tance pro­gram has left many busi­nesses re­liant on land­lords to act on their be­half.

"For the most part, they're able to deal with their labour costs through the wage sub­sidy, if they need it. But it's rent re­lief that a lot of our mem­bers in New­found­land and Labrador are look­ing for," said Ham­mond.

"If the fed­eral gov­ern­ment isnot will­ing to come for­ward with aso­lu­tion in terms of al­low­ing aten­ant to re­ceive the fund­ing di­rectly in or­der to help pay fortheir rent as op­posed to re­ly­ing ontheir land­lord to ap­ply for the as­sis­tance, I think that's the crux ofit for a lot of peo­ple. If they can'tpay their rent, they're go­ing to getevicted. Right now, what they'reget­ting is de­ferred rent, which

means they'll still have to pay it.But if the rev­enues aren't there topay, then what do they do?"

Ac­cord­ing to a CFIB dash­board track­ing busi­ness re­cov­ery that was up­dated Mon­day, most At­lantic Cana­dian prov­inces are close to the na­tional av­er­ages. Nova Sco­tia (70 per cent) and New Brunswick (72 per cent) are both above the na­tional av­er­age of 62 per cent for busi­nesses be­ing fully open. Prince Ed­ward Is­land is trend­ing well when it comes to busi­nesses at or above nor­mal staffing lev­els (45 per cent com­pared to 37 na­tion­ally) and busi­ness at or above nor­mal rev­enues (33 per cent com­pared to 26).

"Prince Ed­ward Is­land, theyhaven't been hit as hard as someof the other ju­ris­dic­tions," Mor­gansaid, not­ing many busi­nesses wereable to open ear­lier than in otherAt­lantic prov­inces. He thinksoptimism is a bit higher in P.E.I.,and the re­port's data does re­flectthat some­what, as the mid-rangees­ti­mate has only four per cent

(220) of SMEs on the Is­land at riskof clos­ing.

SEC­TORS HURT­ING

The hos­pi­tal­ity sec­tor has been hit hard through­out the re­gion. Ham­mond and Mor­gan both cite it as an im­por­tant in­dus­try within their home prov­inces.

"I think that the At­lantic bub­ble has been an im­prove­ment," said Mor­gan. "Such a high per­cent­age of the tourism sec­tor comes from the re­gion it­self. But the bread and but­ter is peo­ple com­ing from other ar­eas of the coun­try, and with that not hap­pen­ing, I think that's where you see an enor­mous amount of con­cern for busi­ness own­ers."

The CFIB re­port also sin­gles out the arts, recre­ation and events sec­tors for need­ing fur­ther help to make it through a very hard time. Mor­gan noted the sum­mer is usu­ally full of meet­ings, fes­ti­vals and other events pro­vid­ing em­ploy­ment for thou­sands of peo­ple, but they have all just about van­ished be­cause of COVID-19.

"Un­der any cir­cum­stances, theseare very wor­ry­ing num­bers, be­cause these are very im­por­tantparts of our econ­omy," Mor­gansaid. "The small busi­ness sec­tor isenor­mously im­por­tant to Canada'secon­omy, and it's enor­mously im­por­tant here in At­lantic Canada .... We're go­ing to be look­ing atgov­ern­ment over the course of thenext num­ber of months to seewhat they can do to as­sist busi­nesses and help them re­cover astime goes on. We're not out of thewoods on this one by any stretchof the imag­i­na­tion."

• The Guardian (Charlottetown), Canada
• Aug 17, 2020
• A4
• TER­RENCE MCEACH­ERN

TER­RENCE MCEACH­ERN/THE GUARDIANGrant Tay­lor-Payn­ter, a project co-or­di­na­tor with Cows Inc. in Char­lot­te­town, stands next to some in­ven­tory in the com­pany's ware­house area.

COVID-19 has had a dev­as­tat­ing ef­fect on rev­enue for At­lantic Cana­dian busi­nesses, but it has also raised an­other prob­lem for busi­nesses that were shut down as a re­sult of the pan­demic – too much in­ven­tory.

"Folks are get­ting a sixweektourist sea­son that prob­a­blyneeded three or four months toclear this in­ven­tory," said GrantTay­lor-Payn­ter, a project co­or­di­na­tor with Cows Inc. in Char­lot­te­town.

Be­sides the back­log of in­ven­tory, Cows has taken a fi­nan­cial hit as a re­sult of COVID-19.

"We went from prob­a­bly one of our ban­ner years to all of the sud­den the door be­ing closed," said Tay­lor-Payn­ter, re­fer­ring to the mid-March week when many busi­nesses shut down due to the coro­n­avirus pan­demic.

For Cows, when re­tail out­lets

closed, ice creams sales went tozero, and com­pany projects wereput on hold, he said. But­ter salesin­creased early on be­cause of thein­crease in more peo­ple work­ingfrom home and bak­ing. Cheesesales also con­tin­ued, so the com­pany had two or three peo­ple stillwork­ing in ship­ping. About 30-40peo­ple, in­clud­ing store­front staff,work at the Cows Cream­ery inChar­lot­te­town at 12 Milky Way.

The com­pany's rev­enue has been down about 40 per cent in Canada and 60 per cent lower on P.E.I. com­pared to last year, he said.

But like many busi­nesses, on­line sales have in­creased.

In terms of deal­ing with ex­cess in­ven­tory, Cows is plan­ning to host an out­door in­ven­tory sale Sept. 17-20 at its Milky Way prop­erty.

Cows has about $50,000 worth of mer­chan­dise it is look­ing to sell off, such as Tshirts.

The com­pany is cur­rentlyreach­ing out to other busi­nesses to

see if they'd be in­ter­ested in set­ting up in a tent on the prop­ertyand par­tic­i­pat­ing in the event.Ideally, Tay­lor-Payn­ter said thecom­pany would like three to fourlarge ven­dors, and some smallerones, to par­tic­i­pate.

Tay­lor-Payn­ter hopes there will still be some tourism "bub­ble" traf­fic on P.E.I. in Septem­ber that might be in­ter­ested in mak­ing pur­chases and bring in some rev­enue.

"And also for us, to get started to bring in­ven­tory lev­els in line," he added.

The first Cows ice cream re­tail out­let opened in Cavendish in 1983. Since then, the busi­ness has ex­panded to about a dozen lo­ca­tions in Canada and two fran­chises in China.

Cows cur­rently has about 250peo­ple work­ing at its re­tail out­letsacross Canada, which is half ofwhat staffing would be dur­ing anor­mal year. With the on­go­ing un­cer­tainty around COVID-19 andthe pos­si­bil­ity of an­other wave in

the fall and win­ter, Tay­lor-Payn­tersaid the com­pany's plan is to moveahead, "but cau­tiously." He saidthe con­cern is how busi­ness willun­fold from Oc­to­ber to May.

"Cur­rently, in the win­ter, our big busi­ness is in Whistler and in Banff.