The leader of Ontario’s Official Opposition is releasing a formal plan to help business owners and encourage economic recovery during the pandemic.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath recently released the new Save Mainstreet Plan. The NDP originally released a Save Main Street plan in April and has now updated and expanded to fit changing conditions for small businesses and workers.
It includes sick days for all, a fund to help businesses with safe-reopening costs or remote-work set-up costs, more non-profit and public child care spaces for working parents, an end to insurance gouging and insurance denials.
The plan also calls for a 75 per cent commercial rent subsidy.
Windsor West MPP Lisa Gretzky said the rent relief program that was previously introduced by the provincial government did not provide enough protection for business owners.
"These businesses could only get that rent relief if the landlord applied for the program," said Gretzky. "It was not directed specifically towards the business owners that actually needed the relief. unfortunately in many cases across the province... there were landlords who would not apply for the program."
The Save Mainstreet Plan also requests a ban on all commercial evictions, something Gretzky said should have never been allowed in the first place.
"The province should have stepped up and been working with the business owners in conjunction with landlords to ensure that there was support there for everyone so that no one is losing their businesses," she said.
According to Gretzky, the NDP will continue to push the Conservatives to make the plan a reality.
"We'll continue to talk to government members, push the government members and hold them accountable to implement these measures," she explained. "This is something that we've been hearing. This is not something that we just developed on our own. These are things that we have been hearing from workers, from business owners that this is what is needed in order for there to be an economic recovery."
-With files from Maureen Revait
