A federal-provincial commercial rent relief program is being applauded by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce.
Ottawa and Queen’s Park are rolling out the Ontario-Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance Program (OCECRA) for small businesses in providing forgivable loans and a moratorium on evictions of commercial tenants.
“We applaud both the Canadian and Ontario governments for their leadership to provide rent relief to avoid the mass closure of small and medium-sized enterprises across the province,” said Ontario Chamber president Rocco Rossi in an Apri 24 release.
“Speed will be of the essence to get this delivered to those in need quickly”
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Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation will be administrating the program, expected to be in place by mid-May.
It’s the kind of backstop program that the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has been asking for its thousands of small and medium-sized business owners.
The OCERA will provide forgivable loans to qualifying commercial property owners to cover 50 per cent of three monthly rent payments payable by eligible small business tenants experiencing financial hardship during April, May and June.
The loans will be forgiven if the mortgaged property owner agrees to reduce the eligible small business tenants’ rent by at least 75 per cent for the three corresponding months under a rent forgiveness agreement.
This will include a pledge not to evict the tenant while the agreement is in place.
The small business tenant would cover the remainder, up to 25 per cent of the rent.
Those tenants considered to be impacted are those paying less than $50,000 per month in rent and who have temporarily ceased operations, or have experienced at least a 70-per-cent drop in revenues prior to the COVID-19 outbreak.
“This program will help tenants by lowering the rent burden and protecting against evictions, while supporting landlords who also have bills to pay," added Rossi.
