This morning Halton Regional Council unanimously supported a Resolution brought forward by Town and Regional Councillor Sean O’Meara and seconded by Mayor Rob Burton to renew funding for and expand the Ontario Small Business Support grant program.
Councillor O’Meara’s resolution calls on the Province of Ontario to extend the Ontario Small Business Support Grant Program beyond March 31, 2021 to help Halton small businesses survive the COVID-19 pandemic and to figure in the recovery of the Ontario economy in the future.
“This motion shines a little bit of a light on some of those businesses who have fallen through the gaps and fallen through the cracks and that these important programs don't acknowledge right now and can’t support,” said Councillor O’Meara.
“We’re just hoping to continue the great advocacy work that the Region of Halton has done throughout this pandemic and shine a light on a gap that exists right now for some of our small businesses that are struggling in Oakville and across Halton.”
The resolution also calls upon the Provincial Government to expand eligibility requirements of the Ontario Small Business Support Grant Program to allow new businesses operating from February 2020 to October 2020 more flexibility in the months selected to demonstrate revenue decline, and not be limited to a comparison with December 2020 revenue.
“I thank my colleague for his initiative in bringing this forward and I was quick to agree to support it,” said Oakville Mayor Rob Burton.
“I’m very proud of the way all of us have worked so hard and so well to support our businesses and to alert the Federal and the Provincial governments to the crack in their programs through which businesses have fallen.”