Small businesses across B.C. have expressed concerns about the impacts of soaring leases, petty crime, and increasing costs – with many fearing they won't be able to survive.
The federal government reported that there were nearly 1.2 million small businesses in Canada in 2022, with 187,741 of those in British Columbia. In New Westminster, the city renews about 4,000 business licences each year.
The Record sent out questionnaires with a series of questions to the three candidates in New Westminster-Coquitlam: Maureen Curran (BC Green Party), Ndellie Massey (Conservative Party), and Jennifer Whiteside (BC NDP). Only Curran and Whiteside responded to our questionnaire.
Here are their responses to the question: What will you do to make it better for those businesses to have a chance to survive and new ones to start up?
Maureen Curran, BC Greens
While I have seen the data showing we are gaining more businesses than we are losing, that doesn’t change the fact that we have had multiple well-loved small businesses pushed out by higher leases and difficulties with supply chains and other rising costs.
Given tenants rent protection is a key part of our housing strategy, it is only reasonable we find ways to protect small business owners from excessive rent increases as well. We also have to consider the impact of long-term vacancies. Our downtown has many broken-down buildings, plus garbage and weed-covered lots that deter folks from stopping and detract from its appeal. We need to consider ways to motivate these property owners to reinvest in our community and give more options to small businesses that want to add to our local vibrant and diverse business community.
We know that local businesses depend on having access to a solid workforce and to customers who have economic capacity to support them. This means we need to invest in transit, avoiding the threatened reduction in service that would end up depriving many businesses of the workers they depend on. We also need to ease the financial burdens families and individuals are facing. When we invest in local jobs and lift more people out of poverty that money will revitalize our local economies.
Jennifer Whiteside, BC NDP
Small businesses are the heart of our communities and the backbone of our economy, and they’ve been through so much. We want a BC where small businesses don’t just survive, but truly thrive and grow, with every opportunity to prosper and succeed.
David Eby is taking action to help small businesses with costs and support them so they can succeed. We cut the small business tax rate, and we’re keeping it 25 per cent lower than when John Rustad was in government. We’ve also given municipalities new tools so they can provide property tax relief to small businesses.
We’ve given small- and medium-sized businesses a big break on the Employer’s Health Tax – now 90 per cent of businesses pay no EHT. I've heard directly from business owners about how much of a difference this has made.
We’re taking action to resolve the challenges on our streets – launching new secure care, community policing, and helping businesses with the costs of property crime. And we’re keeping electricity rates low and delivering average savings of $400 to small businesses through the BC Electricity Affordability Credit.
We’re helping small businesses get the workers they need, with more skills training, more housing and more available, lower cost childcare, helping parents return to work.
