‘Six to eight weeks’: government expectations of working under COVID-19 restrictions

Melfort MLA Todd Goudy said he didn’t have much to add other than the province’s Small Business Emergency Payment.

Regarding a plan to gradually re-open the Saskatchewan economy, Goudy said the province needs to listen to small business owners like they would with the medical and scientific community.

“There was some fear that we’d move too quickly or slow,” Goudy said. “We have a clear avenue to hear from the medical and scientific community but when it comes to hearing from the business community, I think there needs to be a balance.”

Goudy believes Melfort and area is in a more secure spot than other constituencies in the province due to its economy being based on agriculture and manufacturing.

‘It’s changed three times now’

Prince Albert MP Randy Hoback admitted his biggest frustration has been trying to nail down exactly what’s going to be offered from the federal government.

“If I told you today what the program is, I don’t know what it is tomorrow because it keeps changing; it’s changed three times now,” Hoback said. “In most cases it’s been positive.”

So far, Hoback said he hasn’t noticed businesses going from qualified to unqualified for federal funding following the changes. He said a business in Prince Albert was nearly $29,000 over the $1 million cut off for a loan of $40,000 from the feds. When the cut off was raised to $1.5 million, the business suddenly qualified.

“It went from a tough conversation on Monday to good news,” Hoback said. “Work with us and we’ll work with you. Things keep changing all the time.”

Currently, the largest ticket on Hoback’s plate is the changes to the Canada Summer Jobs program due to COVID-19. On April 8, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced temporary changes to the program, with the federal government providing funding to employers to hire youth employees aged 15 to 30 throughout the summer.

Hoback said many of the organizations who applied for the Canada Summer Jobs program initially may not be operating in the summer because of COVID-19.

“A lot of people who were allocated funds to will probably not need those funds,” he said. “The intent of the program was for students, now it’s to stimulate the economy. You get a different selection of businesses applying, but you get a different criteria of who gets those funds. I’ve tried to spread it among the riding so everybody had a piece of it.

“I focused on provincial and regional parks, volunteer organizations, groups that could really use that support in the summer, while still offering a learning experience for students. Maybe it should be geared towards the private sector where these students are building and creating and adding to the economy. Those aren’t the type of groups that applied to the funding or were approved when this happened.”

The deadline for Hoback to send in his list of applicants for the Canada Summer Jobs program was extended to April 24. He said Service Canada may take two weeks to decide on which groups will get funding.

‘Evaluate on a regular basis’

Melfort Mayor Rick Lang said the city has tried to keep as many employees on the payroll as they can, with methods such as cross-training into different departments.

“We don’t want to put people on the unemployment roll and lose some potential skilled workers that know what their job is,” Lang said. “There are going to be some future challenges as well with respect to revenues that are going to be short of what was projected. A lot of the expense in running the city falls to the payroll.”

The operating budget isn’t expected to see a change from its 2.07 per cent tax increase, as Lang said if the city were to look at the budget again, the likely option would be to raise taxes due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brent Lutz, Melfort’s Director of Development, Planning, and Community Relations expects cashflow to become an issue with the city closing its facilities and deferring tax payments. Nearly $1.2 million worth of capital projects to take place in 2020 have been postponed.

“Even though the current situation doesn’t necessarily affect our capital, we have postponed a couple of capital projects that were on the table for this year, so we could be assured we’d have the necessary cash flow in order to continue to operate the city, should revenues not be coming in as normal,” Lutz said. “We’re looking at trying to, in an overall point of view, reduce our operational costs by 25 per cent.”

President of the Melfort Trade Alliance Tyler Fahlman said he’d like to organize another similar meeting in the near future.

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aaron.schulze@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @SchulzePANow

by Aaron Schulze

‘Six to eight weeks’: government expectations of working under COVID-19 restrictions

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