Individuals and small businesses that are still leaning on the government's pandemic support benefits will seemingly have to resort to other ways of income as of Saturday, October 23rd, the last day of Small Business Week. 

The CRB (Canada Recovery Benefit), the CRSB (Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit), the CRCB (Canada Recovery Caregiver Benefits), as well as the CEWS (Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy), and the CERS (Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy) are all scheduled to end this weekend. 

These programs have been extended numerous times since they were implemented in 2020. The option to have the benefits extended again until November 30th is available but after that, the legislation will have to be reintroduced to parliament and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hasn't released any information or hinted that he will make the extension. 

Trudeau released a statement on October 17th recognizing Small Business Week in Canada. He said, “Small businesses are at the heart of our communities across the country. They are the small neighbourhood café that makes the perfect cup of coffee, the entrepreneur who started a new online shop, and the family-run store that pivoted to making face masks in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Small businesses drive our economy by creating the goods and services we need while employing millions of Canadians." 

He went on to thank small businesses for their resilience and quoted that the government has released numerous benefits to help them but there was no focus on the fact that those benefits end in less than a week. 

However, Trudeau also spoke about other initiatives that the government has in place to help, "The government is also working to improve the Canada Small Business Financing Program, so that small businesses and entrepreneurs can access the funds they need to recover, innovate, and achieve long-term growth. We are also helping small and medium-sized businesses grow and thrive so that they can compete in Canada’s digital future. With initiatives such as the Canada Digital Adoption Program, we are assisting them in adopting new digital technologies and bringing their products and services online." 

Over 200,000 business owners requested the CERS benefit for help and over 450,000 owners have received benefits from CEWS. As for the CRB, it has received over 2 million applicants to date. Also, nearly 700,000 people have applied for CRSB and over 450,000 for CRCB.