Queen’s Park and Ottawa are vowing to work together to help small businesses ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic.

Under pressure from restaurateurs, shopkeepers, and other business owners worried about losing their livelihood because they cannot afford to pay rent, both Premier Doug Ford and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stress assistance is coming.

“For others who still need help, including … businesses worried about commercial rent, we’ll have more to say to you very soon,” Trudeau said Wednesday in Ottawa.

“No matter who you are or where you live, we’re in your corner,” he added.

At Queen’s Park, Ford told reporters in his daily teleconference that Finance Minister Rod Phillips “has been working on this with the federal government.”

“You have to realize there’s 1.2 million leases just here in Ontario and we need the support of the federal government if we’re going to look at this,” the premier said.

“I encourage the landlords and the tenants when it comes to commercial leases — try to sit down, work it out,” he said.

“There’s a small business loan (of) $40,000 from the federal government that (small businesses) can utilize as well to pay rent over the next couple of months until we get back on track.”

The topic of rent relief for businesses owners will be among the topics Trudeau intends to discuss with premiers and territorial leaders Thursday.

“It’s not really a federal role, but we’re totally willing to step in and help in partnership with the provincial governments,” one senior federal official told the Star.

Green Leader Mike Schreiner said the provincial government has to do more.

“We’re fortunate that landlords are mostly being pretty flexible with rent, but we can’t rely on goodwill alone,” Schreiner said Tuesday.

“I’ve talked to small business owners who don’t know if they’ll be able to maintain their business. We know the Amazons and the Walmarts of the world are going to survive this crisis, but I want our downtowns to survive this crisis,” he said.

“I want the businesses that make our communities so vibrant and vital to survive this crisis. I don’t know if they’re going to be able to reopen if they don’t get rent support for May 1, certainly not if they don’t get it by June 1. I know the premier likes to talk about Ontario being ‘open for business.’ I want to make sure our small businesses can reopen when we emerge from this crisis.”

Prominent Toronto restaurateur Jen Agg, owner of Grey Gardens, Le Swan, Bar Vendetta, and Rhum Corner, has been sounding the alarm on social media for weeks.

“People realize how bad this is gonna be for neighbourhoods right?” Agg tweeted to her 20,800 Twitter followers on Tuesday.

She noted “we are halfway through the month and still have none of the help we actually need — rent relief now!”

“Without rent relief we will see mass closures between May and June … I realize it’s a complex problem but other countries are actually addressing it and the longer you just let it hang, the worse it gets.”

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Under Ontario’s state of emergency, which has been extended to May 12, restaurants can only serve takeout meals and most other small businesses have been forced to stay closed in order to contain the spread of COVID-19.

One pocketbook issue that the premier is tackling head-on is electricity prices.

With the Ontario Energy Board poised to reinstate “time of use” pricing in May, which would cost ratepayers more during peak hours, Ford, who suspended such billing earlier in the pandemic, promised action.

“I don’t like that time-of-use any time, not to mention when people are at home. So just stay tuned. You’ll hear about that over the next little while.”

His comments came as NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said she was “shocked that the government is preparing to hike the hydro bills of families and small businesses already struggling, by tacking time of use pricing back onto their bills.”

With files from Bruce Campion-Smith