A Toronto city councillor is warning that it may take “years for small businesses to recover” if more protections are not put in place to keep them afloat.

Commercial landlords across Toronto and Ontario will soon be permitted to lock out small business owners who did not pay their rent this month.

The Commercial Tenancies Act stipulates that landlords may evict or lock out tenants 16 days after rent is due.

While the federal government has offered some assistance to small businesses in the form of wage subsidies and loans of up to $40,000, many owners say they cannot afford to pay their rent to keep their companies alive.

Premier Doug Ford previously put protections in place for residential tenants facing eviction but those measures do not apply to commercial tenants.

NDP MPP Peter Tabuns, who represents the riding of Toronto-Danforth, and Ward 14 Coun. Paula Fletcher are urging the Ford government to do more to assist these struggling businesses.

“Premier Ford can act fast to put laws in place protecting commercial tenants from being evicted. He can bring in commercial rent subsidies to protect small businesses and their landlords for the next few months, and he can keep our main streets from being devastated,” Tabuns said in a written statement.

“Action now can protect our businesses and our communities. It is in the premier’s hands.”

Fletcher said Toronto could begin to see boarded-up businesses in neighbourhoods across the city.

“Without action, it could take years for small businesses to recover,” she said in a news release issued Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters at Queen’s Park on Wednesday, Ford said Ontario Finance Minister Rod Phillips is working with the federal government to try to find new ways to help small businesses.

“You have to realize there is 1.2 million leases just here in Ontario and we need the support of the federal government if we are going to look at this. I encourage the landlords and the tenants when it comes to commercial leases to try to sit down and work it out,” Ford said.

“I know there is a small business loan, I believe it is $40,000, from the federal government that they can utilize as well to pay rent over the next couple of months until we get back on track here.”

Philip Kocev, treasurer of the Broadview-Danforth Business Improvement Area (BIA), said without rent relief, many businesses will be hard-pressed to recover.

“Many of our members are in a desperate situation as they have seen their incomes evaporate. With very small profit margins as it is, many face losing their location in days if there isn’t a protection on evictions,” he said in a written statement.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which represents 42,000 small and medium-sized businesses in the province, urged the provincial government to consider offering small businesses a “hardship grant” of $5,000 per month for as long as companies are forced to remain closed.

“The hardship grant could be used to help pay for rent, utilities and other fixed costs as businesses face mounting bills and debt during this unprecedented health and economic crisis. Based on a CFIB survey, only 50 per cent of Ontario’s small business owners are confident their business will survive if current conditions last until the end of May,” a spokesperson for CFIB said in an email to CP24 on Wednesday.

“The federal government has stepped up with a number of programs to help small businesses. It’s time for the province to help fill in the gaps with a made-in-Ontario hardship grant.”