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The small business tenant would cover the remainder, up to 25 per cent of the rent.

Affected small business tenants are those paying less than $50,000 per month in rent and who have temporarily ceased operations, or have experienced at least a 70-per-cent drop in pre-COVID-19 revenues.

The federal Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. will administer and deliver the program.

Provinces and territories have agreed to cost share total costs and ensure implementation of the program. They will cover up to 25 per cent of costs, subject to terms of agreements with Ottawa.

It is expected the new program will be operational by mid-May, with commercial property owners lowering the rents of their small business tenant’s payable for the months of April and May, retroactively, and for June.

Clamouring

Small- and medium-sized businesses, most of them shuttered since mid-March, had been clamouring for relief as the May 1 deadline for their next rent payments looms.

Canadian Federation of Independent Business president Dan Kelly had told the House of Commons finance committee on Thursday that 70 per cent of the CFIB’s 30,000 members pay monthly rent for their business premises and, of those, 55 per cent report that they can’t afford to pay their rent next month.

Kelly said struggling businesses need a non-repayable rent subsidy, not loans or deferral of rent payments.

He was hoping, he said, that the federal government would pick up the tab for at least 75 per cent of the monthly rent owed by businesses that have been forced to close in a bid to curb the spread of the deadly coronavirus that causes COVID-19.