Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce unhappy about latest Ontario lockdown order

The Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce says the province's stay-at-home order is another blow to local businesses.

Cora Demarco, the chair of the board of directors, says the province has been sending mixed signals with its various announcements.

"I look at the restaurants who were told a couple weeks ago that patios were going to open. And they started their process of getting permits, getting the materials that they needed to construct their outdoor eating and convening spaces," she said.

"And now to hear that it's on pause for a month, or indefinitely ... it's extremely disheartening for them. And also it comes at a massive cost."

Demarco says the chamber would like to instead see a focus on the sustainable reopening of Ontario's economy, one that includes a focus on safety protocols, rapid testing, contact-tracing, and ramping up vaccinations.

"A safe reopening would [include] decisions based on data and transmission of where variants and positive cases are occurring and then controlling those areas appropriately. We don't have any evidence right now that suggests that one particular region or type of business is more prone to [transmission of cases] than others," she said.

"It just doesn't lend itself to sound reopening when we don't know exactly where the issues lie."

With the stay-at-home order in place, Demarco says she'd like to see more grants for businesses, to help them survive.

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"The Ontario Small Business Support Grant has helped those businesses. However, we need more support as we continue to have more lockdowns and more restrictions," she said.

"[The grant] needs to be doubled up with automatic top-ups for businesses who've applied and were approved last time. And it needs to be extended again ... to allow businesses to continue to operate under these tight, tight constraints. Closures buy us some time. But it comes at a very high cost to businesses and our economy, as well as the mental and long term health of Ontarians."

Demarco says Chamber members are feeling helpess.

"Our community needs support right now, more than ever. So [encourage people to] support our local restaurants and retailers that really could use a little bit of extra attention right now, especially," she said.

"Entrepreneurs are used to operating their own business and and they're not fond of relying on government grants. Any additional support we can give them to help pull them through this next wave will allow our businesses to reopen and and the opportunity for a possibility of a normal return to business as usual."