Are Canadian Small Businesses at Risk Amid Pandemic Bills?

On today's Big Story podcast, we hear it again and again: small businesses are the backbone of our economy. To push the metaphor a little further, if that is the case, then our economy is beginning to weaken in a big way. Last year, small business insolvencies reached levels not seen in more than a decade. Many more business owners simply closed up and left, leaving empty storefronts behind.

Ryan Mallow of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business paints a very bleak future for small businesses in Canada. “It would still be difficult to get out of the pandemic,” says Mallow, “but the reality we have now, the global pressure we're seeing, is that there's not a lot of optimism for 2024.”

How many mom-and-pop shops are likely to disappear from our high streets in the coming year? Should governments do more to contain them? What is the long-term impact on our economy?

You can subscribe to The Big Story podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google and Spotify. You can also find it at thebigstorypodcast.ca.