Exhaustive blocking has Toronto companies at breaking point

Photographer: Galit Rodan / Bloomberg

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Canada’s financial capital is in a pandemic blockade that seems to be endless.

Restaurants in Toronto were forced to close their dining rooms in October, when a second wave of Covid-19 was beginning to take over the city. They have not been opened since. Gyms, nail salons and barber shops have been closed for almost the same time. The mayor’s hair grew so thick that it became a talking point on twitter.

When spring came, there was a glimpse of hope. Restaurants could create outdoor patios; beauty salons were informed that may open on April 12. These plans were canceled on Thursday, when the Ontario government applied a four-week “emergency brake” that tightens restrictions again and extends them across the province to 14.7 million people.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, a conservative elected in 2018 with strong support from companies, begged for understanding. The virus left him with no choice, he said. “This decision weighs heavily on me,” he said. “I know what it means for people, to have been here for more than a year in this pandemic. It is frustrating and very, very difficult. “

For some entrepreneurs, “difficult” has turned into despair. They are irritated by the endless restrictions and slow pace of Canada’s vaccine program. On a national survey of companies released in March, 10% of companies said they could continue for less than 12 months at current levels of income and expenses.

Only 13.3% of the Canadian population received at least one injection of Covid-19. In the USA, it is 30%, according to the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker.

Read more: Vaccine Trickle Becomes Torrent with Expansion of US Eligibility Rules

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has set a goal to vaccinate all adults by September. Meanwhile, the Canada-United States border remains closed to most travelers, as it has been doing for over a year, threatening airlines, hotels and tourism companies with a second arid summer.

“The mood of the business community has changed dramatically,” said Dan Kelly, executive director of the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses, a small business lobby group. It has gone from accepting the necessary measures to “enrage” the government, he said.

At lunchtime on a recent weekday, a sign outside Chotto Matte, a Japanese-Peruvian restaurant across the street The Royal Bank of Canada headquarters declared the courtyard open for dinner. No one was sitting there, despite the sunny, warm spring weather.

Wall Street companies may be planning bring many employees back to the office soon, but on Toronto’s Bay Street, the scene is quiet and it will almost certainly remain so for almost 2021.

At Bank of Montreal headquarters, less than 10% of employees entered the office regularly last year. Most home-based workers will stay there until vaccines are widely available, said Mona Malone, director of human resources at the Bank of Montreal, in an interview.

In the long run, Malone expects the bank to adopt a hybrid model, with some employees staying home part of the time. “People miss the connectivity with their colleagues, but it will be different,” said Malone. “They are not going to go back to a pre-Covid experience.”

Toronto banks have quickly adapted to the pandemic and are now gaining higher profits than before Covid-19 as the Canadian real estate market go up. But the small businesses around them are starting to explode.

Tom Antonarakis owns two seafood restaurants in downtown Toronto and plans to sell them for a reduced price. Both are in food courts that have a crowd of office workers during lunch.

“I am trying to sell these two locations for almost 30 cents on the dollar,” said Antonarakis. “We tried to open after the first block and then they closed us again.” He has also sold one of his two food trucks and is operating the other at a mall in the suburbs.

Ford and his senior officials acknowledge the financial pain, but say the numbers justify the extent of the restrictions.

Ontario saw about 160 new cases of the virus daily per million inhabitants last week. This is much less than neighbors Michigan and New York and is still well below the peak of the province’s second wave.

But Ontario hospitals reached a new record for Covid-19 intensive care patients this week. The problem is a new variant of the virus, known as B.1.1.7, which is making people sicker.

“It is spreading much faster than before and we cannot vaccinate fast enough to break this third wave,” Adalsteinn Brown, a doctor who is co-chair of the Ontario Covid-19 Science Advisory Table, said at a news conference on Thursday.

Virus spike

A third wave of Covid-19 cases is hitting Ontario

Source: Government of Ontario