1 in 5 small businesses dealing with tariffs won’t last more than 6 months if nothing changes: survey

A new survey released shows potential impacts from tariffs on small businesses across Canada.

A new survey says one in five small Canadian businesses dealing with tariff costs won’t last more than six months if the status-quo lingers on.

The survey of Canadian Federation of Independent Business members shows 62 per cent of businesses are facing higher expenses, 48 per cent are seeing lower revenues, 41 per cent are experiencing supply chain disruptions, and 41 per cent are pausing investments.

Additionally, 19 per cent of small businesses dealing with extra tariff costs report they won’t be able to last more than six months if the tariff situation remains, with 38 per cent saying they would last less than a year.

“At the end of the day many of these small businesses have been trying to absorb these added costs, but frankly they’re running out of runway,” said Ducan Robertson, the federation’s director of legislative affairs in Nova Scotia.

The federation is calling for the federal government to take retaliatory tariffs collected at the border and return it to businesses feeling the most impact.

“That could be in the form of reducing the federal small business tax rate to zero per cent, temporarily,” said Robertson. “It could be a rebate sent to small businesses, similar to what happened during the carbon tax.”

The federation said its online survey has been active since Aug. 8, with 1,721 respondents. For comparison purposes, a probability sample with the same number of respondents would have a margin of error of at most +/- 2.36 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

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