Restaurants Canada says GST/HST break has had positive impact but not all agree

Recent data shows Canadian restaurants have seen a boost in dining & traffic over the past month. Industry officials say it is a sign the GST break is working.

Restaurants have seen a boost in dining and traffic over the past month coinciding with the GST and HST holiday, according to new data by Restaurants Canada and Open Table.

From Dec. 14 - 27 OpenTable looked at seated diners from online reservations for all restaurants active on the platform in Canada and compared the corresponding period in 2023.

“What we are seeing in even in the early go is about a 23% surge in online reservations through OpenTable in the province of Ontario, particularly, and anywhere where you have those provinces where it’s not just the GST, but the HST impact. it’s even greater,” said Kris Barnier, Restaurants Canada Central Canada VP.

He said the tax relief couldn’t have come at a better time.

“Pre-pandemic you would have had about 12% of restaurants at any given time, were really struggling just to break even, or they were losing money,” said Barnier.

“Today, we’re at 53% of restaurant companies across Canada are really struggling and that’s really on two things. One is, consumer spending has gone from, you know, in the province of Ontario from about $2,600 per capita, down to about $2,400 at the same time all the costs that restaurants are absorbing much like any Canadian are going up significantly. We’ve seen food costs go up about 25%.”

Barnier said he hopes that the initiative can be made permanent especially because of anticipated elections, Trumps presidency and a tariff crisis looms.

“We’re already seeing ahead of this that upwards of 80% of Canadians are saying, I need to save money somehow because my mortgage costs are up, my other costs are up,” he said.

“The top two things Canadians are doing to save money. is exactly what you’d expect is they’re going to restaurants less and they’re ordering in less.”

Bill Crumplin is a co-owner of Knowhere Public House in Sudbury, Ont., a kitchen and bar serving up locally inspired dishes and pub classics. He said he wishes it never happened.

“I don’t sense that it’s made any difference whatsoever. Nobody has said, oh, boy. I’m going to have another beer because, you know, the tax is not on it,” said Crumplin.

“I think it’s just the people don’t have faith in the economy right now and that’s still percolating through.”

He said luckily the business point of sale system was able to handle the tax-free aspect without much difficulty but he fears what will happen when it ends.

“We are very much aware of the fact that if we have an arrangement with a supplier, that it’s net 30 days, we want to use that whole 30 days and so anything we buy now, as I understand it, we have to pay for before Feb. 13th in order to qualify,” said Crumplin.

“What’s the frightening part for me is if we order an order of beer today or next week, we’re not paying tax. Great. We’re not collecting tax as we sell it, but we have to pay for that order before the 15th. Otherwise, we’re going to have to pay a penalty of 13% on the money that we didn’t collect … it’s going to drive everybody’s bookkeeper nuts.”

The GST/HST break is set to conclude on Feb. 15.