'It’s disappointing': Restaurants say Sask. budget missed the mark
A group representing Canadian restaurants says the Saskatchewan budget missed an opportunity to help the food service industry.
Restaurants Canada was looking for some cost relief as restaurants grapple with skyrocketing food prices, inflation, a labour shortage and recovery from the pandemic.
“The 2023 budget didn't really move the fiscal needle for the restaurant sector. It’s disappointing,” Jennifer Henshaw, Restaurants Canada’s vice-president of the prairies and the north, tells CTV News.
Restaurants Canada says 75 per cent of table-service restaurants are still in debt because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the group is pleased the budget contained no new taxes, it was pushing for measures to help businesses’ bottom lines.
It recommended Saskatchewan follow the lead of other provinces by introducing mitigating measures to soften the impact of the minimum wage increases.
This month, Manitoba introduced the Small Business Minimum Wage Program. The program helps offset the impact of minimum wage increases by offering a one-time lump sum payment of $520 per employee — up to a maximum of $10,400.
Restaurants Canada called for Saskatchewan to reinstate a PST exemption on dining.
In 2017, the province announced restaurant meals would be subject to PST.
Tabled on Wednesday, the province outlined a $1 billion surplus in the budget — which will go towards paying off debt.
“With that $1 billion surplus, they could have gone much farther to provide some cost relief for the hardest hit industries,” Henshaw said.
The finance minister pushed back against spending the surplus because the funding may not be able to continue in the future.
“We have to be very careful as a government to not take one-time revenue and incorporate it and bake it into our year-over-year operational costs … If you’ve baked it into your operational costs, then the following year, where do you find that money,” Finance Minister Donna Harpauer told reporters, following the release of the budget.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Doctors say capital gains tax changes will jeopardize their retirement. Is that true?
The Canadian Medical Association asserts the Liberals' proposed changes to capital gains taxation will put doctors' retirement savings in jeopardy, but some financial experts insist incorporated professionals are not as doomed as they say they are.
Something in the water? Canadian family latest to spot elusive 'Loch Ness Monster'
For centuries, people have wondered what, if anything, might be lurking beneath the surface of Loch Ness in Scotland. When Canadian couple Parry Malm and Shannon Wiseman visited the Scottish highlands earlier this month with their two children, they didn’t expect to become part of the mystery.
Fair in Ontario, flurries in Labrador: Weather systems make for an erratic spring
It's no secret that spring can be a tumultuous time for Canadian weather, and as an unseasonably mild El Nino winter gives way to summer, there's bound to be a few swings in temperature that seem out of the ordinary. From Ontario to the Atlantic, though, this week is about to feel a little erratic.
What a urologist wants you to know about male infertility
When opposite sex couples are trying and failing to get pregnant, the attention often focuses on the woman. That’s not always the case.
'It was instant karma': Viral video captures failed theft attempt in Nanaimo, B.C.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Northern Ont. lawyer who abandoned clients in child protection cases disbarred
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
An Ontario senior thought he called Geek Squad for help with his printer. Instead, he got scammed out of $25,000
An Ontario senior’s attempt to get technical help online led him into a spoofing scam where he lost $25,000. Now, he’s sharing his story to warn others.