New fund supports smaller Thunder Bay businesses during U.S.-Canada trade war

The Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce and Community Economic Development Commission (CEDC) are teaming up to support small-and medium-sized businesses as they navigate the Canada-United States trade war.

The two organizations launched the Small Business Tariff Response Fund on Monday. The fund will provide 15 eligible businesses with $7,500 in funding, for projects that have a minimum cost of $10,000.

Applications will be accepted until May 30.

"Tell us the story about how this is going to impact your business," chamber President Charla Robinson said. "What is the breadth of the impact, how are you going to transition it, and what kind of resources are you needing, so that we can evaluate who needs the money the most."

"It is a very limited amount of funding, but we feel that the 15 projects should be sufficient to address the need in the market."

Robinson said the fund is open to businesses with 50 or fewer employees.

"We know that both the federal and provincial governments are still working on some bigger programs," she said. "But we didn't want to wait too long."

"We want to make sure that businesses know that there's something that is much more quick and responsive to their needs, so that they're not left holding the bag, so to speak," Robinson said. "So that's why we wanted to roll this out as quickly as we can."

Jamie Taylor, CEO of the CEDC, said it's hard to predict the impact of the trade war and tariffs, because things are changing so quickly.

"We've heard from several small businesses through our entrepreneur centres specifically about how it's affecting them," she said, adding that with the pandemic, there's been a lot of turmoil for smaller businesses in recent years.

"We want to be able to assist them in any way we can," Taylor said. "Obviously, there's bigger discussions for some of the larger companies. We're monitoring that."