The government’s COVID supports fail to include new businesses.

Madam Speaker, my constituent Abhi opened a restaurant, the Flame Kitchen, just before COVID. Since then he has been unable to draw a wage and the restaurant is at risk of permanently closing, yet his business has been completely shut out of the government’s COVID supports because of a failure to include new businesses.

For a government that claims to have Canadians’ backs, why after 14 months does the government not have Abhi’s back and the backs of new business owners like him?