On December 3rd, the Government of Saskatchewan announced the Saskatchewan Small Business Emergency Payment (SSBEP) program is being renewed for the period of December 1 to December 31. Through this program, small businesses closed or significantly curtailed due to a public health order will be eligible for provincial support.
The SSBEP program initially launched April 13, 2020, to provide support to small businesses that had to temporarily close or substantially curtail their operations as a result of COVID-19. The program was extended for May 2020 and provided 6,485 businesses more than $32 million in support.
The eligibility period for this phase of the SSBEP will be from December 1, 2020, to December 31, 2020, and is estimated to cost $8 million. Applications for the SSBEP will open on December 7, 2020 and the application deadline for this eligibility period is January 31, 2021.
Eligible applicants will receive a payment of 15 per cent of their monthly sales revenue, to a maximum of $5,000, based on the greater of November 2019, December 2019, or February 2020 sales revenue. For seasonal businesses, the funding support will be 15 per cent of the average monthly sales revenue for full months that the business operated in 2019.
Eligible applicants must attest that they:
are a small or medium business (0-499 employees);
maintain a permanent establishment in Saskatchewan and allocate a portion of their income to Saskatchewan;
were operating October 31, 2020, or eligible to operate, in the case of seasonal business;
are subject to a public health order that requires them to temporarily suspend or substantially curtail their operations during the eligibility period December 1 to December 31, 2020;
have experienced a loss of sales revenue; and
plan to reopen when the public health restrictions are lifted.
Further details and applications will be available at noon on December 7. For more information, businesses can visit www.saskatchewan.ca/covid19-businesses, call 1-800-667-6102, or email ssbep@gov.sk.ca.
