MONTREAL — The Government of Quebec is contributing $20 million to support the City of Montreal under the Aide d’urgence aux petites et moyennes entreprises (emergency aid for small and medium-sized enterprises, or SMEs) program and come to the assistance of the city’s businesses facing financial hardship due to COVID-19. A sum of $40 million was previously granted to the city through this program.
Mélanie Joly, Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages and Minister responsible for CED, Minister of Economy and Innovation Pierre Fitzgibbon and Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante announced an injection of new funding, worth $50 million in total, to support businesses. The funds will be administered by PME MTL, the City of Montreal’s business-support network.
The Government of Canada, through Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions (CED), is planning to grant up to $30 million to the PME MTL network through the Regional Relief and Recovery Fund (RRRF). This support is aimed at Montreal businesses ineligible for other federal measures related to COVID-19 that are already in place.
This funding is in addition to the amounts already injected by the City of Montreal. On May 7, the city announced $2 million in additional support in the form of grants to entrepreneurs in the retail sector and $2 million to support social-economy businesses.
From the beginning of the crisis, the city also announced it would cover, for a six-month period, the interest portion of loans taken out by businesses from PME MTL through the Fonds PME MTL, the Fonds Locaux de Solidarité, the Fonds de Commercialisation des innovations and the Fonds d’aide d’urgence worth $40 million from the Government of Quebec.
“To enable Montreal’s economy to bounce back fully, we must support entrepreneurs to ensure the survival of our commercial arteries, especially downtown. The collaboration of all players in the business community and the different levels of government is primordial in getting through this crisis and kickstarting our economy,” says Joly. “Today, we are witnessing unprecedented economic solidarity between the federal government, the Government of Quebec and the [City of Montreal] to the benefit of all Montrealers.”
