Aug. 21, 2025 "‘A roller coaster of announcements:’ CFIB warns about 40% of small businesses will close within a year": Today I found this article by Joshua Santos on BNN Bloomberg:
Canadian small businesses are feeling the pressure of the Canada-U.S. trade war as a national advocacy group warns about 40 per cent will close shop for good within a year.
Tariffs on steel and aluminum
and retaliatory duties on U.S. goods
are hurting small business owners,
with a quarter fearing they will go under in six months if there aren’t any changes to tariff rates, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses (CFIB)
“It’s been, unsurprisingly, perhaps, a roller coaster of announcements, re announcements, retractions and businesses have had to navigate this uncertainty almost on a constant basis trying to adjust and readjust their plans,”
Simon Gaudreault, CFIB’s chief economist and vice-president of research, told BNN Bloomberg in an interview.
“They’re telling us that it has had a significant impact on their business in many cases, and the impacts can be also quite varied.”
The group says the trade war is squeezing small businesses
as nearly 62 per cent are dealing with higher expenses
and 48 per cent are seeing lower revenue.
“About seven out of 10 businesses mentioned that they were impacted by at least one type of tariff,
or retaliatory tariff from the trade war,”
said Gaudreault.
“That’s a significant number. In some cases, businesses are more directly impacted.
We can think of manufacturers, for example,
but you also have in certain sectors of the economy significant numbers of businesses indirectly impacted.
We can think, for example, of transportation companies that are part of the supply chain that are being caught in the crossfire.”
The U.S. Commerce Department recently hiked steel and aluminum tariffs on more than 400 products pushing a 50 per cent rate.
U.S. President Donald Trump imposed 35 per cent tariffs on products not covered under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement (CUSMA) earlier this month.
Goods transshipped to another country to evade the tariffs will be subject to a transshipment levy of 40 per cent.
“The 50 per cent tariffs, for example, that the U.S. government has put in place represents a significant addition to their business costs,”
said Gaudreault.
“Actually, that’s what our survey says. That’s one of the most important impacts that has been reported by businesses. Additional costs.”
The report found
41 per cent of businesses are dealing with supply chain disruptions
and 36 per cent paused investments as a result.
“Businesses may also react to this by pausing certain business plans,” said Gaudreault.
“For example, a third of businesses in our surveys mentioned … that they were pausing various plans like
investment in machinery and equipment
or hiring,
and in some cases, you will also see production slowing down as businesses are trying to
read a bit of what’s going on and
trying to plan
and build
or reduce inventory.”
Canada has implemented retaliatory tariffs of 25 per cent on goods from the U.S. without any price adjustment from suppliers,
according to the Department of Finance.
The CFIB estimates Ottawa has generated $29.8 billion from counter measures.
They said 82 per cent of businesses want the federal government to support them with revenue collected from counter tariffs.
Aug. 27, 2025 "Nearly 40% of businesses likely to pass on tariff costs to customers: StatCan": Today I found this article by Jordan Fleguel on BNN Bloomberg:
New data suggests that nearly 40 per cent of Canadian businesses plan to pass on tariff-related costs to consumers over the next year, though most expect to continue operating despite the ongoing trade war.
Statistics Canada’s Survey of Business Conditions for the third quarter of 2025, released Wednesday,
found that 39.4 per cent of businesses were either very likely or somewhat likely to pass cost increases due to U.S. tariffs onto their customers over the next 12 months.
That’s compared with 15.4 per cent of Canadian businesses who were very unlikely or somewhat unlikely to do the same,
while 27.2 per cent of businesses did not expect any cost increases due to tariffs over the next 12 months.
Although costs are expected to increase for many Canadian businesses in the coming months, “the proportion of businesses with a positive outlook has remained comparable with previous quarters,” StatCan said in a release Wednesday.
The survey found that 53 per cent of businesses expect to be able to operate for the next year or longer if the tariffs and counter tariffs imposed by the U.S. and Canada remain at current levels.
That’s compared to 5.8 per cent of businesses who anticipate being unable to continue operating in the current environment beyond the next 12 months,
and 41.3 per cent of businesses who said they are unsure how long they’ll be able to continue operating if tariff pressures do not ease.
“Furthermore, 51.6 per cent of businesses across Canada anticipate being able to maintain their current level of staffing over the next 12 months or longer if the tariffs imposed by the U.S. and Canada remain at their current levels,” StatCan said.
“Meanwhile, 8.2 per cent of businesses anticipate being able to maintain their current staffing level for less than 12 months,
and 40.2 per cent of businesses are unsure how long they can maintain their current level of staffing if tariffs remain at their current levels.”
Obstacles, optimism
The survey found that 66.7 per cent of Canadian businesses in the third quarter were very optimistic or somewhat optimistic about their outlook over the next 12 months,
down slightly from 70 per cent who reported feeling the same in StatCan’s second quarter survey.
“Meanwhile, 13.8 per cent of businesses expect their sales of goods or services to increase over the next three months,
a decrease from 16.2 per cent in the second quarter of 2025,” StatCan said.
“At the same time, 18.9 per cent of businesses expect sales of their goods or services to decrease.”
When it comes to cost pressures, however, less Canadian businesses expect them to be a problem over the next three months compared to StatCan’s second quarter survey, the agency said.
“In the third quarter of 2025,
62.2 per cent of businesses across Canada expect cost-related obstacles over the next three months,
down from 65.4 per cent in the second quarter of 2025,” the release read.
“When asked to indicate which expected obstacle would be the most challenging over the next three months,
13.3 per cent of businesses expect it to be inflation,
9.7 per cent said recruiting skilled employees,
and 5.5 per cent said cost of inputs.”
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