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Businesses that borrowed from a federal relief program during the pandemic tended to be small and heavily indebted, says a report by the Department of Industry.
Losses under the program are estimated to be in the billions.
Published late December, the report, "SME Profile: Recipients of the Canada Emergency Business Account," noted that the borrowers were typically “young” businesses.
"Around 40.8 percent of them had been in operation for no more than 10 years," said the federal department, as first reported by Blacklock's Reporter.
"Most of these (53.2 percent) were micro-sized, having no more than 4 employees, and 38 percent had between 5 and 19 employees."
The findings were based on a survey conducted by Statistics Canada from April to August 2021 on 19,283 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), using 2020 as the reference year....