Dan Kelly

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says the Canada carbon rebate for small businesses will be tax-free.

A small business advocacy group is re-upping calls to eliminate the carbon tax, after it says members learned the Canada carbon rebate for small businesses is a taxable benefit.

With a variety of fiscal and policy measures announced in the federal budget, here's a look at some of the winners and losers:

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland delivered a federal budget on Tuesday that keeps the deficit capped at $40 billion, thanks to higher-than-expected government revenues and new taxes that largely offset billions in new spending.

As the deadline to repay pandemic loans and receive partial forgiveness approaches, small businesses are still hoping the federal government will reverse course and extend it for another year.

Labour Minister Seamus O'Regan said in a statement issued late Tuesday that the gap between the positions of employers and the port workers union in the 11-day-old strike is "not sufficient to justify a continued work stoppage."

Shoplifting has surged to an alarming level across Canada, industry insiders say, with inflation and labour shortages cited as major factors behind the increase.

Small business owners have made a plea to the federal finance minister to consider more help paying off their pandemic-related debts as the sixth wave of COVID-19 causes customers to stay home and sales to fall.

The mayor of Canada's capital city is urging the federal government to send its workers back to their downtown offices to bolster flagging local businesses.

Businesses struggling under yet another round of lockdowns and capacity restrictions will have an extra year to repay emergency interest-free loans issued by the federal government, but business groups say that might not be enough breathing room for the hardest hit.

Canada's federal government offered a lifeline to businesses struggling amid the latest wave of the COVID-19 pandemic by expanding eligibility for two benefit programs.

The 40-strong team of workers at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business that takes calls from the association's members has been hearing a lot about loans.

The Trudeau Liberals have outlined their latest aid package for an economy recovering from COVID-19, proposing targeted support to severely affected businesses, locked-down workers, and extra weeks of benefits that expired just days ago.

Come Jan. 1, 2021, Canada Pension Plan contributions are going up again, although higher than originally planned. The reason is largely because of the pandemic's effect on the labour market, which has some groups noting the impact will be felt by some workers more than others.

The Trudeau Liberals sought on Friday, October 9, 2020, to get ahead of growing economic concerns linked to rising COVID-19 case counts, vowing new and revamped business supports to keep workers on payrolls and maintain job gains threatened by the pandemic's second wave.