Prairie Dog and Planet S publications say they're facing shutdown as pandemic loan deadline closes in
Alternative publications are among those scrambling to repay federal CEBA loans by Jan. 18 deadline
Stephen Whitworth, the editor at Prairie Dog magazine, says he's dedicated 24 years of work to the Regina biweekly alternative publication.
But upcoming repayments for a loan taken through a federal pandemic support program have him worried about the future of Prairie Dog, along with its sister publication, Planet S in Saskatoon, both of which are published by an independent worker co-operative.
"We've really reached the end without substantial community support," said Whitworth.
The alternative papers are among more than 29,000 businesses in Saskatchewan that received a loan through the Canada emergency business account, or CEBA, program.
CEBA, launched in April 2020 to help Canadian small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, offered zero-interest loans of up to $60,000. Up to $20,000 would be forgiven if the rest was repaid by a certain date.
Last September, the government granted an extension to that deadline, moving it from Dec. 31, 2023, to Jan. 18, 2024. If businesses make a refinancing application before Jan. 18 with the financial institution that provided their CEBA loan, the deadline moves to March 28.
After the deadline, the loans will start accruing interest.
Whitworth has launched a fundraiser on the site GoFundMe, seeking to raise $60,000 by the Jan. 18 deadline, saying the publication is "facing an existential crisis and desperately needs" help.
With the CEBA loan and a substantial amount of accumulated debt due to shortfalls last year, Whitworth says the fundraiser is the company's last option to stay open. Without funding, both papers are "guaranteed" to close, he said.
"We've done other things to try and fundraise. We've done a lot of things on … [the] sales front," he said. "None of them have produced the scale of results that we need to stay viable and stay in business."
Whitworth said when the publications launched, they were able to employ full-time staff, but over the years they had to cut back on costs to stay afloat.
The pandemic led to additional cutbacks for Prairie Dog, including layoffs and moving out of office space.
"We've now laid off more staff, and we're looking at laying ourselves off to save money, which will likely happen very soon — so basically going down to virtually no staff," said Whitworth.
Extend deadline, says business owner
Prairie Dog is not the only Regina business that has had to struggle with meeting the Jan. 18 CEBA deadline.
Coffee shop and bookstore owner Annabel Townsend also grappled with that reality.
Townsend said she opened up the Penny University Bookstore in 2020 right before the pandemic hit, and got a CEBA loan in 2021.
During that time she was able to move her business to a new location, and open a second location, Tuppenny Coffee and Books, in 2023. But she still struggled with finding the funds to repay the loan.
She attempted to take out other loans to repay the CEBA loan before the deadline but was rejected.
Eventually, her husband was able to expand his line of credit to $40,000 to help her meet the deadline — but without that help, her business could have faced a possible shutdown, she said.
"If I don't pay it off now I will be in default to the federal government, which is not a good position to be in," she said. "If I don't find this [CEBA payment] by the 18th of January, I will be looking at going under."
Townsend says her business is still doing its best to stay afloat, but both locations are just breaking even.
Despite obtaining the funds to repay the loan, she's urging the government to extend the CEBA deadline for small business owners who need more time.
"I don't see why they can't extend it," she said. "It's all over the news how bad the economy is. The cost of everything is going up and sales are staying flat."
Meanwhile, Whitworth says an online fundraiser won't end the financial troubles his newspapers are in, but it could help slow them down.
"We're treating this situation like the emergency it is," he said. "The patient is on the table, its heart keeps stopping. That's the state we're at."
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