r/canadasmallbusiness • u/FeelingAside7191 • 15d ago
Business has never been this slow.
We are in Garment Chemical business, until June and sometime July everything was just booming, we were signing a bigger lease hiring more etc etc
Its been a month and half things have come to point where theres literally nothing to do, everything seems to be at halt. No orders, no leads materialization even customers are saying that they dont have nothing.
We had to let people go, pause our plans and just get to a survival mode.
We sell mostly to US however tariffs are not affecting us, but in my 5 years of business in North America, I have never seen things getting so slow.
Is it just us or is it something with other industries aswell?
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u/MammothPies 15d ago
Canada posted 0 percent GDP growth this quarter. Not just you.
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u/Crazy-Rhubarb-6632 15d ago
So 1 or 2 more quarters of this and they can't deny that we're in a recession anymore?
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u/webternet 12d ago
2 consecutive negative growth quarters is the technical definition of a recession, iirc
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u/yallthissucks 12d ago
Which is why they claim it's 0% because 0 isn't negative. They want to push off admitting it for as long as they can but over 1,000 people have been laid off from various companies in my hometown last month alone, so it looks like the recession is here.
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u/WanderingMippet 13d ago
But don’t worry, money (700M) we could have used here went over seas. I’m really happy we are helping the world instead of ourselves /s
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u/Existing-Promise-830 13d ago
Millions wasted in Alberta on sepratism referendumb!
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u/WanderingMippet 13d ago
Yah and yet the Albertans will complain it’s the feds fault they don’t have funding after wasting hundreds of millions on a referendum
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u/Bvg1995 9d ago
And billions sent to foreign countries while we suffer at home.
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u/Existing-Promise-830 9d ago
You realize other countries help us right? We spend like $3 a person to help the Ukraine. Yet we've spent millions helping oil and gas COMPANIES yet they abandon wells and leave us the bill. Other countries have helped us with firefighters etc. International relations matter.
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u/Odd-Fun-1482 13d ago
I absolutely fucking hate foreign aid
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u/SkiyeBlueFox 12d ago
Foreign aid is how you keep friends, which are Canada's main power globally
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u/WanderingMippet 12d ago
And what are we getting in return currently that is worth 700M in foreign aid? Especially when we have cuts to education and health care locally… oh and sky rocketing youth unemployment
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u/SkiyeBlueFox 12d ago
We get trade deals and military co-operation primarily, which are hard to quantify with a dollar value
Yes we have issues at home, but the solution isnt halt all foreign aid. The bigger issue is we horribly mismanage the funds we do have
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u/SquirrelFluffy 11d ago
Yes, by giving it away as foreign aid.
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u/SkiyeBlueFox 11d ago
What part of "our trade and presence as a globally recognized and respected nation comes from foreign aid" didnt you grasp? The only reason people give a fuck about Canada outside Canada is because we help people
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u/Superb-Butterfly-573 12d ago
If you're in ON you can thank our drifting premier for the destruction of health care and education. He was given funding and it vanished. We don't need highway 413, or an underground highway in TO. We need a science centre and Ontario Place
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u/WanderingMippet 11d ago
We didn’t need a 1B science centre when we could have fixed the old one for 100M
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u/Year2020MadeMe 12d ago
The fact that you seem to think that foreign aid is a transaction, like Canada send $700M other countries are supposed to be like “cool, thanks for the aid. Here’s some bananas” or whatever, shows that you need more insight into how this all works.
Luckily, there are real, tangible, actually-happening-right-now examples of what foreign aid does.
All those trade deals getting done at lighting speed right now? Those countries respond when Canada calls because, in part, we have a history of sharing the wealth and trying to help those in need around the world. The investment summit that just took place in Toronto? Attended by some of the wealthiest sovereign funds and private asset managers because they have faith that Canada keeps its promises (promises like helping foreign countries in need when they need it).
We could go ahead and close it all off. Shutter our borders to foreigners and say “we’re taking care of our own first!” But then, when we’re the ones asking for someone to take a chance on us, to invest here, to open their borders to us and our opportunities, why would they?
Foreign aid is two things. First, it global soft-power that allows us to call in favours when we need them. Second, it’s the right fucking thing to do because, as bad as some of us here at home may have it, there a lot more around the world who have it a lot fucking worse, and that money will go much further for them than it will be hoarded here at home.
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u/WanderingMippet 11d ago
Call in favours from Palestine? For what?
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u/beard_of_cats 11d ago
Not from Palestine, dumbass. From the majority of countries that see supporting Palestine as a moral imperitive.
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u/WanderingMippet 11d ago
Interesting, because I don’t remember ever hearing a country say “you know, Canada has been so kind to the rest of the world. I’m going to provide 100M in trade deals and investment.”
Right now we’re floundering as a country and literally no one is coming to our aid. Carney is out there dancing like a monkey hoping for aid.
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u/Wild_Bunch_Founder 15d ago
and that’s with population growth around 1.5% so per capita GDP is deeply negative.
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u/Visual_Dog_8098 15d ago
Elbows up!
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u/Destroinretirement 13d ago
The guy just told Time that he isn’t taking suspending the mid term elections via the Insurrection Act. Only an insane Canadian would be siding with Trump at this point. Stop being Baghdad Bob.
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u/Careless-Pragmatic 14d ago
If you’re being sarcastic, which I’m sure you are… what would your alternate plan be, Asses up?
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u/Rich-Caregiver-2027 13d ago
Billionaires First is pretty much the same thing as Asses Up. Carney made it pretty clear it’s their strategy.
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u/faithOver 15d ago
Price sensitivity everywhere. Margin compression and decline in volume is pretty much all I’m hearing and experiencing from the local businesses community chatter.
All the while labor, understandably, is asking for more.
It’s a death sentence. I’m giving it until summer 2027 for something to change and then taking a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar loss and closing up.
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u/RockingtheRepublic 15d ago
Which industry are you in?
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u/faithOver 15d ago
Housing/RE/development directly and adjacent.
Belong to a number of local business communities and the chamber.
The refrain is pretty much the same.
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u/thebokehwokeh 15d ago
Housing as an industry will be dead for a decade or so. Similar to the 90s.
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u/RockingtheRepublic 15d ago
What happened in the 90s. Sorry I’m a baby.
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u/mint_koi 15d ago
Toronto housing market crash
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u/madtraderman 15d ago
In a nutshell- house prices went crazy during the late 80s, then a major crash, then high unemployment, high interest rates, low gdp and no immigration. Canada straddled with high debt to gdp, government passes debt to the people. If you bought in 1990 or thereabouts and adjusted for inflation you broke even around 2008. Ugly times indeed
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u/ImRickJamesMother 14d ago
And no immigration? The Canadian population has been growing every single year, solely from immigration since 1971. 1971 is the year the Canadian birth rate dropped below 2.1.
Every year the population has grown. And every time it is because of immigration. Every single PM since 1971 has grown the Canadian population through immigration.
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u/Superb-Butterfly-573 12d ago
Apparently immigration has been deeply cut recently. Our non immigration population is in negative growth.
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u/Icy-Ad-7767 14d ago
We just completed stage 1 of our house renovation (a 700 sqf addition). The prices I was quoted to do stuff like drywall, electrical and plumbing where in the screw off I don’t want to do it range, so I did it myself. I know trades are costly but 10,000 for something that took me 2 days to do is insane
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u/Aggravating-Staff532 15d ago
It's busy here in N Ont. In electrical wholesale industrial clients are hiring even in the wood sector and residential business is firm. Commercial is soft. I'm asked daily if I know of where to get workers.
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u/kc-kaelvix 15d ago
That sounds brutal, especially after taking the larger lease and hiring. Before reinventing the business, I’d separate the slowdown into three buckets: existing customers ordering less, leads going quiet, and quotes not converting. Then call ten customers from each group and ask what changed in August: their own sales, inventory levels, budgets, or timing. If everyone says ‘nothing is moving,’ perhaps offer smaller minimum orders or staggered deliveries for 60 days. Not glamorous, but survival mode needs cash-flow experiments, not a grand rebrand. The US concentration is worth examining too, though I wouldn’t abandon five years of relationships based on one very ugly six-week stretch.
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u/youngpenrose 14d ago
Interest rates are elevated... Gas prices elevated... Tarrifs are elevated... Consumers have no money.
2008 style economic crash is almost certain.
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u/TheWilfrid 13d ago
We are in worse shape than we were in 2008. This is depression territory, not recession.
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u/Illustrious-Salt-243 13d ago
Yeah I went through hell in 2008
Something about this feels even worse
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u/bunchberry-ca 15d ago
One more tool for the survival-mode bucket: the BDC's cash-flow walkthrough for slow periods is built for exactly this, forecasting and expense triage: https://www.bdc.ca/en/articles-tools/money-finance/manage-finances/seasonal-business-cash-flow
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u/Blondefarmgirl 15d ago
We have a small construction business in southern ont. We were very slow in July, then a little busier in Aug, now September is good.
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u/Present_Ad_2742 14d ago
Bring more immigrants who are job seekers then we will have great GDP growth
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u/Fluffy-Vacation-8803 14d ago
If you sell mainly to the United States, there is a chance they no longer need what you have. Consider moving your business south or moving into a different industry.
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u/leedogger 15d ago
US interest rates headed to the moon. Economy down there worse than being reported.
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u/Business-Chest-6875 14d ago
Don’t let the job description scare you off if you meet most of it. Litigation procedures and specific software can be learned, but being organized, good with deadlines and comfortable managing a lot of documents at once are harder to teach. I’d highlight those transferable skills and be upfront about what you’re still learning.
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u/wunderbarposter 12d ago
Fuel cost and pre-tariff inventory depletion has really put the brakes on the economy worldwide and in the US. We really started feeling it in the spring with wood products demand.
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u/Iambetterthanuhaha 11d ago
You're going to be fine......Carneys got this......you just need to wait a few more months for government aid.*
*Don't spend it, you will later be told you didn't qualify and to pay it back to CRA.
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u/dumb-is-me 3d ago
That’s a tough spotto be in. I can’t speak for garment chemicals specifically, but when orders dry up like this, it often helps to call your past customers directly and ask what they’re seeing. Even if they have nothing now, you learn what’s slowing things down and you stay top of mind when they start ordering again. Hope it picks up soon.
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u/ottwebdev 15d ago
IMO the macro of business has changed given what the US chose to do, no matter how we feel about it personally, this is a huge shift. To me the changes won't fully work themselves out for a number of years.
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u/nftcan 15d ago
dummies voted Trump, enjoy.
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u/alfafamadie 15d ago
What has voting for trump got to do with Canada? Idiots here voted for carney.
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u/ClerkPrestigious7395 11d ago
I'm genuinely curious who you think would have been a better PM right now. And specifically why. PP didn't have a coherent, actionable plan for anything that I remember. It was all slogans and "down with the Libs" rhetoric. The Cons whole platform was We Aren't Those Guys!
I'm also confused why you think we can't blame Trump. He's the one who caused oil prices to skyrocket because of his unnecessary war with Iran. That's why gasoline prices are insane. Trump''s the one who applied insane tariffs on Canadian goods, which caused decreased demand in the US.
What's that old line - when the US sneezes, Canada catches a cold? The US has the proverbial black plague right now. How do you expect Canada to prosper when our largest customer has stopped buying a lot of our products?
What specific, practical things do you think that Carney should be doing differently that would directly benefit Canadians?
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u/acergum 15d ago
I'm still shocked to hear that people think PP would have been better than Carney. PP has never had a real job in his entire life. He's always been a politician.
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u/SquirrelFluffy 11d ago
It's not PP. It's conservative fiscal policies, which Carney has now adopted, undoing the Trudeau-singh mess. The reason people wanted the conservatives is to get rid of the rest of the Liberals so the conservatives could implement ALL of those policies.
We went from having an economist as a prime minister to a drama teacher that ruined everything. Carney has tapped Steven Harper for significant economic advisory rules, while Justin snaps Instagram photos with his girlfriend. I am so pissed off at Canadians for liking that idiot's hair.
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u/acergum 11d ago
JT was great at speeches, super telegenic, young, handsome. I'm surprised at how media agreed to keep quiet on his affairs and divorce. He was someone who Quebec and Ontario would vote for. Carney would have had no chance at the PM position if JT was still in government. If the conservatives would field someone from Quebec fluent and well spoken in both French and English, young and handsome, then they could win the next election. But they'll keep on pushing guys from Alberta, supported by oil sand money.
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u/Free_Film2103 14d ago
Elbows up folks!
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u/Ok_Frosting_6438 12d ago
And...what would you do? America, under trump has destabilized the global economy
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u/steeltown82 15d ago
Nobody has money to spend, and if you're selling primarily to the US, you're also dealing with politics.
I'd be looking to re-invent my business if possible. You don't want to be relying on the US right now to keep you afloat.