Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland will face questions from senators Thursday afternoon as they scrutinize the government's latest bid to provide pandemic aid to hard-hit businesses. 

Freeland is scheduled to testify to the Senate's national finance committee that is reviewing the aid bill, known as C-9. 

The House of Commons agreed last week to pass the proposed package of measures quickly, but none can be enacted until the Senate passes it as well. 

Bill C-9 would extend the federal wage subsidy until next summer, cancelling a previously planned decline in its value, as well as expanding a popular business loan program. 

The legislation would also redo a program for commercial rent relief that was widely criticized because its original design needed buy-in from landlords, many of whom did not participate.

And it would provide more top-up help for businesses whose revenues crash because of local lockdowns, similar to those being imposed in parts of the country right now as COVID-19 case numbers rise. 

More than one-third of small businesses are still seeing revenue declines of 50 per cent or more, Canadian Federation of Independent Business president Dan Kelly told the Senate finance committee Thursday. 

The second wave of COVID-19 has prompted a further sales drop at more than half of the country's 110,000 small and medium-sized enterprises, he said. 

"That's deeply worrisome to us." 

Call for wage subsidy changes

Pointing to "giant gaps" in the proposed programs before the Senate, Kelly called for new businesses to be better accommodated under the subsidy packages, most of which require that the businesses were operating before March 2020 to qualify. 

The government should also double the wage subsidy amounts available to applicants of the revised Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, said Lauren van den Berg, vice-president at Restaurants Canada. 

The industry group, whose 40,000 members have seen job losses of 188,000 this year, is demanding a subsidy of 1.6 times the decline in sales, up to a maximum of 75 per cent of wage costs. 

Under Bill C-9, many entrepreneurs would receive a wage subsidy of just half that sum, or 80 per cent of sales. 

"I know it sounds drastic to double it, but that's because the assumptions made back in June have been cut in half," van den Berg said. 

"When the government proposed the extension of the wage subsidy back in June and July, we were more optimistic as a country. The sun was shining, the weather was warm, patios could be enjoyed again," she told the committee. 

"But the reality is that we're now in the middle of a second wave. Now, winter is literally coming and indoor dining rooms are being shut down across the country."