The executive director of Venture Kamloops says we need to prepare for a “reckoning point” of when the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy comes to an end.

Speaking to Kamloops council on Tuesday, Jim Anderson says many businesses are accessing that money from the federal government, and says there could be a “tipping point” when that ends.

“Regardless of what a business initially contacts us about, or what we initially reach out to business about, we bring the discussion around to planning for what it’s going to be like when everyone has to stand on their own. Some of those conversations are not pleasant. The economic fallout from the circumstances surrounding the pandemic has been devastating in certain areas of the economy. Kamloops is certainly not immune.”

CEWS has recently been extended to the summer of 2021. Recent numbers show it has supported wages of more than 16 per cent of Canadian workers, paying out more than $35 billion to companies in the past six months.

On the plus side locally, Anderson explains Kamloops is not a one-trick pony for the industries that employ workers, and he says that has helped the local economy keep its balance during the pandemic.

“We’ve always said that Kamloops is not going to be the beneficiary of meteoric, double-digit rises in GDP. However, we’re never going to be that community that is particularly hard hit by an economic turndown,” he says.

“Make no mistake, the economic fallout from the pandemic has had a definite effect on our economy. But not to the extent that it could’ve been.”