From her elevated office in Stedmans, on Main Street in Shawville, Rhonda Meisner can observe her store from the high ground. Perched on the raised box, she has the aura of a captain standing at the helm of a ship. At the moment, she is currently steering her business through uncharted, unpredictable waters, and she shared her thoughts with The Equity on Friday about how they have weathered the COVID pandemic. “I have been working here, doing this, running this store for most of my life” she said. “The business has been in my family since I was a child, so I know my customers. And I know what I’m doing.” And she does – taking a moment to look around, her enormous store is meticulous. The merchandise is organised, tidy and clean – and Stedmans seems to have just about everything. She joked “My customers tell me if they can’t find an item anywhere else, they’ll find it here.” But the moment of levity was short-lived. “The pandemic seems to be waning, but things are definitely not back to normal. The cost of goods and the cost of shipping — all of it has gone up,” she explained. “The price I have to pay is reflected in the price I charge my customers. Inflation is absolutely crazy at the moment.” This is not breaking news to anyone who has had to buy things lately, but there is a ripple effect: “When people can’t afford things anymore, when prices get too high, they start asking for higher wages,” Rhonda explained. “At the moment, because of the pandemic, because of CERB, because of inflation, a lot of businesses are struggling to find employees who are willing to work in retail jobs.” Meisner covers both ends of this spectrum on this topic – her longest employee has been with the company for decades, and her newest has been there for less than a week. “If I pay my employees a higher wage, I have to pay higher payroll taxes – because it’s based on a percentage of their wages – paying higher income to your employee means you also pay more to the government.” When asked for a solution, Meisner was pragmatic and direct. “We need the government to make this easier – or at the very least, not make it harder,” she explained. “We are struggling to pay increased prices, increased wages, higher shipping rates, and increased taxes at a time when business still isn’t back to normal. I don’t have any problem with paying more money to employees who need to survive in an increasingly expensive world, but it would be nice if we weren’t also paying the additional [payroll tax portion] on top of that.”

As Stedmans gears up for the holiday season, the conversation turned to Christmas shopping. Her yearly agenda is well-honed after decades of practice. “Every year, we order things in January or February, and they get here for October or November – it gives us time to put things on the shelves for the busy shopping season. We should be able to order things in February and expect delivery by October. Maybe November,” she said. “But this year, a lot of things just haven’t arrived.” If I order Christmas supplies, and they get here in January, what good does that do me?”

Another business owner struggling with the after-effects of the pandemic is Donnie’s Pub, in Fort-Coulonge, which is run by Angèle Dubeau and her husband Donnie. Angèle made time to speak with The Equity while bartending and participating in the darts league she organizes each Wednesday. Her establishment is fun and nostalgic – a lively, neighbourhood pub. Her patrons are outstanding in their welcome. One was celebrating her birthday and immediately provided two different kinds of cake. Several others offered darts. The atmosphere was ebullient, but amidst the ruckus Angèle was clearly frustrated. “My husband and I run this place with no employees,” she said. “The government only provided relief for businesses with employees, which meant we got left out” she explained. “They shut us down twice, for months at a time, which was really hard.” Because the couple run the pub without staff, they are only open on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Meanwhile in Shawville, over at Cartrite’s Restaurant, business owner Lisa Cartman is in the midst of an expansion. “We are doing our official grand opening [of the new seating area] on December 6th” she said, sitting in the middle of a meticulously clean room. This date was chosen as it will mark the five year anniversary of Cartman’s purchase of the restaurant. “I feel like I was lucky because we survived COVID. And we actually did well during COVID.” Nevertheless, Cartman expressed uncertainty as to whether she will have enough success to keep the expansion open. “I negotiated a separate lease, and it’s for a year,” she explained. And her business is also affected by inflation. “Everything costs more – all of the produce has gone up considerably. I refuse to compromise the quality of my food just to save money or keep prices low,” she explained. “We are finding the cost of some things, like bacon for example, to be really high – but we have to pay the higher prices they’re asking because it’s a better product.” She shared her reaction to getting a case of lettuce recently. “I was trying to price each individual lettuce, do the math in my head – but the answer I was getting didn’t make sense because I wasn’t expecting the price to be three times what I paid in 2015. It’s unbelievable.”

Nevertheless, Cartman’s commitment to buying superior ingredients seems to be paying off, as the restaurant is filled to capacity. But Cartman’s success is also causing her some of her biggest headaches. “I can’t find employees,” she said. “I’ll advertise, but no one applies – I can’t get a single response.” When asked to speculate on the reasons for people being reluctant to work, she admitted “Part of the problem, I think, is that it’s hard work – we’re busy, and there isn’t much downtime. People go and get jobs elsewhere, because they pay better or they’re easier.” She has been fortunate to have some employees return – Cartman speaks about her employees with appreciation and she is openly grateful that they’re still with her. But even then, she is surprised at how difficult it has been to find employees. “I think at first people didn’t want to risk getting sick, so they stayed home. And then they were getting CERB, so they didn’t need to work. And we’ve had some problems with people who don’t want to follow the government’s health protocols. We’re lucky that we haven’t had too many incidents, but I feel bad when it’s my teenage employee who is having to deal with a customer’s bad behaviour.” The restaurant has followed the government’s health protection mandates to the letter, and sometimes people forget to bring paperwork and can’t get seated. “This is Shawville though, and people are pretty good here; you don’t encounter disrespectful people very often.”

When asked whether she felt the government’s response to struggling business owners was adequate, Cartman deflected the conversation back to food. “We’re making turkey.” She spoke affectionately about her yearly tradition. “Every night starting near the beginning of December we have turkey dinners available.” But she had even greater affection when she spoke about her patrons. “Sometimes people come in and buy food for themselves, and they’ll buy an extra turkey dinner for someone else in the community. It happens a lot, actually.” She is hoping people continue to engage in acts of selfless generosity toward their neighbours again this year.

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