{"id":771333,"date":"2026-06-30T15:56:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/771333\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T15:56:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:56:17","slug":"poilievre-blames-recession-for-mp-clifford-smalls-restaurant-closures-and-unpaid-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/771333\/","title":{"rendered":"Poilievre Blames \u2018Recession\u2019 for MP Clifford Small\u2019s Restaurant Closures and Unpaid Taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t&#13;<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/conservative-leader-pierre-poilievre-st-johns-november-2025.jpg\" class=\"header-image\" alt=\"Poilievre Blames 'Recession' for MP Clifford Small's Restaurant Closures and Unpaid Taxes\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre (VOCM News)<\/p>\n<p>Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is pointing to a \u201crecession\u201d as the reason his central Newfoundland MP is in court over unpaid rent and taxes.<\/p>\n<p>Both of the Smitty\u2019s restaurant locations in the metro region closed this month. Their owner, MP Clifford Small, reportedly owes more than $350,000 in unpaid rent and back taxes.<\/p>\n<p>Poilievre says he gave Small his well wishes, noting the MP\u2019s franchise is facing the same economic plight that has hit other small businesses.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight across Canada insolvencies, bankruptcies, and defaults are rising. That\u2019s because of high costs and a weak economy. We are the only G7 economy in a recession, and our inflation is now well above the acceptable target,\u201d he told VOCM News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre (VOCM News) Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is pointing to a \u201crecession\u201d as the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":771334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48,269876,185074,269873,269875,269877,269874,269870,269871,269872],"class_list":["post-771333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-listen-to-vocm","tag-news-radio","tag-news-radio-st-johns","tag-st-johns-fm-radio","tag-st-johns-local-radio","tag-st-johns-radio-station","tag-vocm","tag-vocm-590","tag-vocm-radio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}