In a similar vein Louis Rossmann has been walking through NYC showing current commercial storefront vacancies. While each video focuses on one street the rates of empty spaces seem to be higher than in the posted article. The rents do seem to be very steep as well, which you might expect out of NYC ($40,000/month is one price which stuck with me). One root cause cited in NYC, which isn't mentioned in the above article, is that commercial loans may prohibit leasing a space at a lower rate without lender approval (as it impacts the value of the building), though I do not know if the same issue applies in Canada.
Most of the videos are long-form content which fits well into the background if anyone is interested: e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjd1WNhGliY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q53Wxx7aLrs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuALRyGI3Ho