Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called the federal government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic “unprecedented” and “the largest economic program in Canada’s history.” But he was far less conclusive Wednesday when asked just how long his government expects this package of wage subsidies and income support will be needed.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called the federal government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic “unprecedented” and “the largest economic program in Canada’s history.”
But he was far less conclusive Wednesday when asked just how long his government expects this package of wage subsidies and income support will be needed.
Trudeau told reporters attending his daily briefing that the government is preparing for the possibility that the pandemic lasts weeks or months. He did not describe how his government would respond to those vastly different timelines, or how they might change the cost or delivery of the very programs Finance Minister Bill Morneau described later in the day.
“We have been open and transparent with Canadians on the facts,” the prime minister said, “and I’ve said from the very beginning that there are a wide range of scenarios that we have been looking for, that we are planning for, that we are trying to work towards as a government, as a country.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says physical distancing measures to combat COVID-19 could continue for months. 2:06
A three-month timeline — for now
Trudeau has gone to great lengths to assure Canadians that the government is determined to protect their health and their incomes both — no matter what. So it was telling that he didn’t respond to the “what if” questions that came his way on Wednesday.
Right now, the planning horizon seems to be three months. That’s the timeline set out in Bill C-13, the emergency aid package passed last week that creates the wage subsidy and the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) — financial lifelines that stretch across the country, across different sectors of the economy and into every community.
With the government telling millions of Canadians to go home and stay home, with employers in non-essential industries being told to close up and stay closed to halt the spread of COVID-19, designing and delivering financial aid as quickly as possible became the imperative.
One third of small businesses may never reopen: CFIB
Consider the numbers. More than 2.1 million people have applied for employment insurance in just the past two weeks. About 430,000 of those applications have been processed.
A survey released Wednesday by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business suggested a third of the small businesses that have shut down