As the COVID-19 caseload shows every sign of surging in Canada, the delivery of promised financial relief for people who’ve lost their jobs or closed their businesses remains maddeningly slow.
As the COVID-19 caseload shows every sign of surging in Canada, the delivery of promised financial relief for people who’ve lost their jobs or closed their businesses remains maddeningly slow.
The federal government’s emergency wage subsidy is at least three weeks away from being available. It could take even longer. The emergency response benefit for those who already have lost their jobs begins phased-in registration for the program on Monday.
Small businesses, which still have to pay rent and other bills, continue to wait for promised $40,000 interest-free loans as the Department of Finance continues to negotiate its delivery with the country’s banks.
Waiting for the banks to step up
Finance Minister Bill Morneau said this week that his department has been working every day with the banks. He told members of the Commons finance committee that the “intense negotiations” are going well and that banks are “close to offering” the interest-free loans, perhaps as early as next week.
“We are going as fast as humanly possible,” he told opposition MPs on the committee.
Watch: Finance Minister Bill Morneau on rapid development of economic program:
Finance Minister Bill Morneau says government programs that would normally take about 2 years to develop are being built in short order due to the COVID-19 crisis. 1:29
But the pace remains too slow for many, even as political leaders grapple with a bewildering array of new challenges on a daily basis.
Today alone, the prime minister was forced to respond to U.S. President Donald Trump’s directive to Minnesota-based 3M to stop shipping N95 masks to Canada. Ontario released projections saying there could be 80,000 cases of COVID-19 in the province by the end of the month, and that the pandemic’s effects could last as long as two years.
‘Extreme sacrifices’
“These numbers are stark and they are sobering,” said Premier Doug Ford as he announced more mandatory closures of workplaces, including construction projects.
“We have to make difficult choices and extreme sacrifices.”
The sheer scale of the pandemic — the possibility that tens of thousa