Feds announce boost to emergency COVID-19 aid benefit
OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced the government is merging two previously introduced employment insurance benefits for Canadians who are now unemployed, or off work because of COVID-19. As part of this push to shut down most aspects of society and ensure people can be away from work or at home with their kids who aren’t in school right now, the federal government rolled out an initial multibillion dollar fiscal aid package that passed Parliament on Wednesday afternoon.
As part of this package the government initially unveiled separate emergency care and emergency support benefits, but they have now been combined into the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and will provide $2,000 a month for four months, for people who are off work and without an income as a result of the novel coronavirus. Trudeau said this benefit will aid Canadians who have either lost their job or are off sick or taking care of their children because of COVID-19. He said that Canadians should receive this assistance approximately 10 days after applying.
“If you lost your job because of COVID-19, whether you’re full time contract or self-employed, this new benefit will be there for you. If you’re sick or quarantined looking after someone sick, or at home taking care of your kids. It’s there for you. And even if you’re still employed but not receiving income because of this crisis, the CERB is there for you, Trudeau said. Speaking to this change, Finance Minister Bill Morneau cited the rapid pace in which the federal government is making announcements about its response plan, and said that in the week since the aid package was presented, the government realized there was a more efficient way to get the money out the door to those who need it. The change also represents a boost to the overall amount of financial assistance the government is offering. Initially the government committed $27 billion in direct help and another $55 billion in economic stimulus. Now, Morneau said the direct help to families and businesses totals $52 billion, bringing the overall size of the economic aid package to $107 billion.
Morneau said the government managed to see this change updated in the legislation that worked through both the House and Senate in the last 24 hours.
“We’ve designed this in a way so that it’s a wage subsidy delivered directly to employees, to people,” Morneau said.
The prime minister said that the federal government is doing everything it can to help those worried about paying bills, including boosting the teams processing the ballooning number of claims that have already been filed.The federal government is committing that more financial assistance will come as the pandemic wages on.
Nearly one million Canadians applied for employment insurance in the last week or so. “Far too many Canadians are having these tough conversations about finances and their future… The hard truth is that people are out of work because of this crisis and worried about what comes next,” said Trudeau. Morneau told the Senate on Wednesday that this emergency benefit should begin to roll out in early April, while other top-ups will be available in May, but that the government is doing what it can to get money to the Canadians that need it as quickly as possible under such an unprecedented situation. “Clearly the systems were not built for this type of stress and strain,” Morneau told senators, calling the novel coronavirus pandemic a crisis “unlike any we have ever faced.” “We expect a very challenging time, but a temporary time, to come out of this challenge with our economy intact, we unfortunately do not know either the depth nor duration of this challenge and that’s why are keen to be working together with other parties to make sure we continue to have that capacity to respond in a very, very timely way to every challenge we see,” said the finance minister. . www.ctvnews.ca