OTTAWA — Within hours of the major wage subsidy program launching Monday morning, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says approximately 10,000 businesses had already applied.
Touting the newly opened and long-anticipated program during his daily COVID-19 address, Trudeau said the first payments to cover of 75 per cent of the first $58,700 of an employee’s salary will arrive to businesses by May 7.
Trudeau had expanded the scope of, and eligibility for the program a handful of times since first promising it last month. It passed Parliament on April 11, and will provide up to $847 a week per employee for 12 weeks, retroactive to March 15, for companies big and small, as well as charities.
Last week, a calculator was launched on the Canada Revenue Agency website so businesses could determine in advance how much they’d be able to claim. The CRA is planning to batch-process the first week’s applications at the end of the week.
Trudeau said, to-date, there have been 300,000 views of the online calculator.
The prime minister has called the $73 billion wage subsidy the largest economic program in Canadian history, and it’s expected “hundreds of thousands” of applications will be made for businesses to keep employees on staff as they await the reopening of the economy.
Trudeau also reemphasized that for Canadians whose workplaces can’t hire them back on, or if they are unable to find a job due to the ongoing pandemic, then they can access the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, but people cannot claim both. He cautioned that the funding will be clawed back later, if people have received more than they are entitled to.
He also said that talks continue with the opposition parties about advancing legislation to pass the new measures promised to students. Parliament has its first virtual sitting on Tuesday, and then the first weekly in-person meeting of a reduced number of MPs on Wednesday.
Over the weekend, Ontario revealed its plan to top up the salaries of some front-line staff, an offer made with federal assistance. Trudeau said that he will have more to say about similar help in other provinces in the coming days, as negotiations continue to pay low-income essential workers more at this time.
The prime minster continues to face questions about the patchwork of economic re-opening plans being rolled out across the country. Some provinces, including New Brunswick and Saskatchewan, have already spelled out their step-by-step approaches.
Ontario and Quebec are expected to release initial economic and societal reopening plans on Monday, though these provinces continue to have the highest number of COVID-19 cases and have called in the military to help handle the numerous outbreaks in long-term care homes.
Trudeau continues to emphasize that the national guidelines that are being developed with the provinces around reopening will have to factor in the still-developing understanding around immunity to the virus.
As of Monday morning there are 46,895 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Canada and 2,560 deaths.
