As a follow-up to my message from Monday, and as the situation surrounding COVID-19 continues to evolve, I am writing to provide you with the latest update on our Government’s response.
Earlier today, the Prime Minister announced $82 billion in support to help stabilize the economy and help Canadians affected by the impacts of this challenging period . Through the Government of Canada’s COVID-19 Economic Response Plan, we will provide up to $27 billion in direct support to Canadian workers and businesses, plus $55 billion to meet liquidity needs of Canadian businesses and households through tax deferrals to help stabilize the economy. This support will help to ensure that Canadians can pay for rent and groceries, and businesses are able to continue to pay their employees and their bills during this time of uncertainty.
This plan builds on coordinated action taken since the beginning of this outbreak, including the more than $1 billion COVID-19 Response Fund, which provided funding to provinces and territories to strengthen critical health care systems. All together, this represents over $500 billion in credit and liquidity support for people and businesses through cooperation between financial Crown corporations, the Bank of Canada, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), and commercial lenders to ensure businesses can continue to operate.
Of the many significant initiatives announced today, I would like to highlight a handful that particularly respond to needs here in Oakville:
- We will temporarily boost Canada Child Benefit payments for families with children. This measure would deliver almost $2 billion in extra support.
- We will introduce an Emergency Support Benefit to provide up to $5 billion in support to workers who are not eligible for EI and who are facing unemployment.
- We will extend the tax filing deadline for individuals to June 1, as well as extending the deadline for the payment of any owed income tax until after August 31st, 2020. Businesses will also be able to defer tax payments. No interest or penalties will accumulate on these amounts during this period. This measure will result in households having more money available during this period.
- We will implement a six-month, interest-free, moratorium on Canada Student Loan payments for all individuals who are in the process of repaying these loans.
- The six largest financial institutions in Canada have made a commitment to work with personal
- and small business banking customers on a case-by-case basis to provide flexible solutions in this challenging time. As a first step, this support will include up to a six-month payment deferral for mortgages, and the opportunity for relief on other credit products. For more information on what may be available to you, please contact your banking institution directly.
- We will also provide eligible small businesses with a 10 per cent wage subsidy for the next 90
- days, up to a maximum of $1,375 per employee and $25,000 per employer. This will help
- employers keep people on their payroll and help Canadians keep their jobs.
The full list of initiatives is included below, and further details can be found at the following website: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2020/03/canadas-covid-19-economic-response-plan-support-for-canadians-and-businesses.html
In order to follow through on our COVID-19 Economic Response Plan, our Government will be tabling emergency legislation to provide timely support to Canadians. When the time is right, we will announce more long-term investment to assist with recovery and help Canadians get back to our normal lives.
I would like to remind you that it remains very important to avoid non-essential travel outside of Canada and to stay home as much as possible. We must do everything we can to ensure that our healthcare professionals and our healthcare systems can focus on those who need their help the most.
As always, my constituency office is available to support during this time. Please contact us at 905-338-2008, if you have any concerns or questions we may be able to help with.
As always, my thoughts are with our community.