Help to Canadian workers and businesses during Covid-19

To help Canadian employers and businesses tide over the setbacks brought about by the Coronavirus pandemic, the Canadian government is making efforts to help them through a series of measures. Let us look at some of them.

1. Government support for workers:

The Canadian government has reassured that no worker should be worried about losing their job. The government has promised to make all efforts to help  workers with funds to  pay their rent and meet their food expenses.

• The government has introduced a Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), through which each worker who is not receiving regular salary will get CAD 2000 per month for four months.
• Promised to provide help to families with children by providing Child benefit payments
• Introduced Emergency care benefit up to CAD 900 on bi-weekly basis for 15 weeks to help workers who have no access to paid sick leave and must stay at home

2. Government support for businesses:

To ensure that businesses and companies do not lay off employees due to loss of business, the government has come up with plans to provide relief to businesses and entrepreneurs. The measures include:

Allowing all companies to delay payment of any income tax amounts due on or after September 2020 until after August 31, 2020. The relief will refer to the balance of taxes due

Increase the financing available to Canadian small, medium, and large businesses. As announced on March 13, via the Bank of Canada for Business Growth and Export Growth Canada, a new Business Credit Access Initiative will offer more than $10 billion in additional funding to businesses facing cash flow challenges. The Government is ready to make more money available through financial crown corporations.

Further extend the capacity of Export Development Canada to provide in-house business assistance.

Offer flexibility on the Canada Account Cap, enabling the Government to provide extra assistance to Canadian companies to cope with extraordinary situations when considered to be in the national interest.

Increase credit available via Farm Credit Canada to farmers and to the agri-food industry.

Launch an Insured Mortgage Purchase Program to buy insured mortgage pools of up to $50 billion by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC)

The six largest financial institutions in Canada have committed to collaborating on a case-by-case basis with personal and small business banking customers to offer flexible options to help them deal with issues such as pay interruption due to COVID-19, child care interruption due to school or daycare closures or those suffering from COVID-19.