Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday announced extension of the country Emergency Wage Subsidy program to help businesses and services retain their employees as the April jobless rate soared to record 13 per cent.
In April, the Canadian economy lost nearly two million jobs, on top of the one million jobs lost in March, Statistics Canada reported Friday morning, according to the media report.
During a press conference, Trudeau said that the wage subsidy program will be extended beyond June to help restart the Canadian economy when provinces and territories in the country have begun to gradually reopen businesses and services.
“We’ll have more details next week, but to businesses hit by COVID-19, know this: the wage subsidy will continue to be there for you, to help you keep your employees on the payroll,” Trudeau said.
Earlier this week, Trudeau announced 252 million Canadian dollars (US $179 million) to the agri-food sector to help protect farmers and food processors against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Of the 252 million Canadian dollars, 77 million is earmarked to help food processors buy protective equipment for workers and expand domestic processing capacity of food; 125 million is meant to help cattle and hog producers because of their costs increase, and 50 million will go for a food surplus purchasing program to compensate food producers.
More than half a million companies have accessed business loans through the Canada Emergency Business Account. Trudeau said his government needs to do more to support millions of Canadians hard hit by the economic fallout of the pandemic.
On April 28, Trudeau said that nearly 10,000 businesses have applied for his government’s wage-subsidy program of C$73 billion ($52 billion) to deal with the COVID-19 crisis.
Trudeau has expanded the scope of, and eligibility for the program since first promising it in March.
As of Friday, Canada has a total of 66,425 cases and 4,569 deaths.
More than a million tests have been conducted nationally, and more than 30,000 people have recovered.