By Sean Fraser
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
This has been a long year.
The COVID-19 pandemic poses the greatest public health and economic threat to Canadians in a generation. In order to keep one another safe, we have collectively changed everything about the way we live and work. These changes have been difficult, but they are saving lives.
The federal government has developed a plan to help protect Canadians during this public health emergency and to address its extraordinary economic consequences. Since the onset of this pandemic, the federal government has invested more than eight out of every $10 spent in response to COVID-19.
The first and most important pillar in our economic strategy is to maintain a world-class public health response. The faster we defeat the virus, the faster our economy will recover.
We know this pandemic ends with a vaccine. That’s why we have secured access to the most diverse supply of vaccine candidates of any country in the world. Four of those vaccines are currently undergoing approval processes now, and the first doses are expected to arrive shortly. We have been working with the provinces for months, as well as the Canadian Armed Forces, to plan the logistics of distributing the vaccines as they arrive. When a vaccine is ready, Canada will be ready to receive it.
We have invested more than $20 billion to help keep Canadians safe by making substantial investments in testing and contract tracing, procurement of PPE for health-care professionals, and other measures to support a safe restart of the economy in each of the Provinces. This includes $2 billion in measures that are helping provincial governments provide a safe return to class for our kids, and measures to protect seniors living in long-term care.
The second pillar of our response has been to implement financial supports for Canadian households and businesses until the economy has stabilized.
When the economic consequences of the pandemic revealed themselves, we quickly implemented CERB, which helped almost nine million Canadians who lost income to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. We have since put new income support measures in place by enhancing EI and establishing the new Canada Recovery Benefit for Canadians who lost income as a result of COVID-19.
To support businesses, we advanced the Canada Emergency Business Account, which provides $60,000 interest free supports to businesses, $20,000 of which is forgivable. To date, approximately 800,000 small and medium sized businesses have taken advantage of this program. We advanced the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, which pays up to 75 per cent of workers’ salaries and is helping keep nearly four million workers on payroll. We also created a new program that will help cover up to 65 per cent of rent for businesses that have lost revenue as a result of COVID-19, and up to 90 per cent when closures were made pursuant to a public health order.
Many of these programs were designed in the early days of the emergency, but we plan to continue various support measures through to at least next summer so Canadians will know their government will be there for them during this time of unprecedented economic uncertainty.
The final phase of our plan is to make significant investments that will kickstart the economy once it is safe to do so, with a view to setting the course for long term growth that is robust, sustainable, and inclusive.
The path forward will include investments to create a National Early Learning and Child Care System, universal broadband connectivity, major reform in long-term care, and transformational investments in the green economy. Initial steps for each of these measures have recently been announced and are rolling out already, with the remaining details to be included in the upcoming federal budget.
2020 is almost over. The outlook for 2021 is in our hands. So, as we head into the holiday season, let’s continue our focus on keeping each other safe so next year is better than the last.
In the meantime, our government will do whatever it takes, as long as it takes, to help keep our communities safe and to see us through to better days.
TAGLINE: Sean Fraser is MP for Central Nova.
