Wage subsidy program will be extended past June, says Trudeau

The federal government's emergency wage-subsidy program is going to beextended beyond June.

The program covers 75 per cent of employees'pay,up to $847,to help employers who arefacing plummeting revenues due topandemic measures keeptheir workers on the payroll for the duration of the COVID-19 crisis.

The program was set to end June 6.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said today he'll offer more details about the extension next week.

News of the extension comes as new Statistics Canada numbersshow the country lost almost two million jobs during the month of April a record high as the impact of COVID-19 on the economy made itself known.

The agency'sLabour Force Survey data, released Friday, estimatesthe total number of jobs lost during the crisis at more than three million.

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"What we're seeing, even beyond these reports and these numbers, is the reality on the ground,that people who are already vulnerable in the workforce, people who are already disadvantaged or facing extra barriers, are always the first to get hit when we have a difficult situation like this," Trudeau told reporters.

"That'swhy, asasociety,notonlydoweneedtodowhatwearedoingintheshortterm... weneedtomakesure thataswemove forwardtorebuilding and creatingamore prosperous Canadainthecoming months and years,wethink very, very carefully about how importantthework that is being done by women andvulnerableCanadians is,and howweneedtomakesurewe're better supporting them."

Treasury Board President Jean-Yves Duclossaid that as of Thursday, 120,000 businesses had applied to the program and about 97,000 have been approved, to cover a total of 1.7 million workers.

"So these are a large number of workers and we are ... not only proud of the impact of that program, but we're also very mindful that this is going to be important as we move forward," he said.

"The objective of that program was to maintain the important relationship, worker-employee relationship, as we move through the crisis."

Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, applauded the decision to extend the subsidy.

"I give credit to the government for listening carefully to the concerns of small businesses who were worried that this needed support would run out before many are even able to reopen their doors," he said in a media statement.

Kelly said he'd like to see more changes to help small businesses stay afloat such as anexpansion ofthe emergency business accountto include small firms that pay dividends or contract wages. He said he'd also like the government to consider other avenues to help tenants pay rent if their landlords choose not to participate in the rental assistance program.

Canadians can receive the wage subsidy or theCERB, a taxable benefit that offers workers$2,000 every four weeks if they lose their income as a result of thepandemic.

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