The federal government this week announced its fiscal response to the growing economic downturn caused by the risks and responses to COVID-19. In total, Ottawa will directly spend up to $27 billion to support individual Canadians and businesses. Many of these measures announced will effectively stabilize income for Canadians and businesses, which is the key to mitigating the economic downturn. It’s first important to recognize that the federal initiatives do not include the automatic measures already underway through programs like employment insurance (EI), which automatically collects less revenues through the EI payroll tax as unemployment increases while simultaneously spending more on EI benefits. These programs are already stabilizing income for affected workers. Additional changes announced by the government, including quicker eligibility for EI, providing income support to workers and Canadians not covered by EI ($5.0 billion), and extending benefits to...
A discussion on political, economic and social issues in British Columbia, and Canada