DEVELOPING 120 active fires burning across Canada, 30 are 'out of control'
The 2024 wildfire season has begun, and it's shaping up to follow last year's unprecedented destruction in kind, with thousands of square kilometres already consumed.
Many of the federal government's key pandemic supports are set to expire in a few weeks, prompting some business leaders to advocate for an extension.
Programs like the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy (CERS) and the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) are scheduled to terminate on Oct. 23, after being extended several times since their launch in 2020.
When asked on Wednesday whether the government is planning to prolong them once again, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland was noncommittal, saying that the pandemic continues to pose a challenge to businesses.
“The fourth wave and the Delta variant are hitting parts of the country particularly hard, and we know government policy needs to be mindful of that. We will provide economic support as needed,” she said, pointing to campaign promises to target future supports at harder-hit industries.
“We’ll have more to say about the specifics soon,” Freeland said, telling reporters she and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have spoken about the matter.
The passage of the Budget Implementation Act allows the government to extend CERS and the CEWS to Nov. 30. Beyond that timeline, the Liberals would need to introduce new legislation in Parliament.
“It comes down to the bottom line of the promise we made at the beginning of this pandemic to have Canadians’ backs as much as it took, for as long as it took… We’ll have more to say on in the coming weeks,” Trudeau said Wednesday.
The CERS provides support directly to qualifying tenants and property owners instead of requiring the involvement of landlords. Subsidy support is based on revenue declines in a specific claim period. The maximum base subsidy rate has dropped to 20 per cent of eligible expenses.
The CEWS helps cover employee wages, originally at a fixed rate of 75 per cent but more recently based on a business’s revenue drop in a given month in 2020 or 2021 compared to the same month in 2019.
Freeland said that she’s also been discussing the future of the benefits with Canadian Federation of Independent Business president Dan Kelly, who has been advocating for an extension of business benefits until March, 2022.
“I don’t want these programs to be around forever, but they need to be around until all of the COVID restrictions are lifted. They can always be extended but at least March 31 gives us a bit of breathing room,” said Kelly in an interview with CTVNews.ca on Thursday.
“January to March is already just a terrible season for most businesses and so having at least a little bit of assurance that they’re going to have programs to rely upon will allow them to plan.”
The federal government continues to point to vaccination as the key way to avoid future lockdowns and allow the economy to rebound.
Kelly said government-mandated vaccine passports have resulted in about a 20 per cent drop in sales for small businesses.
“This is now causing near panic because they’re seeing more restrictions being added at a time when the government is just weeks away from eliminating all of its major support programs,” he said.
On top of an extension, Kelly would also like to see the subsidy amount climb from 20 per cent of eligible expenses to 75 per cent.
“Only 40 per cent of small businesses are at normal levels of sales, 60 per cent are not there yet. I think a lot of people see businesses open and they just assume that we’re back to normal, but it’s definitely not the case,” he said.
As of Sept. 26, the government has paid out $93.97 billion to nearly 4.4 million CEWS applicants, and $6.6 billion to more than 1.6 million CERS applicants.
“We’ve spent $289 billion and counting on income support and business support. This has been a national trauma, and a very expensive national trauma,” Freeland said.
The 2024 wildfire season has begun, and it's shaping up to follow last year's unprecedented destruction in kind, with thousands of square kilometres already consumed.
Veteran TSN broadcaster Darren 'Dutch' Dutchyshen, one of Canada’s best-known sports journalists, has died. He was 57. His family says 'he passed as he was surrounded by his closest loved ones.'
A ‘lifetime of abuse’ led Dallas Ly to snap and repeatedly stab his mother inside their Leslieville apartment in 2022 but he never intended to kill her, his defence lawyers argued during his murder trial in Toronto on Thursday.
A father has been charged with second-degree murder in the stabbing death of his 34-year-old daughter in southern Quebec.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau assailed New Brunswick's premier and other conservative leaders on Thursday, calling out the provincial government's position on abortion, LGBTQ youth and climate change.
Kevin Spacey is pushing back on the 'rush to judgment' against him and is being backed by some big names as he seeks to reclaim his acting career.
Canada's new $10-a-day child care program is expanding, but there's growing evidence that demand for the program is rising even faster, leaving many parents on the outside looking in.
The Speaker of the Saskatchewan Legislature Randy Weekes has severed ties with the Sask. Party after accusing some members of harassment and intimidation tactics, including a situation he claimed saw the Government House Leader bring a hunting rifle to the legislative building.
Apple users are experiencing an iMessage outage, reporting issues with sending and receiving messages, Downdetector shows.
A Starbucks fan — whose name is Winter — is visiting Canada on a purposeful journey that began with a random idea at one of the coffee chain's stores in Texas.
Members of Piapot First Nation, students from the University of Winnipeg and various other professionals are learning new techniques that will hopefully be used for ground searches of potential unmarked grave sites in the future.
ALS patient Mathew Brown said he’s hopeful for future ALS patients after news this week of research at Western University of a potential cure for ALS.
When Adam Kirschner wrote 'Slap Shot,' he never imagined the song would be embraced by his favourite team.
A team is ready to help an entangled North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
A $200 reward is being offered by a North Vancouver family for the safe return of their beloved chicken, Snowflake.
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
Mother's Day can be a difficult occasion for those who have lost or are estranged from their mom.
YES Theatre Young Company opened its acclaimed kids’ show, One Small Step, at Sudbury Theatre Centre on Saturday.