Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance
Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to be here today to support the timely passage of Bill C-9 by Parliament.
Today, I want to speak about some of the measures proposed in this bill that will help Canadians by providing essential support to get through the unprecedented economic crisis caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Since the start of the pandemic, the needs of businesses and workers have been the basis for our actions and our progressive plan for a robust and lasting recovery.
As the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance stated, to get things right, we have to face the facts. The facts are that to slow the spread of the virus and eradicate it, we must follow public health guidelines, which require us to limit our social contacts and practise social distancing. That is the only way to do it.
This means that we need to ask people who are sick or who have sick children to stay home and not go to work. It means that we need to ask restaurants to serve fewer people or to shut down their dining rooms entirely. It means that we need to limit cross-border travel, even within our own country. It also means that we must ensure that Canadians have the support they need to abide by these restrictions.
It would be unrealistic and certainly unfair to ask workers to stay home or to ask businesses to close their doors without any financial compensation for their lost income. The government has made it clear that we are committed to helping all businesses and workers affected by the pandemic.
In our continued response to COVID-19 and as we look to recovery, we are bringing forward solutions that improve the quality of life of Canadians today and in the months and years to come.
We want to ensure that Canadians do not have to make impossible choices between paying their bills and putting food on the table. By supporting employers to keep their lights on and their employees on the payroll, by supporting workers and by supporting all Canadians through emergency response measures, that is exactly what we are doing.
We are here to bridge Canadians to the other side of this pandemic, and that is precisely what Bill C-9 would do.
The measures contained in Bill C-9 are the result of ongoing consultations with affected businesses. They include a new Canada emergency rent subsidy. This program would provide access to rent support until June 2021 for businesses and other organizations that have lost revenue in this crisis. It would do so by covering up to 65% of rent or mortgage interest payment for the hardest-hit businesses with a revenue decline of 70% or more until December 19. For businesses that have experienced a decline in revenue of less than 70%, there would be a gradually decreasing subsidy in line with the decline in revenues.
In short, all eligible businesses suffering a revenue drop would get rent support that is commensurate with how hard they have been hit. In this regard, the new rent subsidy proposed in Bill C-9 mirrors the successful Canada emergency wage subsidy. It would deliver more targeted accessible rent support to those who would need it most.
Like the wage subsidy, the proposed rent subsidy will be delivered through the CRA to make the application process easier for businesses. It will be available to businesses and other organizations that rent or own their premises. These measures will be directly available to tenants, without the need for intermediation by their landlords. The new rent subsidy represents an important new support to help businesses that are facing significant challenges as a result of COVID-19.
Bill C-9 would provide an additional 25% through the Canada emergency rent subsidy for qualifying organizations significantly affected by a mandatory public health order issued by a qualifying public health authority, as promised in the Speech from the Throne. We are calling this the lockdown support. We know that across the country, as we fight the second wave of COVID-19, public health officials have needed to impose new restrictions.
That is their right to do, but it has cost businesses and their employees. By helping to offset up to 90% of rent and mortgage costs for hard-hit employers, the targeted support provided through the Canada emergency rent subsidy and the additional lockdown support would help businesses get through a new lockdown and help us all to do the right thing.
However, the fact is that rental costs are just one category of costs that businesses and employers are dealing with in the wake of COVID.
The need to cover payroll when consumer demand is low is another important part of the big picture. That is why we created the Canada emergency wage subsidy to help businesses, charities and not-for-profit organizations cover labour costs during the pandemic. The wage subsidy protects jobs because it enables those organizations to meet payroll and enables employers to rehire workers so they can continue to serve their communities and position themselves for a strong recovery.
Initially, the program was to last 12 weeks, from March 15 to June 6, 2020, and provided eligible employers with a 75% wage subsidy. We set out to improve the wage subsidy by consulting with businesses and employers. They told us that the subsidy was vital to keeping their employees on the payroll and that it had helped them rehire their workers. They shared ideas about how the wage subsidy could be adjusted to support businesses and workers as they continue to adapt to the challenges of COVID-19.
We listened and then did what was necessary. We made changes to the program so that all eligible employers, whose revenue was affected by the pandemic, now have access to it. We introduced a top-up subsidy for the most adversely affected employers.
In recognition of the vital support provided by the wage subsidy, we committed to extending it until June 2021, as we said we would in the throne speech. Over 3.8 million Canadian workers have already benefited from the wage subsidy.
Bill C-9 will make it possible to extend this vital support and make other changes to the program to ensure that it continues to help employers and that it responds to the changing health and economic situation. We continue to listen to businesses and workers about how we can strengthen the program. As part of this bill, we took measures to make the top-up subsidy more adaptable to unexpected changes in revenue.
Rather than using the existing three-month revenue decline test to calculate the top-up subsidy, the base subsidy and top-up subsidy will be determined on the basis of the year-over-year change in the eligible employer's monthly revenue for the current or previous calendar month.
What is more, to ensure these changes do not lead to a less generous wage subsidy, the wage subsidy program would include a safe harbour rule, applicable until December 19. This rule would entitle an eligible employer to a top-up subsidy rate that is no less than it would have received under the three-month revenue decline test.
Taken together, the measures included in Bill C-9 would mean that employers impacted by the pandemic—
