Trudeau's Coronavirus Relief Plan Leaves many Canadians in the Cold
Written by: Daniel Xie
This article was made possible by a critique of Trudeau’s COVID-19 aid package compiled by Simran Dhunna, much thanks and credit go to her for compiling the critique of Trudeau’s aid plan.
The federal government established an aid package in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, putting many Canadians in self-isolation to combat the effects of the coronavirus on Canadians. This aid package includes temporary income support, support for businesses, a six-month moratorium on student loans, and a six-month payment deferral for mortgages. Looking closely at the Federal government’s package, it can be seen that despite it being touted as “significant and decisive action” to “help Canadians facing hardship” resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak, it ultimately leaves many Canadians out in the cold.
Leaving out Renters:
A key percentage of the population left out by Trudeau’s aid package are those living on rent. While mortgage freezes of were considered by Trudeau’s aid package, renters are left out in the cold. The aid package consequently leaves renters that are unable to work at this time under threat of eviction by landlords if they fail to pay rent. This is particularly brutal for the 53% of Canadian workers living on paycheck to paycheck. While the government has promised food and rent money to arrive in three weeks time on Apr. 19 for renters, many renters, particularly those that need to pay their rent by Apr. 1, would not be able to receive that aid in time.
In response, already efforts are being made to resist evictions and rent payments, with half a million having signed a petition to call for both mortgage and rent payments to be canceled, and a Facebook group, Keep Your Rent Toronto, having been organized with the goal of facilitating a rent strike on Apr. 1, the day that many unable to benefit from government aid have to pay rent, to resist and protest the continued payment of rent during a crisis where most people are not able to afford rent.
Even the mortgage freezes themselves are proving to be ineffective. The mortgage freezes simply give banks the means to delay payments up to six months, and the banks themselves are resisting mortgage payments. According to CBC news, many Canadians looking to delay mortgages are facing delays and outright denial from banks with regards to delaying mortgage rates. This is because applicants for mortgage deferrals are handled on a case-by-case basis, which gives banks enough justification to deny deferrals to anyone if they see fit.
Employment (un)Insurance
In response to the possibility of job losses and reduced working times as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, the Canadian government has made it seemingly easier to receive unemployment insurance and child care programs. For instance, the one week waiting time for EI sickness benefit has been waived along with the medical certificate requirement. In addition, a 15 week($900 biweekly) Emergency Care Benefit has been implemented for those without access to EI; the application of which is to be open in April 2020.
Many of the bureaucratic constraints associated with Employment Insurance however, remain in place and create roadblocks preventing people from accessing the funding. Apart from the fact that those with their rents due in April would not be helped at all by the EI plan, people may not have the time to go through the bureaucratic process or understand how to access tax clinics and, or the instructions may be too complex to access. Even worse, because social agencies and libraries are shut down as a result of the outbreak, it becomes even harder to access means that can support one in going through the bureaucratic process, especially for those without a computer or internet connection in their own homes.
In addition, the full range of benefits may be inadequate for renters to pay rent even if they could access it. In Toronto, the average renter pays more than $2000 for a one-bedroom space, way more than what a biweekly payment of $900($450 per week) can support.
And there are many groups of people left behind by Trudeau’s program: the most prominent being poor people and disabled workers. Nowhere in the aid package is support ever offered to people on Ontario Welfare and Ontario Disability Support Program, consequently leaving the most precarious elements of society out in the cold with no aid. Aside from the poor and disabled, essential workers are also left out of the support program with regards to child care. According to the Broadbent Institute, while aid is provided for those who need to stay home and take care of children, parents who must be on the job when schools and child care centres are closed receive no aid
Already these measures have been criticized by Fight for $15 and Fairness as falling short of the measures needed to provide workers with enough support during this time of crisis. As stated on their official Facebook page by Pam Frache, this program only provides what’s essentially 55% of a minimum wage--hardly enough for workers to get by and pay rent under self isolation.
As an alternative, Worker’s Action Centre representative Deena Ladd has called on the government to provide $575 per weekly aid to workers, following the lead of Quebec in responding to the outbreak. As reported by the Broadbent Institute, Unions have joined in for Fight for $15’s call for lower entrance requirements for workers, longer sick leave benefits, a minimum benefit level, and higher replacement rates to make EI more accessible for low wage workers.
Ultimately, despite being touted as decisive and immediate aid for Canadians during the time of the COVID-19 infection, Trudeau’s aid package ultimately leaves many workers out in the cold. They have not put sufficient pressure on to banks to ensure mortgage deferrals as fast as possible and have left out renters, the poor and disabled.
It gives inadequate employment care packages to workers whose rent costs cannot be covered by said packages while keeping EI bureaucratized and hard to access for many, it can be seen that this aid package ultimately does not do much to alleviate the suffering of many of the vulnerable in society.
The Canadian government, if they genuinely wish to take decisive, must address the growing pressure from unions and imminent rent strikes to address the concerns that said movements have: that their current COVID-19 aid plan simply leaves many out in the cold.
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