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Canada extends wage subsidy to end of August; reconsidering 30%-loss threshold

Ottawa will officially extend the wage subsidy program by three months to the end of August, Prime minister Justin Trudeau said this morning.
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Photograph By BIV/SCREENGRAB

Ottawa will officially extend the wage subsidy program by three months to the end of August, Prime minister Justin Trudeau said this morning.

Trudeau said the federal government decided on the move because of the coming reopening of the Canadian economy, which may require some companies to start rehiring employees in earnest.

Also, Trudeau said Ottawa is looking at the potential impact of reopening on applicant companies' bottom-lines - and that officials may revisit and adjust the 30%-revenue-loss threshold requirement currently needed for the wage subsidy (so as to not cut off funding to firms as they recover from the pandemic lockdown).

The topic of the economic reopening dominated Trudeau's Friday press conference, with questions focusing on Ottawa's plan for rolling out wide-scale COVID testing and contact tracing as the movement of people increases.

Trudeau said he met with premiers on Thursday evening on that topic, but did not announce any specific timeline for launching a national contact-tracing protocol.

"We all understand a massive scale up of testing across the country... is going to be important, especially as the Canadian economy reopens," he said. "There will be more travel, and we need to make sure we do have coherence in our approach."

Ottawa also announced a separate $450 million in support of universities and educational institutions on wages. The funding will be distributed through existing federal grant mechanisms, Trudeau said.