THUNDER BAY – The head of the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce says it’s reassuring to see the federal government promising to support businesses as COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on the global economy.
Charla Robinson on Thursday said Wednesday’s throne speech, delivered by Gov.-Gen. Julie Payette, was a full basket items, but none more important than the plan to extend the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy through next summer.
The program helps qualifying businesses and non-profits affected by the spread of COVID-19 cover up to 75 per cent of workers’ salaries, to a maximum of $847 per week.
That’s huge, said Robinson, though she wants to see the full details of how it will be rolled out.
“As we’ve seen in our survey, the wage subsidy has been really highly utilized across Thunder Bay businesses. I’m glad to see that will be extended until next summer and now we’re going to have to wait to see what that looks like,” Robinson said.
“The subsidy program has changed a few times since it was introduced in March. The details will be coming as to whether it will be the same program as what’s in place right now or if there are going to be further changes for the January-onward period.”
It was set to expire at year’s end.
Robinson said there was more good news for workers, including the promise of the creation of more than one million jobs, through direct investments in the social sector and infrastructure, immediate training to quickly skill up workers, and incentives for employers to hire and retain workers.
“I would say anytime the government is focused on actually allowing business to create jobs is probably a good thing, but again, the devil is in the details,” she said.
“There are a lot of questions about what does that mean, what kind of supports are they looking at? How are they going to work with business to help to grow jobs and put people back to work.”
Getting more women in the workforce and child care improvements are also items that bear watching in what appears to be a pre-election throne speech.
Naturally, Northwestern Ontario’s Conservative MP, Kenora’s Eric Melillo, was skeptical at what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals had to offer.
“Disappointed is definitely the word I would use to characterize my initial reaction to the Throne Speech. The Liberals prorogued Parliament. They suspended committee work because apparently they had to put forward this new plan for Canadians,” Melillo said, reached by Thunder Bay Television on Thursday afternoon.
“I think what we saw was not a new plan at all. We saw a plan to continue with the current track the government is on and a plan to re-promise already broken Liberal promises of the past.”
Melillo said he saw nothing for Canadians worried about their health or their jobs or how the government plans to get the economy back on track.
The two local Liberal MPs, on the other hand, applauded the speech and what it contained, including a push toward national pharmacare, changes to the Canadian disability benefit and a promise to cut greenhouse gas emissions to below 2005 levels by decade’s end.
Marcus Powlowski , who represents Thunder Bay-Rainy River, said he was especially happy to see support for the hard-hit tourism industry in the plan.
“Really, we only have international tourism, tourism in the United States,” said Powlowski, also glad to see supports for long-term care, home buyers and homeowners.
Health Minister Patty Hajdu said there is a lot of uncertainty ahead and the continuation of the wage subsidy program will provide some measure of comfort to entrepreneurs.
“This is going to provide to those businesses that are still not back to routine earnings a transitional ability by supporting them of the cost of keeping people in their jobs.”
Trudeau has also promised to go after big tech companies that siphon advertising dollars out of the country.
