By Chris Brown

Update from the PM

Trudeau: ‘Many weeks away’ from talk about fully re-opening the economy

Apr 16, 2020 | 9:38 AM

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced more measures to help Canadian businesses, including commercial rent assistance.

The Canadian Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance program will help small businesses offset rent charges for the months of April, May and June. The PM says Ottawa will have to work with the provinces on the program as commercial rents are a provincial jurisdiction.

Trudeau also announced the expansion of the Canada Emergency Business Account increasing and decreasing the eligibility.

Small- and medium-sized businesses who spent between $20,000 and $1.5 million on payrolls in 2019 will now be eligible to apply. The previous range of eligibility was $50,000 to $1 million.

Before today, 195,000 small business loans have been approved for about $7.5 billion in credit, Trudeau said.

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Speaking from outside Rideau Cottage, Trudeau said we are still “many weeks away” from being able to actually talk about fully re-opening the economy.

“It would be absolutely disastrous for us to open too early or too quickly,” Trudeau said, due to concerns of a second or third wave of the COVID-19 virus.

He said the country must be ready with contact tracing, massive testing and measures that can kick in quickly in the event of a second wave.

“We can’t open things until we have a plan in place.”

Asked about the continued closure of the Canada-U.S. border, Trudeau said it will remain closed to non-essential travel for now and that both sides are looking at ways to move forward.

On the World Health Organization and claims by U.S. President Donald Trump that it failed to adequately respond to the pandemic early on, Trudeau said “there’s a need for international collaboration and the WHO is an important part of that collaboration.”

He also said discussions are ongoing about how the resumption of parliament in some manner.

He also announced the government has made a deal with Geometric Energy Corporation of Calgary for thousands of gloves as the government continues to secure personal protection equipment.

As of Thursday morning, Canada had 28,884 confirmed cases, 15 probable cases and 1,048 deaths. There have been 487,060 Canadians tested.

In Alberta, there are 1,996 cases and 48 deaths. A total of 82,534 Albertans have been tested. A new total for recovered cases was unavailable due to an unexpected network issue that limited reporting.