Trudeau Pledges $4-Billion To Boost Essential Worker Wages
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced today a $4 billion program to boost pay for essential workers in Canada.
“We see across the country people working on the front lines, in essential services, in seniors care systems, and elsewhere who are making very low wages while doing extraordinarily important work,” said Trudeau in his daily press briefing Thursday morning.
“If you’re risking your health to keep this country moving and you’re making minimum wage, you deserve a raise.”
The money for the wage “top-up” will come from a partnership between the federal government and the provinces and territories. Trudeau said his government will contribute 75 percent of the $4-billion, while provinces and territories will be responsible for the final $1-billion.
He said the federal government is finalizing details with the last few provinces “right now,” but that he’s leaving it in each province and territory’s hands to decide who is eligible for wage top-ups and how much they will get.
“We felt that it was best that provinces move forward with choosing exactly how best they can help [frontline workers],” Trudeau explained.
Trudeau did say most provinces have lists of who they consider essential workers and that they “are drawing from those lists” to decide how to use the money.
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Today, the Nova Scotia government said it will draw on federal money to help fund a $2,000 benefit for as many as 43,000 healthcare workers in the province.
The program will give a $2,000 bonus to employees of the Nova Scotia Health Authority and IWK Health Centre, as well as people working in long-term care, home care, in-home support, and emergency health services.
Full-time staff, part-time staff, casual workers, and the cleaning staff will all be eligible for the benefit. Employees who volunteered to work at a facility experiencing a COVID-19 outbreak can also get it.
In total, the provincial government is contributing $13.4-million to the program, while the federal government is chipping in $80.5-million.
Trudeau said today the new wage top-up program is the beginning of a much larger conversation Canada will need to have about how it treats low-wage workers.
“One of the things we are seeing through this pandemic is that there are people who are tremendously economically vulnerable and vulnerable in other ways in our society who are extremely important to the functioning of our society,” he said.
“So far we’ve been focusing on supporting these most vulnerable people [and] this top-up … is another piece of support for people who need it in order to get through this time.
“We know, however, that once we get through this – in the months and years to come – we’re also going to have reflections on how we manage and how we maintain our long-term care facilities, how we support essential workers who are very low paid, how we move forward as a society to make sure our vulnerable are properly taken care of and properly rewarded for the work they do.”