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The Federal COVID-19 Economic Response Plan

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12 minute read

Finance Minister Bill Morneau

The Government of Canada is taking strong and quick action to protect our economy, and the health, safety, and jobs of all Canadians during the global COVID-19 outbreak.

The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today announced a new set of economic measures to help stabilize the economy and help Canadians affected by the impacts of this challenging period.

These measures, delivered as part of the Government of Canada’s COVID-19 Economic Response Plan, will provide up to $27 billion in direct support to Canadian workers and businesses, plus $55 billion to meet liquidity needs of Canadian businesses and households through tax deferrals to help stabilize the economy. Combined, this $82 billion in support represents more than 3 per cent of Canada’s GDP. This wide-ranging support will help ensure Canadians can pay for rent and groceries, and help businesses continue to pay their employees and their bills during this time of uncertainty.

This plan builds on coordinated action taken since the beginning of this outbreak, including the more than $1 billion COVID-19 Response Fund, which provided funding to provinces and territories to strengthen critical health care systems. It represents over $500 billion in credit and liquidity support for people and businesses through cooperation between financial Crown corporations, the Bank of Canada, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), and commercial lenders to ensure businesses can continue to operate.

The actions announced today are part of Canada’s whole-of-government response to COVID-19. As a first step, this plan aims to stabilize our economy through targeted measures to address immediate challenges faced by workers and businesses alike. It will help ensure that workers have the money they need while they are sick or in isolation, or due to loss of work or a significant reduction in work income, and help support people and businesses experiencing financial hardship because of the outbreak.

Canadians should not make health decisions based on their financial needs. As the situation continues to evolve, further measures will be announced to support Canadians, stimulate the economy, and protect peoples’ jobs and livelihoods..

Support for workers

Canadians should not have to worry about paying their rent or mortgage or buying groceries because of the COVID-19 crisis. To support workers and their families, the Government of Canada is taking action to:

  • Provide additional assistance to families with children by temporarily boosting Canada Child Benefit payments. This measure would deliver almost $2 billion in extra support.
  • Introduce an Emergency Care Benefit of up to $900 bi-weekly for up to 15 weeks to provide income support to workers who must stay home and do not have access to paid sick leave. This measure could provide up to $10 billion to Canadians, and includes:
  • Workers, including the self-employed, who are sick, quarantined, or who have been directed to self-isolate but do not qualify for Employment Insurance (EI) sickness benefits.
  • Workers, including the self-employed, who are taking care of a family member who is sick with COVID-19, such as an elderly parent or other dependents who are sick, but do not qualify for EI sickness benefits.
  • EI-eligible and non EI-eligible working parents who must stay home without pay because of children who are sick or who need additional care because of school closures.
  • Introduce an Emergency Support Benefit delivered through the Canada Revenue Agency to provide up to $5 billion in support to workers who are not eligible for EI and who are facing unemployment.
  • Provide additional assistance to individuals and families with low and modest incomes with a special top-up payment under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) credit. This measure would inject $5.5 billion in the economy.
  • Waive, for a minimum of six months, the mandatory one-week waiting period for EI sickness benefits for workers in imposed quarantine or who have been directed to self-isolate, as announced on March 11.
  • Waive the requirement for a medical certificate to access EI sickness benefits.
  • Extend the tax filing deadline for individuals to June 1, and allow all taxpayers to defer, until after August 31, 2020, the payment of any income tax amounts that become owing on or after today and before September 2020. This relief would apply to tax balances due, as well as instalments, under Part I of the Income Tax Act.  No interest or penalties will accumulate on these amounts during this period. This measure will result in households having more money available during this period.
  • Provide eligible small businesses a 10 per cent wage subsidy for the next 90 days, up to a maximum of $1,375 per employee and $25,000 per employer. Employers benefiting from this measure would include corporations eligible for the small business deduction, as well as not-for-profit organisations and charities.  This will help employers keep people on their payroll and help Canadians keep their jobs.
  • Provide increased flexibility to lenders to defer mortgage payments on homeowner government-insured mortgage loans to borrowers who may be experiencing financial difficulties related to the outbreak. Insurers will permit lenders to allow payment deferral beginning immediately.

In addition, to provide targeted support for vulnerable groups, the Government is investing to:

  • Reduce minimum withdrawals from Registered Retirement Income Funds (RRIFs) by 25 per cent for 2020 in recognition of volatile market conditions and their impact on many seniors’ retirement savings.
  • Implement a six-month, interest-free, moratorium on Canada Student Loan payments for all individuals who are in the process of repaying these loans.
  • Provide $305 million for a new distinctions-based Indigenous Community Support Fund, to address immediate needs in First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Nation communities.
  • Support women and children fleeing violence by providing up to $50 million to women’s shelters and sexual assault centres to help with their capacity to manage or prevent an outbreak in their facilities. This includes funding for facilities in Indigenous communities.
  • Provide an additional $157.5 million to address the needs of Canadians experiencing homelessness through the Reaching Home program.

Support for businesses

In the face of an uncertain economic situation and tightening credit conditions, the Government is taking action to help affected businesses. To support Canadian businesses and help them retain their workers during this difficult time, the Government is announcing measures to:

  • Allow all businesses to defer, until after August 31, 2020, the payment of any income tax amounts that become owing on or after today and before September 2020. This relief would apply to tax balances due, as well as instalments, under Part I of the Income Tax Act. No interest or penalties will accumulate on these amounts during this period. This measure will result in businesses having more money available during this period.
  • Increase the credit available to small, medium, and large Canadian businesses. As announced on March 13, a new Business Credit Availability Program will provide more than $10 billion of additional support to businesses experiencing cash flow challenges through the Business Development Bank of Canada and Export Development Canada. The Government is ready to provide more capital through these financial Crown corporations.
  • Further expand Export Development Canada’s ability to provide support to domestic businesses.
  • Provide flexibility on the Canada Account limit, to allow the Government to provide additional support to Canadian businesses, when deemed to be in the national interest, to deal with exceptional circumstances.
  • Augment credit available to farmers and the agri-food sector through Farm Credit Canada.
  • Launch an Insured Mortgage Purchase Program to purchase up to $50 billion of insured mortgage pools through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). As announced on March 16, this will provide stable funding to banks and mortgage lenders and support continued lending to Canadian businesses and consumers. CMHC stands ready to further support liquidity and the stability of the financial markets through its mortgage funding programs as necessary. The Government will enable these measures by raising CMHC’s legislative limits to guarantee securities and insure mortgages by $150 billion each.

The six largest financial institutions in Canada have made a commitment to work with personal and small business banking customers on a case-by-case basis to provide flexible solutions to help them manage through challenges, such as pay disruption due to COVID-19, childcare disruption due to school or daycare closures, or those suffering from COVID-19. As a first step, this support will include up to a six-month payment deferral for mortgages, and the opportunity for relief on other credit products. The Government of Canada will continue to monitor evolving economic conditions and seek greater relief measures should it be necessary.

In order to move forward with implementing these new measures needed to provide timely support for Canadians and to ensure the Government has every tool at its disposal to address potential challenges that may arise, the Government intends to introduce special legislation and seek the approval of Parliament.

The Government of Canada will continue to take further action as required to prioritize the health and safety of Canadians, stabilize the economy, and mitigate the economic impact of this pandemic.

World virus infections hit 200,000; Borders jammed in Europe

After 15 years as a TV reporter with Global and CBC and as news director of RDTV in Red Deer, Duane set out on his own 2008 as a visual storyteller. During this period, he became fascinated with a burgeoning online world and how it could better serve local communities. This fascination led to Todayville, launched in 2016.

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COVID-19

10 Shocking Stories the Media Buried This Week

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The Vigilant FoxThe Vigilant Fox

Measles, Fauci, Politics and Public Education. This is a fascinating read 

#10 – ‘Measles Death’ of 6-Year-Old Girl Exposed as a Media HOAX

The media claimed a 6-year-old girl died of measles, but “she did not die of measles by any stretch of the imagination,” Dr. Pierre Kory says.

“In fact, she died of pneumonia. But it gets worse than that because she didn’t really die of pneumonia. She died of a MEDICAL ERROR.”

Let that sink in.

What happened was a complete breakdown in basic medical care. The hospital failed to give her the appropriate antibiotic regimen to treat her pneumonia. By the time they corrected their mistake, it was too late, and the girl died “catastrophically.”

“I mean, this is like medicine 101. You put them on two antibiotics to cover all the possibilities. It’s a grievous error, and it’s an error which led to her death,” Dr. Kory attested.

Not only did Covenant Children’s Hospital fail to provide the appropriate antibiotic, but when they noticed their error, they dragged their feet and took another 10 hours to administer it.

“By that time, she was already on a ventilator. And approximately 24 hours later—actually, less than 24 hours later—she died,” Dr. Kory explained.

And she did not pass away peacefully. According to Dr. Kory, “She died rather catastrophically.”

And while her family grieved, the media hijacked her death to stir fear and push the vaccine narrative. Just another “measles death” used as a political weapon.

This is a case Dr. Pierre Kory calls “absolutely enraging.”

And it is. Just another example of how the media will shamelessly twist the story of a grieving family’s loss to push Big Pharma’s agenda. That’s not just dishonest. That’s evil, plain and simple.

Follow @ChildrensHD for the full interview and more details on this enraging story.

(See 9 More Revealing Stories Below)

#9 – Bill Maher guest calls out Fauci’s ridiculous pardon, saying, “There’s a reason he was given a pardon back to 2014.”

“There is something very wrong going on here.”

“Everyone knew it [gain-of-function research] was dangerous a long time ago. You go back to 2015, you will find a big meeting in London where they say there’s one lab in the world most likely to have a problem with this—Wuhan. Do you know who was the biggest supporter of gain of function research for the last 30 years? Anthony Fauci.”

It turns out that in 2014, 300 scientists warned Anthony Fauci would start a global pandemic.

RFK Jr. previously explained that following the high-profile escape of three bugs from U.S. labs, these 300 scientists sent a letter to President Obama, urging him to shut down Anthony Fauci’s gain-of-function research.

Obama issued a moratorium and shut down 18 of the worst projects by Anthony Fauci. In the end, he really didn’t shut them down. Instead, Obama moved the research offshore to places like Ukraine, the former Soviet State of Georgia, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China.

Now, it is widely accepted that COVID-19 originated from that very lab in Wuhan, China. The 300 scientists were right when they said Anthony Fauci would start a global pandemic.

#8 – Kevin O’Leary delivers a harsh reality check to people burning Teslas: You’re going to “rot in hell in prison.”

“And frankly, as far as I’m concerned, that’s okay,” he said.

O’Leary left no room for debate, making it clear that there’s zero justification for the destruction:

“When you set a car on fire, you should go to jail. You’re a criminal. And I don’t think we have to talk about it in any other context.”

He also had a blunt message for those thinking they’ll get away with it:

“And all those cars have cameras in them, and those dealerships have cameras. You’re beyond being stupid when you do that… You’re going to spend five to 20 years in prison. If they get them on terrorism—which I think is a stretch—there will be no parole, no shortened sentence. They’ll rot in hell in prison for 20 years. And frankly, as far as I’m concerned, that’s okay.”

#7- Stephen A. Smith Rips his OWN STAFF while recording his show.

Smith grilled his staff’s loyalty to the Democratic Party after pitching this common-sense idea to Democrats: “Rather than telling us what we should vote against, maybe you should present us with options of what to vote for.

“I mean, my God. Are you okay, Michael, with me suggesting that? Are you okay with me, Sherry, suggesting that?” Smith asked.

“Rashawn Galen and all of a bunch of leftists that’s under my umbrella trying to act like they’re independents when they’re full of it! I’m talking about my own damn staff,” he clarified.

“I’m a centrist. I think my man, Rashawn, is a centrist. The rest of these damn people working for me. I mean, what left-wing party are you associated with? I mean, you gotta believe this stuff.”

#6 – Vivek Ramaswamy drops a game-changing idea for public education: merit-based pay for public school teachers.

“Pay for performance. That’s what businesses do. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be running our public schools in the same way.”

Vivek announced that he plans for Ohio to become the first state in the nation to adopt merit-based pay for every teacher, principal, and administrator.

He says that performance reviews should go beyond standardized testing, incorporating peer reviews, parent feedback, and student outcomes—with a clear goal of rewarding the best educators.

“The best teachers in the country right now, sadly, are underpaid. We need to fix that—but fix it through meritocracy,” Vivek said. “Thanks to President Trump’s bold actions today, we can lead the way.”

While you’re here, don’t forget to follow me (@VigilantFox) for more weekly news roundups.

#5 – Tim Walz absurdly claims that Trump’s plan to dismantle the Department of Education could take America back to an era of racial segregation.

“And then it’s about the Civil Rights Department at the Department of Education that makes sure that we don’t have a situation where a Ruby Bridges is escorted to school with police. And so we’re back in an area where we can segregate,” Walz said.

Somehow, giving control back to the states means we’re suddenly back in 1960. This is why no one takes Democrats seriously anymore. All they do is cry wolf.

#4 – Bill Maher believes JFK wasn’t killed by a lone gunman—says a lot of people wanted Kennedy dead.

QUESTION: “Is it time to move on from this conspiracy theory?”

MAHER: “Well, I mean, do you think it’s a conspiracy theory? Plainly, there was not a single gunman, right?… But the magic bullet. There could not have been a bullet that went through a guy, went around him, came back, went through the other guy, got lunch at the diner, came back, shot him in the back of the head. I mean, it’s just. Come on, everybody heard a shot from the grassy knoll.”

“The idea that the CIA is going to now suddenly go, ‘You’re right, we had something to do with it.’ I’m not saying they did, but a lot of people wanted him [JFK] dead.”

#3 – Elon Musk sounds the alarm on “magic money computers” at the federal government that can “send money out of nothing.”

“So you may think that the government computers all talk to each other. They synchronize, they add up what funds are going somewhere, and it’s coherent that the numbers, for example, that you’re presented as a senator, are actually the real numbers. They’re not,” Musk explained.

“They’re not totally wrong,” he continued. “They’re probably off by 5% or 10% in some cases. So I call it Magic Money Computer. Any computer which can just make money out of thin air. That’s Magic Money.”

“So how does that work?” Ted Cruz asked.

It just issues payments,” Musk answered. “I think we found now 14 magic money computers. They just send money out of nothing.”

This raises a critical question: If the government’s books are off by 5% to 10% in some cases, leaving up to hundreds of billions of dollars unaccounted for, where is all that money actually going?

#2 – The New York Times finally ADMITS the “conspiracy theorists” were right about COVID and that Fauci and the “experts” misled the public.

“Perhaps we were misled on purpose.”

I can’t believe they actually printed this. Here’s what they’re finally admitting:

• Tony Fauci, Francis Collins, and Jeremy Farrar coordinated a media strategy to discredit lab leak discussions. Emails show they worked behind the scenes to smear and silence anyone who questioned the official narrative.

• The Biden administration and intelligence agencies pressured social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to censor lab leak discussions and label them as “misinformation.”

• Kristian Andersen, Robert Garry, and other scientists knew the truth but covered it up. Behind closed doors, they admitted a lab escape was likely. In public, they dismissed it as a “conspiracy theory.”

• WHO’s Jeremy Farrar got a burner phone to secretly coordinate meetings with Fauci, Collins, and top scientists, ensuring their discussions stayed off the record.

• Kristian Andersen, Robert Garry, and Eddie Holmes strategized how to mislead New York Times reporter Donald McNeil Jr., making sure he didn’t dig too deep into the lab leak theory.

• The infamous Proximal Origin paper, authored by Andersen, Garry, Holmes, Andrew Rambaut, and W. Ian Lipkin, was a coordinated effort to mislead the public. Private Slack messages revealed they believed a lab escape was not only possible but likely—yet they publicly denied it.

• Peter Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance helped cover for the Wuhan Institute of Virology, despite knowing their risky gain-of-function research could have caused the outbreak.

• The Wuhan lab, run by Shi Zhengli (“Bat Woman”), had horrifyingly lax safety protocols—yet they expected the public to believe a leak was impossible.

And now, after years of smearing and slandering the “conspiracy theorists,” The New York Times is quietly admitting the so-called “conspiracy theorists” were right all along.

#1 – RFK Jr. Sounds the Alarm on Bird Flu Vaccines

The USDA plans to inject millions of chickens to stop the bird flu outbreak, but RFK Jr. says “leaky vaccines” could make things worse.

He breaks it down here. This is the must-read thread of the week:

Originals

RFK Jr. Issues Grave Vaccination Warning

·
Mar 21
RFK Jr. Issues Grave Vaccination Warning
 

The USDA wants to vaccinate millions of chickens to stop the bird flu. They claim it’s the ultimate solution, but not everyone’s convinced. RFK Jr., for one, is sounding the alarm.

 

Read full story

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While you’re here, don’t forget to follow me (@VigilantFox) for more weekly news roundups.

 

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Mark Carney was an early supporter of government crackdown against Freedom Convoy

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Jonathon Van Maren

It is difficult not to conclude that he was publicly building the case for what Trudeau would ultimately do: freeze bank accounts, invoke the Emergencies Act, and launch a crackdown. Ironically, a federal justice would conclude, based on a mountain of evidence, that the government crackdown Carney appeared to be advocating did precisely what he accused the convoy protesters of doing: violating the fundamental rights of Canadians.

The Freedom Convoy arrived in Ottawa on January 29, 2022. Two weeks later, on February 14, Justin Trudeau declared the Emergencies Act (which replaced the War Measures Act in 1988); his Public Safety Minister, Marco Mendicino, insisted that law enforcement had requested the measure. Police from all over the country began arriving in Ottawa, and on February 18, they were sent to clear the streets — including a contingent on horseback. I was in Ottawa for the crackdown, and some of the scenes were surreal.

On January 23, 2024, Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley ruled that Trudeau’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act was both “unreasonable” and a violation of the rights of Canadians as guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He found that the invocation of the act lacked “justification, transparency, and intelligibility,” infringed on freedom of expression, and violated protection against “unreasonable search and seizure” due to the freezing of bank accounts and suppression of protests.

The Trudeau government is appealing this decision, insisting — against all evidence — that the Emergencies Act was essential to restoring peace despite the fact that there was not a single incident of documented violence during the Freedom Convoy. Further to that, Royal Canadian Mounted Police commissioner Brenda Lucki directly contradicted the claims made by Mendicino, stating that law enforcement had not requested the Emergencies Act, a key aspect of the government’s justification for invocation. “There was never a question of requesting the Emergencies Act,” Lucki told the Public Order Emergency Commission bluntly.

Interestingly, one of the early advocates of a crackdown on the Freedom Convoy was … now-Prime Minister Mark Carney. On February 7, a mere week into the protests, Carney penned a furious editorial in the Globe and Mail titled “This is sedition—and it’s time to put an end to it in Ottawa.” He claimed that people were being “terrorized”; that women were “fleeing abuse”; he stated, bluntly, “This is sedition. That’s a word I never thought I’d use in Canada. It means ‘incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority.’”

Carney went further, writing that although the protest might have been initially peaceful, “by now anyone sending money to the convoy should be in no doubt: You are funding sedition,” and called on the government to “identify those who are prolonging this manufactured crisis and punish them to the full extent of the law.” He opined that donating to the Freedom Convoy amounted to supporting an insurrection, concluding:

It’s time to end the sedition in Ottawa by enforcing the law and following the money … Decisive action must be taken to protect Canadians and our democracy. Our Constitution is based on peace, order and good government. We must live up to this founding principle in order to protect all our freedoms.”

Carney was already a key figure in Trudeau’s circle at this point, and it is difficult not to conclude that he was publicly building the case for what Trudeau would ultimately do: freeze bank accounts, invoke the Emergencies Act, and launch a crackdown. Ironically, a federal justice would conclude, based on a mountain of evidence, that the government crackdown Carney appeared to be advocating did precisely what he accused the convoy protesters of doing: violating the fundamental rights of Canadians.

Carney has kept understandably mum on all this since his leadership race and subsequent victory, although presumably he will be continuing the Trudeau government’s ongoing appeal to overturn the federal ruling that they violated the rights of Canadians. Indeed, for his Chief of Staff, Carney chose … Marco Mendicino, the very cabinet minister who appears to have blatantly lied about law enforcement requesting the Emergencies Act. Ironically, Carney also selected Chrystia Freeland, the minister directly responsible for freezing (at minimum) the bank accounts of hundreds of Canadians, as Minister of Transport.

To state that the Trudeau government violated the fundamental rights of Canadians in cracking down on protesters often rendered desperate by their vaccine mandate policies — which they cynically used as a wedge issue in a (failed) attempted to secure a second majority government — is not a right-wing conspiracy theory. It is the considered opinion of a federal judge that, to date, has not been overturned. Carney appears to be cut from precisely the same cloth — and has surrounded himself with those who carried out the crackdown.

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Jonathon’s writings have been translated into more than six languages and in addition to LifeSiteNews, has been published in the National PostNational ReviewFirst Things, The Federalist, The American Conservative, The Stream, the Jewish Independent, the Hamilton SpectatorReformed Perspective Magazine, and LifeNews, among others. He is a contributing editor to The European Conservative.

His insights have been featured on CTV, Global News, and the CBC, as well as over twenty radio stations. He regularly speaks on a variety of social issues at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions in Canada, the United States, and Europe.

He is the author of The Culture WarSeeing is Believing: Why Our Culture Must Face the Victims of AbortionPatriots: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Pro-Life MovementPrairie Lion: The Life and Times of Ted Byfield, and co-author of A Guide to Discussing Assisted Suicide with Blaise Alleyne.

Jonathon serves as the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

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