Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland recently announced in a press conference that the Canadian Worker Lockdown Benefit has officially replaced the Canadian Recovery Benefit (CRB) as the program available to workers who lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Freeland added that her department would disclose the full details of the benefits program in the coming weeks.
An online bulletin backs Freeland’s announcement by the Department of Finance posted on the federal government of Canada’s website. According to the bulletin, the Canadian Worker Lockdown Benefit was established to provide “income support to workers whose employment is interrupted by specific government-imposed public health lockdown scenarios,” including individuals who are “unable to work due to such restrictions.”
This benefit program is in line with the country’s “road to economic recovery and employment is now back to pre-pandemic levels,” where the government is “making adjustments to pandemic income support programs to reflect the new phase of the recovery.” The said bulletin also highlighted that the government, through its Finance Department, is moving from broad-based programs to more narrowly targeted support.
The Department of Finance’s online bulletin provided that the Canadian Worker Lockdown Benefit has a weekly payment of $300, and its implementation is slated until May 7, 2022. Moreover, applications for the Canadian Worker Lockdown Benefit will be retroactive to October 24, 2021. It will also only be “strictly” available for persons who are either not eligible for employment insurance (EI) or individuals eligible for EI so long as they are not receiving EI benefits during the same time frame the new benefit program is put into effect.
“Temporary local lockdowns are still a possibility in the months to come,” Freeland related. “We want Canadians to know that we intend now to put in place a measure that would snap into action immediately to support workers in the event of a new local lockdown.”
Notably, the online bulletin where the Canadian Worker Lockdown Benefit announcement has a somewhat shady condition. It explicitly provided that “individuals whose loss of income or employment is due to their refusal to adhere to a vaccine mandate would not be able to access the benefit.”
Apart from being reported to contain questionable ingredients such as tissues derived from aborted human fetuses, the COVID-19 vaccines currently produced by pharmaceutical giants, namely Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and J&J, have also been seen to bring about adverse and potentially fatal side effects. These negative side effects include the inflammation of the heart muscle, kidney failure, miscarriages, and thrombosis, which easily explains why some Canadian citizens are apprehensive about being injected with the experimental shots.
