Measures are designed to protect those facing a potential cash crunch.

Given the spread of COVID-19 (the coronavirus), countries around the world are continuing to take measures to help limit the extent of the outbreak, while at the same time providing economic assistance to their citizens and residents. Canada is no exception and besides closing borders and ports of entry to all but essential travel, it has also introduced measures to help the population through these very uncertain times.

For industry and small businesses (which includes the vast majority of automotive businesses in this country), the government has introduced a range of strategies to help.

The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau issued this statement regarding assistance for employees and small businesses:

“Last week, we announced a whole range of measures to protect jobs, small

businesses, and the economy. We introduced special measures under the Work-Sharing Program to help employers who fall on hard times during COVID-19—$12 million allocated.

If your business faces a cash crunch, we will help you bridge to better times. We are working with our financial crown corporations through the Business Credit Availability Program (BCAP) to protect jobs and businesses with $10 billion in credit. As we said last week as one of the first steps when we announced these measures, we said we would be doing more. This is what brings me to where we are today.

In these extraordinary times, our government is taking extraordinary measures. The measures we have announced will provide up to $27 billion dollars 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 dollars in support represents more than 3 percent of Canada’s GDP.

We will provide employers and small businesses a temporary wage subsidy equal to 10 percent of salary paid to employees for a period of 3 months. This will encourage employers to keep staff on the payroll during these uncertain times.

Economic measures will ensure that our economy rebounds after this. Supply chains and trade will carry on across the border.”

Given the extent to which COVID-19 has spread, there has arguably, never been a time in history since World War II, where society collectively faces challenges on such a large scale. As Canadians, the COVID-19 situation provides the ideal opportunity for us to showcase our reputation for cooperation, collaboration and inclusiveness. Collectively, by doing our part, we will all get through it and likely emerge much stronger as a society.

Stay tuned to Autosphere.ca as we bring you updates on the situation regarding COVID-19 and its impact on all segments of the automotive industry.