Monday March 8th, 2021 Newsletter

Niagara Health to begin vaccinating hospital patients 80 years and older against COVID-19 In the coming days, Niagara Health will begin booking appointments to vaccinate patients who are 80 years of age and older and are currently admitted to a hospital bed or have been admitted and stayed overnight in the last six months. This will include patients at all sites of Niagara Health and at Hotel Dieu Shaver Health and Rehabilitation Centre. In addition to vaccinating the 80+ age group noted above, the Niagara Health clinic will continue to vaccinate healthcare workers. Thus far, a total of 16,660 vaccines have been administered at the clinic to patient-facing healthcare workers such as long-term care and retirement home workers, hospital staff and physicians, primary care providers, dentists and other specialists, as well as medical first responders (paramedics, police and firefighters). A full list of eligible community healthcare workers is available here. Healthcare workers who do not provide direct patient care are not yet eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine.

Wage and rent subsidy amounts to remain unchanged through to June Today, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, announced that the government intends to extend the current rate structures for these subsidies from March 14 to June 5, 2021. The maximum base wage subsidy rate for active employees would remain at 40 per cent, and the maximum top-up wage subsidy rate for employers most adversely impacted by the pandemic would remain at 35 per cent. As such, the maximum combined wage subsidy rate would remain at 75 per cent. The maximum rent subsidy rate would remain at 65 per cent. Lockdown Support would remain at 25 per cent and continue to be provided in addition to the rent subsidy, providing eligible hard hit businesses with rent support of up to 90 per cent. A separate wage subsidy rate structure applies for furloughed employees. To ensure that the wage subsidy for furloughed employees remains aligned with benefits available under Employment Insurance (EI), and that workers are provided with equitable treatment between the two programs, the weekly wage subsidy for a furloughed employee, from March 14 to June 5, 2021, would remain the same and continue to be the lesser of: the amount of eligible remuneration paid in respect of the week; and the greater of: $500; and 55 per cent of pre-crisis remuneration for the employee, up to a maximum subsidy amount of $595. Since the wage subsidy and rent subsidy programs launched, an organization’s decline in revenues has generally been determined by comparing the change in the organization’s revenues in a current calendar month with its revenues in the same calendar month of the previous year. An organization may also elect to use an alternative approach, which compares the change in the organization’s monthly revenues relative to the average of its January 2020 and February 2020 revenues. The GNCC has previously requested that the maximum rate remain at 75%, and is pleased at this announcement. However, we have also noted that the current eligibility scheme excludes many new and seasonal businesses, and have repeatedly asked that new criteria be drawn up that would cover businesses in these categories which have been unduly affected by the pandemic. The Canadian Chamber has also been advocating for these programs to keep 2019 as the reference period from which businesses can determine the level of decline in their revenue, rather than the year-over-year calculations currently used.