Dear Colleagues,
While we normally don’t send communications on weekends, we are sending you this update that was originally scheduled to go out on Friday but was delayed due to governmental announcements.
Here is the update for today:
1. Annual renewal is being extended. Due to the impact of COVID-19, Council has approved an extension to the renewal period, including more time to complete CC and Standard First Aid with CPR-C. Information is being finalized and will be communicated later this week.
2. Trauma-informed training CC still required by June 30, 2020. As this CC is mandated by the Bill 21 amendments to the HPA in 2019, members must complete and submit their certificates by June 30, 2020. The course “Protecting Patients from Sexual Abuse and Misconduct" is free and accessible online.
For members who have already completed this training and submitted your certificates—we are finalizing the data entry information for the new database, which is why you won’t see your certificates entered at this time. All certificates received to date will be entered by April 16. We will alert the membership when this has been completed.
3. New supports for small businesses announced Friday. The CCA provided the following update regarding some major financial supports announced today by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau:
- The federal government is increasing the wage subsidy to 75 per cent. This measure will be retroactive to March 15 and will allow employees to be paid even if a business is closed or has slowed down.
- The federal government is also launching the Canada Emergency Business Account – enabling banks to offer $40,000 loans guaranteed by the government to qualifying businesses. Subject to conditions, the loans will be interest-free for the first year and $10,000 will be forgivable.
- The government will also provide $12.5 billion more to Export Development Canada and the Business Development Bank of Canada to improve access to guaranteed loans for small and medium sized businesses.
- Lastly, Canada is deferring GST and HST payments until June, which is equivalent to giving $30 billion to businesses.