With the introduction of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit to help Canadians during the pandemic there were a lot of people excluded. The original stipulations indicated that in order to qualify for the $2000 a month funding one must have lost their work due to COVID-19 reasons and have had no income for 14 days in a row. These were the exact points before:
Residing in Canada, who are at least 15 years old:
-Who have stopped working because of COVID-19 and have not voluntarily quit their job or are eligible for EI regular or sickness benefits;
-Who had income of at least $5,000 in 2019 or in the 12 months prior to the date of their application; and
-Who are or expect to be without employment or self-employment income for at least 14 consecutive days in the initial four-week period. For subsequent benefit periods, they expect to have no employment or self-employment income.
Now they changed it to say the following:
The CERB is available to workers who meet all of the following conditions:
-live in Canada and are at least 15 years old
-stopped working because of COVID-19 or are eligible for EI regular or sickness benefits
-have not voluntarily quit their job
-had income of at least $5,000 in 2019 or in the 12 months prior to the date of their application.To help more Canadians benefit from the CERB, the government is announcing changes to the eligibility rules to:
-Allow people to earn up to $1,000 per month while collecting the CERB.
-Extend the CERB to seasonal workers who have exhausted their EI regular benefits and are unable to undertake their regular seasonal work as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.
-Extend the CERB to workers who have recently exhausted their EI regular benefits and are unable to find a job or return to work because of COVID-19.
In my opinion that is a reasonable change as before the old wording actually encouraged a part-time worker to do nothing as an example. So good news for a lot more people who need the extra help.