{"id":18043,"date":"2020-04-13T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-13T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.benefitscanada.com\/news\/contract-self-employed-canadians-worry-about-end-of-coronavirus-support-144986"},"modified":"2020-04-13T09:30:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-13T13:30:00","slug":"contract-self-employed-canadians-worry-about-end-of-coronavirus-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2020\/04\/13\/contract-self-employed-canadians-worry-about-end-of-coronavirus-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Contract, self-employed Canadians worry about end of coronavirus support"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kelsey Rolfe<\/span> | April 13, 2020 <\/p>\n

Summers are big business for the Butlers. Samantha and her husband John are partners in a small photography and videography business, with the bulk of their work taking place during the summer wedding season. But this year will be different.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re facing about $30,000 of lost income,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd we\u2019ve only lost weddings up until mid-July \u2014 we\u2019re not even looking at August, September and October.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Butlers both received the Canada Emergency Response Benefit<\/a> and will also receive increases to the Canada child benefit for their three children, as well as provincial support for parents whose children are home from school during the virus.<\/p>\n

Read: Coronavirus emergency response benefit doesn\u2019t go far enough, say gig workers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

While Butler says she\u2019s grateful the support will cover their expenses for the next few months, she\u2019s concerned about what happens after the CERB coverage ends. The Butlers usually support themselves all winter on the income they make during wedding season.<\/p>\n

\u201cFollowing October, we don\u2019t really have weddings that come in,\u201d she says. \u201cSay we start earning income in September . . . . We would be really grateful for that, but the issue becomes, \u2018What do we do in the winter?\u2019 We\u2019ve lost our whole summer income.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul Leroux, the owner of sole proprietorship LPA Sound Services, has similar concerns. He specializes in live music events and saw all of his scheduled events fall through until at least August as venues closed and large gatherings were banned in Ontario.<\/p>\n

Read: Feds adding $2,000 benefit for Canadians out of work due to coronavirus<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

While he applied and received the CERB, he says the closures will have a knock-on effect on people in his industry once the closures are lifted. Typically, during the summer tour season, he and other small businesses can pick up work in the city because many live sound technicians are travelling with bands. But with tours cancelled and technicians grounded in Toronto, those hourly gigs aren\u2019t likely to be available, even if venues are back up and running in the summer. \u201cEverybody\u2019s going to be hungry now,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

These concerns are common among gig economy workers, says Sunil Johal, a fellow at the Brookfield Institute and Public Policy Forum who chaired  the federal expert panel on modern labour standards in 2019. \u201cWith where this pandemic seems to be headed, it doesn\u2019t seem likely that, come the fall, we\u2019re going to be back to completely business as normal. I think there\u2019s a huge amount of anxiety for lots of folks in the labour market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read: Employers to have easier time accessing coronavirus wage subsidy program<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

However, Johal expects the federal government to be attuned to that reality. \u201cI don\u2019t think, in good conscience, they\u2019re going to be able to just drop the CERB and move on to regular business if the pandemic hasn\u2019t shifted course and things are [only] relatively back to business as normal. . . . I think we\u2019re seeing a great example of policy-making on the fly, here.\u201d<\/p>\n

He notes the federal government has made multiple changes to both the CERB and the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy<\/a> in the weeks since they were announced. \u201cI actually think that\u2019s a good thing. It demonstrates that the government is listening to the concerns of Canadians, that they may or may not be eligible or this may not benefit them in the way that was originally envisioned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in early April his government was aware the CERB wouldn\u2019t cover all gig economy workers and was looking at ways to offer additional support. \u201cWe know there are many vulnerable people who won\u2019t be able to access this support who will need extra help,\u201d he said in a press conference on April 2.<\/p>\n

Read: Considerations for employers rehiring with help from federal wage subsidies<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible the CERB could eventually become a universal basic income program, a move Spain has been considering in recent weeks. \u201cOnce we move past this pandemic \u2014 and let\u2019s say there\u2019s a vaccine in a year \u2014 I think, in a lot of cases, it\u2019s going to be really hard for the government to pull back that support for people because they\u2019ve become reliant upon it and it\u2019s really helping them meet their needs. I think we could certainly see a more targeted form of this become a permanent part of our policy landscape going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Samantha Butler, it\u2019s unclear what will happen after the shutdown ends. She says it wouldn\u2019t really be feasible for her and her husband to pick up temporary jobs in the interim, because they\u2019d have to quit them in the spring to focus on their business again. And for that business, she expects a slow start.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think people are going to rush out to get photos for their business right away, or even get married. I think people are going to be scaling it in and that\u2019s fine. In that interim period, where we\u2019re trying to find our sea legs, I think that support needs to carry on a little bit longer. Gig workers and business owners and self-employed people can\u2019t just start back up again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Find out more about the Canada Emergency Response Benefit here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Read the full article at BenefitsCanada.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kelsey Rolfe | April 13, 2020 Summers are big business for the Butlers. Samantha and her husband John are partners in a small photography and videography business, with the bulk of their work taking place during the summer...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18043"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18043\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}