Key points on this week’s Federal Fall Economic Update

Overview

The federal government’s Fall Economic Update, delivered on Monday, extends many emergency measures, and takes small steps to address key needs in child care, long term care, and access to housing and high-speed internet.

The government also made modest commitments to address the disproportionate impact of the economic fall out from the pandemic with investments in programs to support labour market access for students and youth, persons with disabilities, Indigenous people, newcomers, racialized, and women workers. 

The flagship commitment related to post-secondary education in the Update is the waiving of interest payments for 1.4 million Canadians who have to make debt payments on Canada Student or Apprenticeship Loans. While this will provide some temporary relief, it does not address core issues of affordability, access or quality. CAUT will continue to ramp up its advocacy in advance of Budget 2021, expected in the Spring, for critical investments in post-secondary education and research.

Below are highlights from this week’s economic update: 

Helping Canadians work from home

  • The Canada Revenue Agency is streamlining the process for deducting home office expenses for tax purposes by allowing employees working from home to claim a Home Office Expense Deduction of up to $400 in the 2020 tax year, without the need to track detailed expenses or the need for their employer to provide a signed form (T2200). More details are expected in forthcoming weeks.
  • An additional investment of $750 million over 5 years to the Universal Broadband Fund to accelerate the expansion of access to high speed internet. These additional funds are to be aimed at larger, high-impact projects. In total, $1.75 billion will be provided over seven years, intended to connect 98 % of Canadians by 2026 and 100 % of Canadians by 2030.
  • Canadians will be able to qualify for grants of up to $5,000 for work to improve the energy efficiency of their homes. Details of the plan have yet to be announced but the grants will be retroactive to Dec. 1, 2020.

Temporary student debt alleviation

  • Intention announced to eliminate the interest on repayment of the federal portion (60%) of the Canada Student Loans and Canada Apprentice Loans for 2021-22, which will offer $329.4 million in relief to up to 1.4 million Canadians.

New training investments and opportunities

  • Additional support for youth employment:
    • Canada Summer Jobs program will be expanded up to 120,000 job placements in 2021-22 – an increase of 40,000 from the previous year, with approximately $447.5 million in new investments.
    • Additional Investment of $575.3 million over the next two years in the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy to provide approximately 45,300 job placements for young people (aged 15-30), for an estimated 17,500 new job placements.
  • Enhanced skills training for those who were hardest hit by the pandemic
    • An additional investment of $274.2 million over 2 years, starting in 2021-22 to support the Indigenous Skills and Employment Training Program, the Foreign Credential Recognition Program, the Opportunities Fund for Persons with Disabilities, and the Women’s Employment Readiness Canada pilot project.
  • Accelerated training for personal care workers
    • $38.5 million over two years to support training up to 4,000 personal support worker interns through an accelerated 6-week online training program combined with a 4-month work placement, to address acute labour shortages in long-term care and home care.
    • $420 million in funds for bursaries and grants to train and retain early childhood educators.
  • Supporting Indigenous education
    • An additional $112 million for First Nations to support a safe return to schools on reserve and $206.1 million to support a safe restart in Indigenous communities, including supports for safe restart in Indigenous post-secondary education institutions and Indigenous early learning and child care.
  • Addressing inequalities
    • Announcement of a task force on modernizing the Employment Equity Act.
    • Creation of a Federal Secretariat on Early Learning and Child Care.
    • A new investment of $33 million over 3 years to assist organizations, including academic institutions, to help them achieve the 50-30 Challenge program’s goals to increase diverse representation in positions of influence. Funds are intended to help with the development of tools such as developing diversity strategies, the creation of mentorship and training opportunities, and online toolkit and resources.
  • Provincial Funding Support

In addition to the previously announced Safe Re-start Agreement, and the increases to the Labour Market Agreements, the Update announced a significant increase to the Fiscal Stabilization Program. The Fiscal Stabilization Program provides financial assistance to a province facing a year-over-year decline in non-resource revenues greater than five per cent. Up to now, the maximum a province could receive under the program was $60 per person. The Update announced that the cap will nearly triple, to $170 per person in 2019-20 and 2020-21, and will grow over time.