Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced today that the government will extend the wage subsidy until the end of August.

He also noted that the criteria will be adapted to give businesses the confidence to grow their revenues as they reopen.

"As businesses are trying to figure out when they might be able to reopen, are looking at numbers of cases and trying to imagine what that might mean for their business in the coming weeks and the coming months, they are busy trying to juggle a whole bunch of factors that they have very little window into," said Trudeau speaking at a press conference today. "That's why it was so important for us to announce that we will be continuing with the wage subsidy over the next 3 months, until the end of the summer, to give businesses the certainty to know that we will be there for them."

"As the economy reopens there is a danger of unintended consequences...." noted Trudeau, "if part of the eligibility criteria of getting the wage subsidy is a decrease of 30% of your business, we wouldn’t want people who are getting back their business going to feel like they have to hold back on their growth, on their expansion, on their rehiring, in order to continue benefiting from the wage subsidy."

Details on what changes will be made to the criteria for qualifying for the wage subsidy are expected to be announced later today.

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