By Rod Nickel
WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) – Canadian government and opposition legislators met in the House of Commons on Saturday and were expected to approve a wage subsidy worth C$73 billion ($52 billion) to support the ravaged economy.
Opposition parties had agreed to support the bill during the emergency sitting in Ottawa, Government House Leader Pablo Rodriquez said. A vote was expected Saturday afternoon.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke for the first time in weeks in the House after self-isolating with his family as his wife Sophie was infected with the novel coronavirus.
“This situation may get worse before getting better,” Trudeau said in his address. “Let us make a commitment among ourselves, to do what needs to be done for as long as it takes.”
Trudeau’s Liberals control a minority in the House of Commons and require support from the other parties to govern.
The economy lost a record 1 million jobs last month.
Canada’s death toll rose 13% in the past day to 600, and total cases climbed by 6% to 22,559, health officials said.
Deaths are set to soar to as high as 22,000 by the end of the pandemic, according to government projections.
Many of the deaths have occurred among elderly people, and the Liberal government released new guidelines for long-term care homes, including monitoring that all staff and visitors wear masks.
As of Friday, more than 5.85 million Canadians had applied for federal emergency unemployment help since March 15, government data showed.
(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
