NDP Leader Andrea Horwath is concerned the provincial government\u2019s financial statement lacks the direct financial assistance many Ontarians and small and medium-sized local businesses will need to get by during the COVID-19 crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cFar too many workers, families and small businesses were already struggling to stay afloat before the COVID-19 pandemic,\u201d said Horwath. \u201cNow a lot of folks have seen their incomes cut or eliminated altogether, which means they\u2019re now laying awake at night, worried about how to keep making ends meet. They can\u2019t wait weeks for federal support to come in, and most can\u2019t get by with their income cut\u00a0in half.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The NDP will vote in favour of the financial statement bill, and allow it to pass immediately. But Horwath\u00a0said the province needs to do better to stop some people from finding themselves in dire financial straits, and preventing some businesses from going under.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI am urging the government to regroup, and put together a direct financial support package for people, and for\u00a0small and medium-sized businesses,\u201d said Horwath. \u201cMany Ontarians are at their financial breaking point. Rent and mortgage payments are coming due, and people\u2019s credit card charges are piling up. Folks are worried about how they\u2019ll avoid eviction, and avoid racking up debts that will dog them in the months ahead. And small businesses can\u2019t use a tax credit if they have no cash coming in.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Prior to the financial statement, Horwath and the NDP called for the provincial government to send $2,000 Ontario Emergency Income cheques to households experiencing unemployment or lost income during the COVID-19 crisis.<\/p>\n
The direct payments would bridge the weeks-long wait for federal support payments, and help top-up the Employment Insurance and Emergency Care Benefit payments, which alone only replace about 55 per cent of a person\u2019s income. Horwath\u2019s proposed Ontario Emergency Income payments would be available immediately and automatically to those enrolled in Ontario Works, the Ontario Disability Support Program, Employment Insurance, and the federal Emergency Care Benefit, and distributed to everyone who needs them by April 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath is concerned the provincial government\u2019s financial statement lacks the direct financial assistance many Ontarians and small and medium-sized local businesses will need to get by during the COVID-19 crisis. \u201cFar too many workers, families and small businesses were already struggling to stay afloat before the COVID-19 pandemic,\u201d said Horwath. \u201cNow a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-provincial"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-20 07:08:43","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29873"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29875,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29873\/revisions\/29875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}