March 3, 2021 – Ottawa, Ontario – Department of Finance Canada

The Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy and Lockdown Support have helped protect millions of Canadian jobs and supported businesses of every size across Canada through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Today, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, announced that the government intends to extend the current rate structures for these subsidies from March 14 to June 5, 2021.

Maintaining the Current Rate Structures Until June 5, 2021

The rate structures for the wage subsidy for active employees, the rent subsidy, and Lockdown Support that are currently in place until March 13, 2021, would be extended for March 14 to June 5, 2021 (see Table 1 below). This means that:

• The maximum base wage subsidy rate for active employees would remain at 40 per cent, and the maximum top-up wage subsidy rate for employers most adversely impacted by the pandemic would remain at 35 per cent. As such, the maximum combined wage subsidy rate would remain at 75 per cent.
• The maximum rent subsidy rate would remain at 65 per cent.
• Lockdown Support would remain at 25 per cent and continue to be provided in addition to the rent subsidy, providing eligible hard hit businesses with rent support of up to 90 per cent.

See the CRA webpage for more information including for furloughed employees and the baseline remuneration period for the CEWS.

How We Can Help

Again please notify your DMCL advisor  if you need assistance with making the CEWS claims for August 30, 2020 to June 5, 2021 claim periods or CERS claims for September 27, 2020 to June 5, 2021 claim periods. The deadline for making CEWS [and CERS] claims for these claim periods is 180 days after the end of the claim period.   For instance, the deadline for applying for CEWS for the August 30th to September 26th, 2020 claim period is March 25, 2021.

* Per our January 13, 2021 blog, the deadline for applying for the claim period for August 2^nd to August 29^th 2020 was February 25^th 2021 and January 31, 2021 for periods prior to that.

Table 1 Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy and Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy Reference Periods, Periods 14 to 16 (March 14 to June 5, 2021)
Timing	Period 14 March 14 – April 10	Period 15 April 11 – May 8	Period 16 May 9 – June 5
General approach	March 2021 over March 2019 or February 2021 over February 2020	April 2021 over April 2019 or March 2021 over March 2019	May 2021 over May 2019 or April 2021 over April 2019
Alternative approach	March 2021 or February 2021 over average of January and February 2020	April 2021 or March 2021 over average of January and February 2020	May 2021 or April 2021 over average of January and February 2020

Employers that had chosen to use the general approach for prior periods would continue to use that approach. Similarly, employers that had chosen to use the alternative approach would continue to use the alternative approach.