Every Saturday, boxes of pre-cooked meals fill the downtown Toronto office of the Workers’ Action Centre (WAC). 

Except the WAC isn’t a food bank. The worker advocacy organization only began distributing food, personal protective equipment, and other basic essentials to its membership when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March. “It’s been a horrific thing just to witness firsthand what workers have had to go through,” says Deena Ladd, WAC’s executive director. 

Many social impact organizations, including WAC, were dreading the end of the $500-a-week Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB). On September 24, a day after the Liberal government tabled a recovery-focused Throne Speech, details on the new Canada Recovery Benefit emerged. It offers $500 a week to Canadians left unemployed by the pandemic, mirroring CERB. 

Several social impact organizations told Future of Good the new benefit still doesn’t help those most vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But several social impact organizations told Future of Good the new benefit still doesn’t help those most vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic — especially undocumented workers and Canadians living on disability benefits — effectively leaving these groups out of the recovery plan. And even for those who can access it, just like its predecessor, CRB isn’t enough for residents of Canada’s biggest cities to meet all of their basic needs. A month’s rent on a one-bedroom apartment in Vancouver is over $2,000, according to data from rental site PadMapper; in St. John’s, it hovers just over $800. CERB was supposed to be a rising tide to lift all boats. Unfortunately, it has also lifted all boats equally – and widened existing inequities. 

Statistics Canada data shows around nine million people applied for CERB as of early September. In the midst of double-digit unemployment and the oncoming second wave of COVID-19, CERB has been, unsurprisingly, critical for many Canadians. However, Doug Pawson, executive director of End Homelessness St John’s, says unhoused people are still left behind. Many unhoused people were disqualified from receiving CERB because they already receive provincial income support benefits — and insufficient benefits at that. “These rates are inadequate everywhere in the country,” Pawson says. In Newfoundland and Labrador, he says, they run from $800 to $1,000 a month. 

Ladd points out that the many undocumented workers WAC serves cannot access the government’s COVID-19 related benefits. “CERB means nothing to them,” she says. These workers will remain locked out of the new CRB unless the federal government drops a key requirement for benefit access — a valid social insurance number. 

And Heather Bruce, food bank and volunteer coordinator at Ottawa’s Parkdale Food Centre says many of the centre’s clients receive disability payments, meaning they cannot apply for CERB. While the Liberal government’s Throne Speech mentioned a new disability benefit similar to the guaranteed income supplement for seniors, the details aren’t yet clear. 

The CRB is by no means unwelcome, though. When the pandemic struck, Parkdale Food Centre saw an influx of new users. “I would say 50 percent of the folks that were accessing the food bank hadn’t been to our food bank before, or hadn’t been to our food bank in at least six months,” says  Bruce. 

That changed after CERB and other government benefits took effect. “At the very beginning, there was uncertainty about CERB and unemployment,” she says. “People were just one paycheque away from their whole financial life falling apart.” In February, before the pandemic took hold, the centre was seeing around 1,200 users a month. Today, that figure is closer to 800. “I think it has a lot to do with CERB,” Bruce says. 

Ladd too applauded CRB, a benefit she says will be especially helpful to gig and low-income workers who did not have access to EI before the pandemic. CRB recipients also require just 120 working hours to be eligible, rather than the 400 to 600 required for traditional EI claims. “This allows people to have at least a bit of stability as they still struggle to try and make ends meet,” she says. According to a recent analysis by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, roughly 2 million Canadians stood to lose money if the Liberal government switched from CERB back to a more traditional EI system. “That would have just pushed people into complete chaos,” she says. Earning a $500 a week paycheque could mean unsafe (during a pandemic) travel on public transit between multiple workplaces, Ladd says. “To not have to go through that to get at least $500 a week has been incredible,” she says. 

A benefit she says will be especially helpful to gig and low-income workers who did not have access to EI before the pandemic.

Getting enough nutritious food to eat wasn’t easy for low-income Canadians even before the pandemic. Paying the rent on a basement apartment in Toronto — roughly $1,500 a month — ate up most of a worker’s income. And Ladd says many people found CERB assistance on its own wasn’t enough. “What this benefit does is provide the ability for people to pay rent,” she says, and not much more.

Bruce says Parkdale Food Centre is working to serve more people struggling, even with government assistance. “We’re in the phase of expanding our capacity,” she says, offering takeout lunches on Fridays and talking about setting up a produce stand. However, the oncoming second wave may jeopardize those plans. “We also have to think about what the winter will look like — and what will the spring look like? Will we be able to connect better with our neighbours?”

Pawson says his organization has lobbied the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to allow income support recipients who are eligible for CERB to receive it without the provincial government cutting off their benefits. “Our provincial government has taken a very, very staunch stance on it,” he says. “They just suspend people.” In Alberta, Manitoba, and Quebec, Pawson says, CERB is treated as income — meaning that anyone who claims it while receiving income support may lose it, but still keep their medical benefits. 

Meanwhile, Ladd doesn’t believe the WAC will be able to stop handing out food and other essentials to workers. CRB is welcome relief, she says, but not enough for many workers who were already struggling to make ends meet before the pandemic. “Twenty-six weeks is not a long time,” she says, “and the clock starts now.” 

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