The Prime Minister announced investments of up to $221 million in partnership with Canadian financial institutions (including up to $93 million from the Government over the next 4 years) to launch the Black Entrepreneurship Program. This program aims to help thousands of Black business owners and entrepreneurs recover from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and grow their businesses. This program includes the following: • New National Ecosystem Fund to support Black-led business organizations by providing access to funding and capital, mentorship, financial planning services and business training. • Black Entrepreneurship Loan Fund to provide loans of between $25,000 to...

CRA has announced changes to amounts related to meal benefits and allowances. • CRA increased the amount that employers can use to determine whether an overtime meal or allowance, or the meal portion of a travel allowance is taxable, from $17 to $23. • CRA also increased the rate at which transport employees and other individuals can claim meal expenses, using the simplified method (a flat rate per person), from $17 to $23 per meal. These changes are effective immediately and retroactive to January 1, 2020. Source: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency.html

Recently, the Federal Government announced incidents of “credential stuffing” attacks on the GCkey service and CRA accounts. These attacks allowed hackers to take advantage of the fact that many people reuse passwords and usernames across multiple accounts. The GCkey is used to access several services such as Employment and Social Development Canada’s My Service Canada Account or their Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada account. 9,041 users from about 12 million active GCkey accounts were fraudently used to access government services. The Federal Government said that it has cancelled the affected GC Key accounts as soon as the threat was discovered. Affected...

The Federal Government just announced details regarding the 75% wage subsidy that will help businesses keep their workers. This program is called the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS).Extension to August 29, 2020:  The Federal Government announced that it will extend the CEWS) by an additional 12 weeks to August 29, 2020 instead of the previously announced end date of June 6, 2020.  (Update as of May 15, 2020)Please note that this is different from the temporary 10% wage subsidy previously announced by the Federal Government. Employers may be eligible for both the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy and the 10% wage subsidy for...