(UPDATE: May 7 @ 8:14 am): Janitors at long-term care facilities, those restocking food on store shelves, along with other low-wage employees who have made it possible for millions of Canadians to avoid contracting COVID-19 while getting the supplies and services they need, will soon be getting a raise.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the federal government, provinces and territories will spend up to $4 billion to top up the wages of essential workers in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Details are still to be finalized with some provinces about how the program will roll out, but Trudeau says all the premiers agree that front-line, low-wage workers who are risking their health deserve to be earning more for their labour.

“We see across the country people working on the front lines in essential services, in our seniors care centres, in our long-term care, in our health-care systems and elsewhere who are making very low wages while doing extraordinarily important work,” Trudeau said Thursday.

“The bottom line is this: if you’re risking your health to keep this country moving and you’re making minimum wage, you deserve a raise.”

Photo credit: Canadian Press

Because of the variants that exist across the country, both in the way COVID-19 is presenting in different provinces and territories and in the way essential services are classified, it will be up to each province to decide which workers count as “essential” and will get a top-up to their salaries. The provinces will also decide how much more these workers will earn.

The federal government will cover three-quarters of the cost of this program, with provincial and territorial governments kicking in the rest.

Canadians are relying on these workers now, more than ever, and all provinces and territories worked collaboratively to come to an agreement on how to better support them, Trudeau said.

The COVID-19 pandemic’s forced restrictions have meant millions of Canadians have come to rely on workers who provide essential services, but the outbreak has also laid bare that many of those who work in jobs now deemed “essential” come from vulnerable populations.

People who work in grocery stores, people who clean nursing homes, people who work in processing plants are often members of marginalized communities: people of colour, newcomers, temporary foreign workers, single mothers, those with limited education and people living in poverty.

Public health officials have ordered Canadians to stay home and self-isolate to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, but these workers have had to keep going to work every day to ensure food supply chains remain intact and health facilities can continue to operate.

When asked whether the pandemic is placing too great a burden on employees who are already marginalized, Trudeau was reflective, saying he believes the virus has revealed that people who are economically and socially vulnerable are “extremely important to the functioning of our society.

“We know, however, that once we get through this in the months and years to come, we’re also going to have to have reflections about how we manage and how we maintain our long-term care facilities, how we support essential workers who are very low-paid, how we move forward as a society to make sure that our vulnerable are properly taken care of and properly rewarded for the important work they do.”

These comments were echoed by the country’s chief science adviser, Mona Nemer, in a conversation with Gov. Gen. Julie Payette, which was streamed online Thursday.

Nemer said she believes the pandemic will likely cause Canadians to rethink current societal structures, such as the reality that those who provide care are among the lowest-paid.

“I hope it will raise many questions that we will ask ourselves and have a national dialogue around our values and around also maybe how technology can help us better care for each other, care for others and use it to stay connected, use it to ensure better health for everyone,” Nemer said.

“I think there are going to be a lot of very interesting take-home messages from this unfortunate situation.”

(Original story: May 7 @ 6 am): Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to announce today cost-sharing agreements with a number of provinces to top up the wages of essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Those agreements are expected to involve a transfer of federal funds to the provinces, each of which will be able to decide for itself which essential workers most need a pay boost.

The flexible agreements are intended to allow provinces to tailor the program to suit their different needs.

However, it was the continuing tragedy in long-term care homes — residents of which account for more than 60% of Canada’s some 4,200 deaths so far — that first prompted Trudeau several weeks ago to offer a federal assistance to boost wages.

Photo credit: Canadian Press

Specifically, he proposed a pay boost for personal support workers and other front-line health workers in long-term care facilities who earn less than $2,500 per month.

The crisis in long-term care has been blamed, at least in part, on the fact that health and personal care workers in those facilities are typically poorly paid and have had to work in multiple homes to make ends meet, thereby spreading the deadly virus that causes COVID-19 among the most vulnerable population.

Part of the objective in proposing a federal wage top-up was to encourage more essential workers to stay in their jobs, even at a risk to their own lives, and to compensate them for recent orders in some provinces banning them from working in multiple facilities.

As more workers in long-term care homes have fallen ill, many facilities have been struggling to provide basic care for residents. Both Quebec and Ontario, where the problem is most acute, have requested help from the military.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and government House leader Pablo Rodriguez are to hold a briefing this morning, updating the number of armed forces personnel who are now helping out in long-term care homes in the two provinces.

Quebec moved to top up essential workers’ pay even before Trudeau’s offer, announcing a $4-per-hour pay hike for workers in private long-term care homes, as well as a $24.28 per hour salary to attract new workers to fill in as attendants at the facilities.

Since then, several provinces, including Ontario, British Columbia and Saskatchewan, have followed suit with similar programs. Federal cost-sharing agreements with those and other provinces are expected to be unveiled today.

Ontario, with financial support from Ottawa, has announced a $4-per-hour increase for front-line workers at long-term care homes, retirement homes, emergency shelters, supportive housing, group homes, correctional institutions and youth justice facilities, as well as for those providing home and community care and some hospital staff.

As well, Ontario’s front-line employees who work more than 100 hours a month will receive bonus payments of $250 per month for four months.

Saskatchewan, with $53 million in federal support, has announced a temporary wage supplement of $400 per month for those who work with seniors, in group homes and in child care.