A senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says it’s been a remarkable week for bold policy announcements from governments responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Marc Lee says the economy is widely understood to be heading towards a recession, noting the focus of government should be avoiding a depression.

“You know we don’t want to have businesses fail and I think today’s announcement complements the income supports announcement earlier this week by basically bringing in a wage subsidy at 75 per cent,” he said.

“So it basically puts businesses in a position to keep workers on using 25 cent dollars, so that they don’t even have to get into the income support programs.”

Lee adds the federal government deserves credit for signalling that there will be money flowing to keep business operating through the crisis.

“That puts us kind of in league with some of the leaders in terms of this type of policy worldwide,” Lee added. “The Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, South Korea, so I think it’s a positive step overall, although there’s a lot of details to come over the coming days.”

The new federal wage subsidy is an increase over the proposed 10 per cent that was first proposed by the Federal government.

“The early measures tabled by the BC government and the Federal Government were you know, again steps in the right direction but they were you know a little on the modest side,” added Lee. “The signal has been that more will come as needed, and that they are not done yet.”

The federal government has also announced a $107 billion financial assistance and stimulus package which has passed through Parliament.