The first payments from a $73-billion federal wage subsidy program will flow by the end of the first week of May, acting as a buttress against the economic shock from COVID-19.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the federal government is willing to send money to provinces that want to provide salary top-ups to workers deemed essential.

Nearly 5.4 million Canadians are receiving emergency federal aid, with hundreds of thousands more claims waiting to be processed, the federal government said on Monday, April 13, 2020, providing another snapshot of the economic fallout from COVID-19.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is raising anew his government's promise to help hard-hit Canadians more easily access credit by leaning on the nation's banks to do more than reduce credit-card costs.

Parliamentarians will soon find themselves voting anew on spending measures to help the country to combat the financial fallout from COVID-19 — help that is going to cost the federal treasury at least $95 billion — as the result of changes the Liberals have promised in recent days.

The federal government is shutting down the network of in-person Service Canada centres over COVID-19 concerns.

The Liberals are repackaging two previously promised benefits for Canadians whose working lives are disrupted by COVID-19, a change that will almost double direct financial aid in the government's economic plan to $52 billion.

A growing number of business and labour groups are urging the federal Liberals to up their promised wage subsidy to help companies hit hard by COVID-19 keep people on their payrolls.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is pointing to an impending bailout package as a way to help renters affected by COVID-19, though new research suggests hundreds of thousands of households may be in dire financial straits before the federal money arrives.

Canada's central bank cut another half-point off its key interest rate in an emergency move that comes ahead of what the federal Liberals say will be a "significant" stimulus plan to cushion the economic blow from COVID-19.