The federal government will soon be providing a one-time payment of $500 to nearly one million low-income Canadians struggling to pay their rent in 2022. The new measure is one of several outlined today by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland in Canada’s $8.9-billion Affordability Plan, a plan she says will help Canadians contend with sky-high inflation driven by the pandemic and amplified by Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.

“We know that Canadians are worried about inflation and that they’re asking what their government is going to do about it,” Freeland said in today’s keynote address.  “That’s why we have a new Affordability Plan — $8.9 billion in new support this year — that is going to put more money in the pockets of Canadians at a time when they need it most.”

In addition to the one-time Housing Affordability Payment to support struggling renters, the plan includes: $1.7 billion in new support for workers through the enhanced Canada Workers Benefit; a nation-wide cut in average child care payments by roughly 50 per cent; a 10 per cent increase to Old Age Security (OAS) funding; dental coverage for Canadians earning less than $90,000 per year; and adjustments for inflation over time to OAS, Guaranteed Income Supplement, Canada Pension Plan, the Canada Child Benefit, and the GST Credit. Freeland added that the $15-an-hour federal minimum wage will also be indexed to inflation.

“The pandemic has been—we hope—a once-in-a-generation crisis,” she said. “But like any major crisis, this one has after shocks, and inflation is chief among them. “Inflation is not a made-in-Canada challenge, and it is actually less severe here than among our peers.”

Freeland went on to point out that inflation in Canada was 6.8 per cent in April compared to 9 per cent in the United Kingdom,^, 7.4 per cent in Germany^, and 9.2 per cent across the OECD. In the United States, inflation was 8.6 per cent in May.

“We spent an extraordinary amount of money to make it through the pandemic,” she said. “Eight out of every ten dollars invested to rescue Canadians and the Canadian economy — more than $300 billion — was deployed, rightly, by the federal government.”^.

For more on the new Affordability Plan, click here: Deputy Prime Minister outlines government’s Affordability Plan for Canadians  – Canada.ca