PM Trudeau Reconvened Parliament

USPA NEWS - As the number of new Covid 19 cases continue to grow, Canadian Prime Minister Trudesu, on Tuesday, March 24th, recalled the House of Commons for an emergency session for the purpose of quickly passing the Covid 19 Emergency Aid bill.
As of Tuesday, there was a total of 2,590 confirmed cases of the Covin 19 virus. The number of cases by province is as follows:  British Columbia 472, Alberta 301, Saskatchewan 72, Manitoba 21, Ontario 588, Quebec 1,013, New Brunswick 18, Nova Scotia 51, Prince Edward Island 3 and Newfoundland 35. There is 1 case in the Northwest Territories and 2 cases in the Yukon.

In Tuesday's emergency House sitting, there is just one item on the agenda which is passing the Covid 19 Emergency Aid bill. This legislation would give the Canadian government power to enact the $82 billion relief package, which would provide $27 billion in aid for Canadians impacted by the Covid 19 virus and $55 billion for businesses. Prime Minister Trudeau was hoping for a quick passing of the proposed legislation, but within minutes of the session starting, it was put on pause as negotiations continued on controversial parts of the government´s proposed legislation.

Shortly after the supper hour, the House agreed to extend the sitting hours for the day, which would allow time for debate if it were to commence, but as of late no bill has been introduced for consideration.

After many hours of intense negotiating, an amended version of the bill received approval from all sides. It has been reported, that the main problem that the opposition parties had with the originally proposed bill, was the powers it would give to Liberals for emergency spending without Parliament's approval and the length of time that the legislation would be in effect. In the end an appropriate compromise was reached very early Wednesday morning at which time the opposition was comfortable with supporting the bill.

The final step before the bill becomes law is sending it to the Senate who did pass the legislation later in the day on Wednesday.

Update: Thursday, March 26 2020. As of news time today the number of Covid 19 cases in Canada has risen to 3,890. In a press conference, this afternoon, Prime Minister Trudeau announced the details of financial relief being offered to Canadians. Details are listed at canada.ca. He cautioned Canadians that there is a scam circulating via text messaging, so he urged Canadians to refer to the Government of Canada website for the most accurate and up to date information and also said that the timeline for Canadians to receive aid is approximately 14 days from application date. The Prime Minister also announced that the Quarantine Act has been enacted as there are people who are returning from traveling who are not following the suggested 14-day self- isolation process upon return. The Quarantine Act makes the 14-day self-isolation MANDATORY and can be met with costly fines and even jail time for those who do not comply.