Data shows that CERB benefits were handed out in a way that highly favoured urban residents over people in rural areas, according to Employment and Social Development Canada.
Data shows that CERB benefits were handed out in a way that highly favoured urban residents over people in rural areas, according to Employment and Social Development Canada.
Figures show clearly very high concentrations of people who have been depending on Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) benefits in certain urban areas, like Brampton ON or the northeast of Calgary.
According to the National Post, almost 70 percent of households in the Skyview Ranch neighborhood in Calgary (located in the city's northeast), for example, have received CERB benefits.
David Macdonald, a senior economist working for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, commented the following:
"As cities relied more on accommodations, tourism and food as drivers of economic growth, the more they would have been sideswiped by the pandemic, and larger centres have a higher concentration of jobs in these areas. More rural areas of the country and certain cities that have a higher reliance on, say, natural resources wouldn’t have been hit as hard."
CERB paid out almost $82 billion just between March and October of 2020 to almost 9 million people in Canada.
According to official statistics, three million or so people have permanently lost their jobs just in March and April of 2020, as businesses were shuttered from coast to coast across Canada.
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