Doug Ford tried to rally the province after we hit 11.3% unemployment in April.
The Premier says he believes those jobs will return as more sectors get permission to go back to work, saying job creation is Ontario’s strength.
“We proved that we could do it before, with the help of companies and the people. The people of Ontario have been incredible, and we’ve all been going in the same direction. With their help, I’m confident–it might be a little while, but we’ll get back to where we were,” Ford claims.
Garden centres and nurseries are now allowed to operate, followed by hardware and safety supply stores this weekend and non-essential retail stores with a street entrance on Monday.
Ford is not ready to open Ontario’s borders yet, as the province confirmed another 400 COVID-19 cases Friday.
On Friday afternoon there were almost 19,600 cases of COVID-19 in Ontario, and over 1,500 deaths.
The Premier says it’s in everybody’s best interests to avoid crossing provincial and national borders until the pandemic is more under control.
“Right now, I don’t want the borders open,” Ford says, “And when the time comes–I did mention this on the call [with other Premiers and the Prime Minister]–we need to pick up the screening ten-fold at our airports and our border crossings.”
Meanwhile, the province is not promising to freeze evictions for businesses struggling to pay rent.
Finance Minister Rod Phillips says they want to first see how the federal rent relief program performs once it kicks in next week.
“We’ll have to see how that works, and of course the province always maintains all of the options on the table. We do want to make sure that we protect commercial tenants, we want to make sure we protect commercial landlords, we want all of these businesses to be able to come back as strongly and as quickly as possible,” Phillips says.
