Douglas Hastie, who is the member of our Board of Stewards responsible for Payroll and Government, asked that we share the following information:
SouthWest United has benefited from two of the federal government programmes that were instituted to help businesses weather the coronavirus pandemic. The church has already received a substantial amount from the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) Programme. This programme started on March 15 and is currently set to end on December 19. The programme reimburses SouthWest a percentage of our total monthly salary cost. The church will hope to continue to benefit from the CEWS programme until its expiration.
The second programme that SouthWest has benefited from is the Temporary Emergency Wage Subsidy (TEWS). This programme started on March 18 and ended on June 19. The church received a much smaller amount as the reimbursement was based on the federal income tax deducted from the salaries of our church employees, and lasted for a much shorter time period.
We are grateful for this government support during these months when we have not been able to carry out normal activities, but we have continued to pay our employees, and they have continued to work!