Show Notes:

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Lecture Slides:

Welcome to YouCounsel.

As you know, many students were not eligible to receive $2000 a month under Canada Emergency Response Benefits, because of the specific conditions that many students were not able to meet. Today (April 22, 2020), the Canadian Government has announced specific benefits for students. What are those benefits? We will discuss this in today’s lecture.

We begin with our usual disclaimer that this lecture is not legal advice.  If you have any specific questions with respect to these benefits, please contact Canada Revenue Agency, as Canada Revenue Agency will be issuing and dealing with these benefits.

In today’s lecture, we will talk about the Canada Emergency Student Benefit (CESB), which is the title of this kind of benefit. We’ll talk about the ability for students to earn additional income through volunteering.  We will talk about receiving payment from multiple sources and how that will be treated by CRA.  We will explain what happens to student service grants that have been issued to eligible students.  And we will talk about the student loan payments that may be paid to different students. With respect to Canada Emergency Student Benefit the amount that a student can receive is $1,250 per month. Now that amount could increase up to $1,750 per month, if the student is caring for a dependent or if the student has some sort of a disability.

Who will be eligible for Canada Emergency Student Benefit? Post-secondary education students who are currently enrolled in a post-secondary program, students who will be starting school in September of this year, students who have already graduated in December of 2019 from school—they will also be eligible and then any of these students who currently have a job but are making less than $1000 a month—they are also eligible to receive these benefits.

Let’s talk about volunteering. If a student is volunteering in certain programs, then that student could earn from $1,000 to $5,000 a month—that will depend upon the number of hours that student is working. This is not a paid job but volunteering and because of volunteering, the government will make some monthly payments to students.

What are some of the volunteering opportunities?  You could volunteer in programs for national service or any community service programs and you should, if you’re interested, you should see different government websites for those opportunities.  One of the examples I’ve posted here, I’ve posted the link and I will also post it in the description below this. Volunteering opportunity with respect to Covid-19 response was posted by Public Service and I believe the applications are due in two days, I believe by April 24^th.  So if you’re interested in any of these volunteering opportunities, then you should apply online. But there will be many other volunteering opportunities that may be posted by the provincial government or federal government. By all means check those out and see if you are able to volunteer and then earn additional income, because of that volunteering.

Now with respect to jobs, the government has indicated that it is going to create about 76,000 jobs for students and those jobs will be focused primarily in essential services. For example food service, health sector, community service organization—very similar jobs to what ordinarily students perform during the summer except that jobs such as organizing festivals and organizing camps and stuff—those jobs will not be available.

Let’s talk about how government will treat payment from multiple sources. For example, if you’re a student who already has a job and is earning less than $1,000, then as I mentioned earlier you could apply for Canada Emergency Student Benefit and then you will get $1,250 or, maybe, up to $1,750 if you are caring for a dependent or you have a disability.  So you will keep both payments. The less than $1,000 a month of your salary plus $1,250.  Then on top of that if you’re able to volunteer for certain positions, depending upon the hours that you work, you may be able to earn additional income. Depending upon your circumstances and your ability to undertake all of these activities, a student can earn a significant amount of money up to about $7,000 or so with respect to this work. All of this is essentially the government’s way of incentivizing students to occupy themselves during summers—whether it’s through a job, through volunteering, upgrading their skills and what not and they may be able to earn some income while doing so.

Let’s talk about student service grants. The government has simply doubled the service grant to eligible students.  Eligibility is the same. If you were a full time student, you could get up to $6,000 in grants and if you’re a part-time student you could get up to $3,600 in grants. With respect to student loan payments, the government has increased the maximum weekly payments that you could have gotten through student loans.  Previously it was $210 and now it is $350.

If you are a student who was not previously eligible for CERB, hopefully you will be able to benefit from these different kinds of benefits that have been announced by the government today.  Legislation will be coming.  It is being drafted and will be coming into effect soon.  Once the legislation is out we will have more information and we will post another lecture at that time.

Thank-you for watching.