Canada's Senate Approves Controversial Covid-19 Spending Bill - Statement

Canada's Senate has passed the $56-billion economic support package announced last week by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in response to the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, the upper legislative chamber said in a statement on Wednesday

TORONTO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 25th March, 2020) Canada's Senate has passed the $56-billion economic support package announced last week by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in response to the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, the upper legislative chamber said in a statement on Wednesday.

"Bill C13 has been adopted at third reading in the Senate," the Senate announced in a statement via Twitter.

Bill C13, the emergency stimulus legislation, has elicited controversy after it was revealed that the governing Liberal Party sought to include provisions that would have granted Trudeau and his cabinet sweeping new powers to spend, borrow and tax without parliamentary approval for the next 21 months.

The stimulus is expected to provide financial relief to individuals, households and businesses that have been hardest hit by the novel coronavirus outbreak across Canada. According to reports, nearly 1 million Canadians have applied for employment insurance in the past week as thousands of jobs continue to be slashed in the wake of the pandemic.

The emergency legislation will shortly receive royal assent officially coming into effect.

According to Johns Hopkins University, there are more than 436,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 infections worldwide while the number of fatalities is approaching 20,000.