Federal and Provincial COVID-19 Response Measures: 2021 Update

About this Document

Established by the Financial Accountability Officer Act, 2013, the Financial Accountability Office (FAO) provides independent analysis on the state of the Province’s finances, trends in the provincial economy and related matters important to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

This report has been prepared with the benefit of publicly available information[30] and information provided by the Ministries of Health, Long-Term Care and Education, and Treasury Board Secretariat.

This report reflects information received by the FAO as of September 24, 2021. All dollar amounts are in Canadian, current dollars (i.e., not adjusted for inflation) unless otherwise noted.

This report was prepared by Tessa Devakos, Sahib Gaba, Jacob Kim and Matthew Stephenson, under the direction of Luan Ngo and Jeffrey Novak.

Methodology

For federal measures, the FAO largely utilized Canada-wide cost estimates published by the Government of Canada[31] and the Parliamentary Budget Office,[32] and then estimated the proportion of support that would benefit Ontario. For taxable benefits, such as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), costs are presented on a gross basis (i.e., not including tax revenue offsets). The FAO’s cost estimates for provincial measures are based largely on information provided by the Ministries of Health, Long-Term Care and Education, and Treasury Board Secretariat.

The FAO estimated the sources of funding for provincial direct support measures by using analysis and information from two FAO reports: “Spending Plan Analysis: 2020-21” and “Expenditure Monitor 2020-21: Q4.”

To estimate the timing of provincial COVID-19 spending in 2020-21, the FAO used spending data from the FAO’s “Expenditure Monitor 2020-21: Q4” report, which included quarterly spending information for a number of provincial direct support measures. To estimate the timing of the temporary pandemic pay measure, the FAO used information from Auditor General of Ontario, “COVID-19 Preparedness and Management: Special Report on Management of Health-Related COVID-19 Expenditures,” 2021.

© Queen’s Printer for Ontario, 2021