I’m doing some reading on the @Canada @CanRevAgency Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and I’m concerned about it’s implications for gig workers and the businesses who employ them.

I’m extremely lucky that I just happened to be doing a co-op placement with the province when this happened, but my wife and many of my friends who are arts workers have seen their incomes evaporate in the blink of an eye.

Many of them have been hustling their asses off to find some way of paying the bills, including teaching online voice or dance or fitness classes. It’s not remotely enough, but it’s something.

According to the guidelines for the CERB, you are only eligible if in the “initial four week period” (which is apparently backdated to the 4 weeks starting March 15, two weeks ago) you had a 14-day stretch where you didn’t make any money.

Also, if you want to apply for a subsequent period (and yes, you have to re-apply every time), you have to not make any money in that period.

So what this seems to mean is that if you made a even 20 bucks a week teaching a class online in the period since everyone lost their income and when they finally roll out the CERB program, you’re ineligible?? And also if you’re a self-employed person you can’t apply for EI BTW.

This means that a) a lot of arts workers and other self-employed people are going to be ineligible for the first period even though the rules were not in place until weeks after the crisis started and b),

that going forward if they want to get the CERB (which will barely cover expenses for most people) they can’t work even if they have rare or one-off opportunities. That if they’re forced to work under the table, but you know the CRA is going to be paying CLOSE attention.

This means that small businesses that are managing to stay afloat, for example by offering online fitness classes, will be losing their employees. And yes, I know there’s support coming for small businesses but not nearly enough.

Anyway, all I’m saying is this CERB eligibility problem could end up freezing out a tiny sector of the economy that is still managing to stay working despite everything. Arts workers hustle so hard, and this just seems unreasonably draconian.