Canadian government throws small businesses a lifeline against COVID-19 crisis

The results of a survey of nearly 11,000 CFIB members, released on Wednesday, revealed that half of them may not survive if the current COVID-19-related restrictions in Canada that have shuttered non-essential businesses and encouraged people to stay at home remain in place until the end of May.

Trudeau told reporters during his daily briefing on Thursday that "we're still many weeks away from talking about actually doing anything to reopen our economy" even as the intensity of the pandemic varies across Canada.

"It would be absolutely disastrous for us to open up too early or too quickly and have another wave hit us that could be just as bad as this one and find ourselves in a situation of having to go back into quarantine the way we are now and have everything we've done these past few weeks be for nothing," he said.

As of 7:15 pm Thursday, there were 30,092 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Canada, and 1,193 deaths - nearly 500 more than the 700 fatalities the Canadian government modeling projected for this day last week.