There is no clear timeline on when Ontario will begin to re-open the economy.
Vic Fedeli is the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade and says when that will begin depends on COVID-19 variants of concern.
“We know that we’ve got hot spots, and that’s where a lot of the manufacturing also is done in Ontario. So, we really need to contain the variants,” Fedeli says.
Fedeli says we already are making progress as the province has recovered almost a million jobs since March and April of last year.
“25,000 people woke up this morning to go to a job in manufacturing, more than before COVID,” Fedeli points out. “So, the manufacturing sector has been growing rather nicely, and not just in making PPE.”
Fedeli adds the auto sector has announced $6-billion worth of investment, and Sanofi Pharmaceuticals is going to make a new flu vaccine which is a billion-dollar investment with another half a billion set aside for research alone.
The Nipissing MPP says, “We’ve got a lot of families who are still in need, but we’re getting closer to the job number that we were [at before].”
