Canada Recovery Hiring Program

Generally speaking, if you are an entity that is eligible for the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) you would be eligible for the CRHP.

An eligible employer must be Canadian-controlled private corporations (including a cooperative corporation that is eligible for the small business deduction), and can also include individuals, non‑profit organizations, registered charities, and certain partnerships. Eligible employers, or their payroll service provider, would be required to have had a payroll account open with the Canada Revenue Agency on March 15, 2020.

Corporations and trusts that are ineligible for the CEWS because they are public institutions would also not be eligible for the CRHP. Public institutions generally include municipalities and local governments, Crown corporations, wholly-owned municipal corporations, public universities, colleges, schools, and hospitals.

An eligible employee must be actively employed by an eligible employer throughout a qualifying period (or the portion of the qualifying period throughout which the individual was employed by the eligible employer) and primarily employed in Canada.

The CRHP would not be available for furloughed employees, meaning those who are on leave with pay but do not perform any work for the employer. An employee would not be considered to be on leave with pay for the purposes of the CRHP if they are on a period of paid absence such as vacation leave, sick leave, or sabbatical.

To be eligible for the CRHP a business must experience a revenue decline. This would need to be the following:

• More than 0% for the period between June 6, 2021 and July 3, 2021

• More than 10% for the periods between July 4, 2021 and November 20, 2021

A decline in revenues is determined in the same manner as the CEWS – comparing revenues from the current calendar month with those in the same month pre-pandemic, or by using the alternate approach and comparing revenues to the average of January and February 2020 revenues.

*Whichever approach was used by an Employer for CEWS would continue to apply to their CRHP application

Similar to the CEWS, eligible remuneration for the CRHP would include salary, wages, and other remuneration for which employers are required to withhold or deduct amounts on account of the employee's income tax obligations.

Severance pay, stock option benefits, or benefits arising from the personal use of a corporate vehicle are not eligible remuneration.

The amount of remuneration for employees would be based solely on remuneration paid during the qualifying period.

The CRHP subsidy is calculated as A x (B – C), where:

• A is the subsidy rate for the qualifying period

• B is the total current period eligible remuneration (a maximum of $1,129/week)

• C is the total base period eligible remuneration*

**The baseline period is March 14 to April 10, 2021

Table 1: Reference Periods & Filing Deadlines

Table 2: CRHP Calculations for Periods 17 to 22