Helping Canadians Get the Skills They Need to Find and Keep Good Jobs

The Canada Training Benefit gives workers money to help pay for training, provide income support during training, and offer job protection so they can take the time they need to keep their skills relevant and in-demand. It includes:

• A new, non-taxable Canada Training Credit to help Canadians with the cost of training fees. Eligible workers between the ages of 25 and 64 would accumulate a credit balance at a rate of $250 per year, up to a lifetime limit of $5,000. The credit could be used to refund up to half the costs of taking a course or enrolling in a training program. An individual’s credit balance would be included in the information the Canada Revenue Agency sends them each year.
• A new Employment Insurance Training Support Benefit to provide workers with up to four weeks of income support through the Employment Insurance (EI) system. This benefit, expected to launch in late 2020, would help workers on training leave and not receiving their regular paycheque cover their living expenses, such as rent, utilities and groceries. To ensure that the Training Support Benefit workers for employers as well as workers, Budget 2019 also proposes to introduce an EI Small Business Premium Rebate to offset the upward pressure on the employer premium rate for small businesses resulting from the introduction of the new EI Training Support Benefit.
• New leave provisions to protect workers’ ability to take time away from work to pursue training. The Government intends to consult with provinces and territories on the design of the new Canada Training Benefit, to ensure that workers can take the time they need for training, knowing that they’ll have a job to come back to when their training is done.

By the Numbers

After four years, a typical Canadian worker will have:

• A $1,000 Canada Training Credit balance, which can be claimed fully against training and tuition fees of $2,000 or more.
• Up to four weeks of income support through the EI Training Support Benefit, paid at 55 per cent of average weekly earnings.

For more information on this, please visit the Canada Training Benefit website.