 Good morning. I am honored to be here on the traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Slavertooth peoples. On Tuesday, Minister Dix, Dr Henry, and I announced new restrictions to help flatten the curve given the sharp rise that we are seeing in COVID-19 cases. The Omicron variant has proven to be much more transmissible both here and around the globe. Our health care workers are working overtime to keep people safe and respond to the surge in cases. But we need British Columbians to redouble our efforts to slow the spread and to avoid any further burden on our hospitals. We need to support our health care workers and help ensure that health care services continue to be there for people when they show up at hospitals needing care. Also on Tuesday, I spoke of the efforts of the provincial minister and COVID-19 working group to investigate supports for those who are affected by COVID-19 and who are affected by COVID-19. I am honored to be here on the stage to talk to you about the efforts that have been made to support supports for those affected by the new restrictions. I want to report that due to the efforts this week of the ministry of jobs, economic recovery and innovation, Minister Callan, who is joining me today, will run through the details of those new supports. Funding relief is coming for those businesses ordered closed. These closures are not something that anyone wants before the holidays, but the reality is we are faced with having to protect each other and our hospitals. I also want to take this opportunity to reiterate a warning about the severe winter weather we are expecting through to the new year. In the coming days, periods of heavy and blowing snow, freezing rain and very cold weather are likely in most parts of BC. In some areas, that weather has already arrived. We have been working this week to ensure both provincial road crews and first nations and local governments are prepared for what is to come. Along with coordination calls and office of support, emergency management, BC's regional offices have been distributing environment Canada notifications to local government staff to help to prepare overall preparedness. And this winter, the province is providing more than 1,900 temporary shelter spaces and nearly 360 extreme weather shelter spaces to keep people safe. That is a 25% increase in the numbers of shelters over last year. These emergency shelters supplement more than 2,250 permanent year-round shelter spaces currently open across BC. Outreach workers in various communities across our province are providing people who are homeless with information about the shelters and the potential weather emergency. And the response shelters that are available in their communities. The police will also connect people who are homeless with shelter supports and services where needed. We have seen this kind of outreach over the past several months in Prince George, for example, where service providers have been attending a homeless encampment in Prince George almost daily to inform residents of their options for shelter and to provide them with information. When a person expresses interest, the outreach workers help facilitate the moving of their belongings and provide them with information. This gives people who are living or sleeping on the street or in public places a warm place to sleep with foods and other supports in extremely wet or cold weather. This government and your first nation or local government are all doing our part given the forecast conditions. However, it is vital that all of us step up to prepare. To do what is necessary to protect themselves, their families and their neighbours. I urge everyone to to weather forecasts and road closures. Focus on weather alerts for your area from Environment Canada. Make sure that you put together an emergency kit in case of power outages. Follow directions of your local government to find the nearest emergency warming shelter. Bring food, water and warm clothes or blankets when travelling by car. And above all else, be safe. Lastly, on behalf of the government, I want to wish happy holidays to everyone celebrating in BC. I know this is not the Christmas that we are hoping for, but I also know how resilient we are in this province. Our government is going to continue to be there for people and businesses and I know British Columbians will continue to be there for each other. I hope that everyone can have a happy, safe and healthy way to celebrate through the new year as we look to better days and to make sure that we continue to be there for each other. Thank you for your time on the business supports. Thank you. Good morning. I'm Ravi Kelman, BC's Minister for jobs, economic recovery and innovation and I would like to begin by acknowledging that we are gathered today on the traditional territory of the Coastalist people, in particular the Muscovines, Squamish and Slawtooth nations. Earlier this week, Dr Henry announced that he will be all exhausted by COVID-19, but unfortunately COVID-19 is not done with us. People, businesses and our communities have been through a lot this year. And I recognize how difficult yet necessary these health orders are for our health and safety and how challenging these are for businesses, for owners, for workers, the families, customers, especially at this time of year. Businesses across the province have been working hard to do everything they can to keep people safe. They have been resilient time and time again. I know for those operating gyms, fitness centers, bars, nightclubs and banquet halls, this is going to be a very challenging time of the year. As we have done since the beginning of this pandemic, our government will always be there to support those hardest hit. And I want to share that help is on the way. Today I am pleased to announce that the government of British Columbia is establishing the COVID-19 closure relief grant. This new grant will be available for businesses that have been ordered close by the recent public health order. Relief grants will be between $1,000 and $10,000 in one time funding that will be provided to eligible businesses. Based on their number of employees, following the similar formula that we used for the previous circuit breaker program, which supported businesses in spring 2021. This grant can be used to help with expenses like employee wages, like paying rent, insurance and maintenance and utilities. I wanted to share this news with you today so that businesses know that financial support is on its way. And that we are committed to helping them through these very difficult times. I want to thank my team at the ministry of jobs, economic recovery and innovation for fast-tracking, this program. We estimate it will fully expense, this program will cost roughly $10 million and will be ready to accept applications in January. Eligible businesses that are already in the government system through existing COVID-19 relief programs, such as the small and medium-sized recovery grant program or the circuit breaker business relief grant, will have their applications streamlined. Since the outside of the pandemic, our government has been working with us to make sure that we will be there for businesses and people. That is what this grant is all about. Helping these businesses in time of need. And I want to, and it complements the supports announced by the federal government yesterday. We have seen and felt the toll of this pandemic and we know how much of it has been felt by some of our businesses. We understand that the news around the pandemic is coming to an end. At the same time, we must quickly respond to what we need to do to best protect British Columbians. We cannot leave Omnicron unchecked. We will continue to listen and learn and respond to the evolving situation. This grant is one way to directly help through this difficult time. I want to encourage everyone in British Columbia to continue to support these businesses by buying gift cards and buying shoes. These businesses are important part of our local community and provide jobs to thousands of British Columbians. We need them and they need us. So please, give them your support. And with that, happy to take any questions. As a reminder to media on the phone, please press star one to enter the queue. You will be limited to one question and one follow-up. Please also remember to take your phone off and use your mobile phone. Please go ahead. Hi there. I'm reading through the circuit breaker eligibility right here. It looks like the circuit breaker before was $20,000 up to $20,000 and this is $10,000. I just want to hope you can comment about that. But also, I know you're not public health, but wondering why these specific businesses were targeted. Some people are saying they are taking all the precautions necessary. I haven't seen any spread in their locations and just wondering why specifically fitness facilities were shut down. Your first question, Binder, on the previous circuit breaker grant was two months. That's why it was up to $20,000. The one-month period. So this closure relief grant that we're launching today, can you comment on that? I think it's a good question. The one-month period that we're launching today can provide businesses up to between $1,000 and $10,000 depending on how many employees they have. As for the measures announced by Dr. Henry, I don't think Dr. Henry or anyone at PHO or minister Dix wants to shut any businesses down. This is something that is necessary. They have deemed necessary to protect both people, but also protect our health care system. And we're seeing just records of the number of cases already in British Columbia and we're seeing it across the province and other jurisdictions have made similar decisions to protect their system. And I'll just say that I've spent my life in gyms. And so I know the value of the gym for fitness, for mental health. And so I know it plays an important role in our communities. But just like myself and others, we're going to have to find other ways to get our support for mental health, we're getting our exercise, we're going out with our families for walks through these challenging times because it's critically important. We know it's a hard time for these businesses in particular. But you know, today's is part of the steps that we're taking to support them through the challenging time. Did you have a follow-up? Yeah. And just to know, it would be great if you could give us a quick look at the questions. I'm looking through it now and it says that the grant program will open in January. So how soon can businesses expect to actually receive the money? And just with regards to previous programs like this, were they fully utilized? Well, the previous funds between the small and medium-sized business grant and the circuit breaker program, they will be streamlined because we've got a lot of their information so they'll be able to get money much quicker than we did in the last year. We're going to be able to get more money in the next year, which is quite considerable considering our initial budget was $300 million, but we made sure that we made it clear to businesses that if the need was there, we would provide the support. We're going to be able to get money much quicker than any previous program that we've had. The process for the circuit breaker, which will be similar, is very simple. And most businesses told us that it took less than five minutes for them to apply and we're going to keep the same criteria for this program. Our next question is from Lisa Cordasco, Vancouver Sun. Please go ahead. Thank you. Will this program automatically be available to other businesses if they are shut down before this wave of the pandemic ends? Well, I don't want to get into hypotheticals and certainly my hope is that we don't have to see that. But we have structured the program in a way that it can be expanded if it needs to be. And so that's one of the benefits of kind of building a system that we have actually already tested. And it helps us both to streamline those that have already been in the process. But of course, if we need to adapt, it certainly will be nimble enough to adapt as we go forward. Lisa, did you have a follow-up? Yes. On the nimbleness of your program, our employers or these businesses allow to decide themselves whether they want to use the grant to pay rent or to subsidize employees or to pay for utilities. We know that not all businesses are the same. Each business has unique challenges. And so we have purposely built the grant, the non-repayable grant, in a way that the business can decide what's the best use. We know in the past, businesses have used these dollars to provide support for their employees. And some have used them for rents. So we wanted to make sure that it was broad enough that the business can decide what their immediate need is and use that for their immediate need. So I'm going to go ahead and do that. And I'm going to turn to the CBC. Please go ahead. This question is for Minister Calan. What's your response to people suggesting there's no consistency about what stays open and what gets shut down? For example, why are casinos allowed to stay open on your disease? Again, these are questions I think are better opposed to provincial health as they make decisions around the needs to close businesses down. I will say that I know from talking to Dr Henry and Minister Dix and others, nobody wants to close anything down. But when we see record number of cases, when we see Omicron taking off and jurisdictions all around the world, we need to do what we need to do to protect people but also our health care system. And so decisions are made on what we've seen, where we've seen cases come up in the past. We've seen other jurisdictions follow the same path. And so I would say that a question is directed to why one venue to another is probably better for PHO and Dr Henry. DR HENRY. Did you have a follow-up? Yes. And it's another one for Minister Calan. Businesses we've talked to say they need relief funding now. And they say that waiting until January might be too long for them. Why can't the funding get to businesses in 2021? Well, we're just announced a program today, obviously within 48 hours of measures being announced by Provincial Health Office. You know, programs like this take people to administer. We had programs staff around 80 staff that we pulled in from other ministries to run our programs. And many of the staff have moved to their ministries again. And we'll be working to bring many of them back at the websites up and so on. But we will be streamlining the application process for every information. And we expect that businesses will get their money quite fast because they've already been in the system. Our next question is from Mike Hager. Globe and Mail, please go ahead. Go ahead. Thanks, Minister. I'm just curious as to whether Omicron is affecting your staffing levels in the provincial government. Are programs being impacted by the level of people calling in sick? Thanks for that question. Certainly, we haven't seen many impacts with my ministry. I can't speak on behalf of government. Minister might want to take that question. I'll give it to Minister Farnworth. Thanks for that question. I think the challenge that we are seeing is that it's not just Omicron, but also over the past year it has been Omicron, it has been fires, it has been floods, it has been heat dome, it has been a whole range of emergencies that the province has been facing. And it puts a lot of challenges and a lot of stress on a very hard-working public service in this province. And first responders and communities as well. So all of those things together have created significant challenges. But I have to say that people are doing a remarkable job. Mike, did you have a follow-up? Always. So there's no data there on staffing and how many people are off and whether those numbers are increasing by large margin this holiday. But I'll pivot my follow-up is you've announced this help for business owners. What about workers? Anything coming on the rent subsidy and the moratorium on evictions? Thanks for that question. I'll just highlight that the moment we were notified on Tuesday around the provincial health orders, I had an opportunity to speak with Minister Carla Cuatro from the federal government and we made sure that our programs were fully aligned with them. That's something we've been trying from the beginning of the pandemic to make sure that our programs are complementary. We know that the federal government came in with supports for businesses that were partially closed. We came in with the supports to support businesses where there was gaps within the federal programs. We came in with the support to provide supports for workers that have been impacted either full-time or at least even workers that have been impacted half-time. And also additional supports for businesses that are partially open and not fully closed. So we came in with the supports to support the federal announcement which was made yesterday. Our next question is from Caden Fanshawe, CKPG. Please go ahead. Thanks for taking my question. I just want to jump on that again. Just to be clear, the province can't do anything to support workers at this time. The announcement by the federal government yesterday has supports for workers. They've announced some more flexibility so that more workers can get access to it. So that's why we're working with the federal government to make sure that the subsidy actually can keep workers on that are partially closed. So there are supports in place. Of course, the pandemic is evolving and the supports continue to evolve as we go forward. But as of now, we've made sure that our supports are as complementary to the federal government supports as we could have. Caden, did you have a question? The federal government has been calling for support in order, businesses are barely hanging on by a living here, but it's a whole province to get shut down to have any support for these businesses in Northern BC and to talk to Northern health yesterday. There's no clear sign that when these provincial ones are over, our regional orders will be over either. Why did it take so long to get support to Northern businesses? and serving alcohol past 10 o'clock. Restaurants continue to operate at full capacity and they could serve alcohol up to 10 o'clock. So that was the only restriction in the interior, sorry, in the north. It was the same restriction that was in parts of the Fraser Valley for a short period. And of course, these funding announcement that we made today is for businesses that have been forced to be closed due to health measures. And so these supports are the same for anyone regardless there, if they are in northern health, if they are in interior for their lower mainland or the Vancouver Island. That's all the questions we have for today. Thank you everyone for joining us.