Ontario will boost the hourly pay and award special bonuses to workers fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

Staff at hospitals, long-term care centers, emergency shelters, corrections institutions and other provincial facilities will receive a pay increase of $4 per hour, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Saturday. Employees working more than 100 hours per month will also get lump-sum payments of $250 monthly over the next 16 weeks starting immediately.

About 350,000 workers providing front-line services will be eligible to receive the pandemic payment, Ford said. Quebec has also increased to the wages of workers in direct contact with COVID-19 patients.

“It’s our way of saying thank you,” Ford said at a news conference in Toronto. He added it will also help attract workers amid a severe shortage of staffing outside hospitals to fight the virus.

The federal government is providing Ontario and Quebec, Canada’s two most populous provinces, with military assistance in containing the pandemic at long-term care facilities. Quebec is facing a labour crunch of about 9,500 staff during the pandemic, with about 4,000 workers affected and 5,500 not showing up for work for fear of getting sick and other reasons.

Protests

“The federal government played a massive role in stepping up,” Ford said of the wage subsidy, adding the federal government will also have to provide sustained funding longer term to help deal with the cracks in the heath and long-term care systems the pandemic has revealed.

The premier called a protest in Toronto demanding the reopening of the economy “irresponsible.”

“It’s reckless to do what they’re doing and personally I think it’s selfish,” he said. “It just burns me up, we have worked so hard, and we have a bunch of yahoos out there.”

Earlier, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada shouldn’t reopen its economy until there is enough personal protective equipment for businesses to fight the coronavirus.

The prime minister said the federal government is continuing to work with the provinces on establishing a baseline checklist for reopening based on science, though timing and exact measures will be different from one province to another. He said he spoke with provincial leaders last night about issuing a joint reopening statement.

Move too fast and the country risks losing all the progress it’s made so far, Trudeau said. Ontario and Quebec, the two most populous provinces, will outline their reopening plans next week.

Canada had 44,364 cases of Covid-19 as of Saturday morning and 2,350 deaths. In Ontario, there were 13,995 cases.