Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is scheduled to give an update Saturday morning on Canada’s ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The prime minister will address Canadians from outside Rideau Cottage in Ottawa at 11:15 a.m., according to his official itinerary.

Trudeau is expected to focus on boosting the Canada Child Benefit during the briefing. The boost, which will go into effect next week, will help families cope with the economic devastation wrought by the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Families that were previously entitled to the benefit in April and still have a child eligible for the payment in their care this month will get up to $300 more per child on top of their regular monthly payment.

The prime minister is also expected to speak on several federal measures aimed at helping both charities and women’s shelters during the crisis.

Trudeau most recently extended the federal COVID-19 wage subsidy on Friday, asking companies that have laid off workers to rehire their staff.

The $73-billion program, which was originally set to expire in the first week of June, will now be available to the end of August as only a small fraction of the program’s budget was spent.

As health officials counsel Canadians to avoid cottage travel during the COVID-19 pandemic, Trudeau is also expected to spend this weekend travelling between two cottages himself.

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Except that in his case the “cottages” are actually official prime ministerial residences — one of which has become his family’s primary residence during the crisis while the other has been turned into Trudeau’s primary office as he, like millions of other Canadians, works from home as much as possible to curb the spread of the deadly coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

“Since I work at the residence in Ottawa and I do press conferences every day, it was not ideal for the children to stay there, so they went to the other official residence (at Harrington Lake),” he told popular Quebec television talk show Tout le monde en parle a couple of weeks ago.

“And I spend several nights a week with the family, then I go down to work in the city like many Quebecers who live in the Outaouais.”

He added: “I think people understand that I have to work in Ottawa even if I live a lot with my family in Quebec.”

This weekend will be no different.

Trudeau is to start today with what has become his routine daily briefing on the pandemic outside Rideau Cottage — a 22-room heritage home on the grounds of Rideau Hall, the governor general’s estate.

However, he’ll give no updates Sunday or Monday, when he’s expected to join his family at Harrington Lake.

The Trudeau family has lived primarily in Rideau Cottage since he took office in 2015 because the prime minister’s official residence at 24 Sussex has been deemed virtually uninhabitable without millions in renovations. A succession of prime ministers has balked at the price tag.

As it happens, the National Capital Commission, which is responsible for maintaining official residences, recently disclosed that it is spending $8.6 million on renovations to the Harrington Lake retreat.

Trudeau’s family has been living at Harrington Lake since shortly after Gregoire Trudeau, who was diagnosed with COVID-19, recovered in late March.

— With files from Global News

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