Call it a three-pronged approach by Ontario's New Democrats, as they look to press the province to provide relief for people and businesses who rent during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The big part of the plan brought forward by the NDP is a rent subsidy of up to 80 per cent of the monthly rent cost, up to a maximum of $2,500 a month for up to four months.

It would go to anyone who qualifies for the federal emergency benefit, and would be money paid directly to the tenant. Also covered under this would be small and medium-sized businesses operating under a lease.

"People are losing sleep, and they have been for some time now because they don't know how they're going to be able to pay the rent," NDP Leader Andrea Horwath told The Mike Farwell Show on 570 NEWS. "It makes people sick with worry."

"What we are asking is for the provincial government to step up and have people's backs.

The second part to the plan is a legal ban on evictions, lockouts and disconnections for the next four months.

Horwath says while Premier Doug Ford has made it known that no new eviction orders will be handed out, she wants something more concrete.

"There's a lot of steps that come before (eviction)," she said, "You get a notice of eviction, you can appeal it to the tribunal...but at the end of the day, even the first notice of eviction, the vast majority of tenants don't know their rights."

Horwath says the province using "lax language," making recommendations and suggestions to landlords is not enough, and is calling for a full plan to be put in place.

The ban would be put in place through amendments to the Residential Tenancies and Commercial Tenancies Acts, and penalties under those acts are currently set at $25,000.

The third part of it is a six-month freeze on increases to rent.

The NDP estimates the plan to cost from $2.4 billion to $3 billion dollars.