AirBNB asked for a bailout back in March 2020. The blog post makes it sound like there was a cause and effect, but this is just the government normalizing things across the country.
I think (well, I hope) that Airbnb understood that request would go nowhere. Airbnb is politically radioactive in Canada, any government percieved as "bailing out" Airbnb would likely suffer consequences at the ballot box.
I suspect Airbnb instead made the request to placate underwater hosts during the start of the COVID tourism crash - they had to be seen as doing something.
Still an incredibly scuzzy and tone-deaf ask, but put in context, I sort of get why they did it.
Here are more official sources on the news:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/economic-update-child-care-...
https://www.thestar.com/business/2020/11/30/ottawa-to-impose...