Canada's Pademic Response

A year ago it seemed that Canada was handling the pandemic much better than the United States. Emergency government social programs helped many Canadians weather the economic storm caused by mass layoffs and immediate and strict lockdowns reduced the spread of the virus to manageable levels. 

A year later things are not looking so rosy. While the economy seems to be recovering, the third wave of the virus seems to be the worst, vaccines are in short supply, and weary Canadians are dealing with more lockdowns. As the virus spreads, it's worst effects are now being felt by marginalized workers who can't afford to take time off work even if they get sick. 

One of the responses to the pandemic that could have and should have been made was to introduce paid sick leave to workers whose employers didn't provide it. But, as this article points out, neoliberal governments refused to provide it. Now we're paying the price, which is likely to be far more costly than the cost of any social program. 

In Toronto, racialized people made up 83 percent of all COVID-19 cases, with several COVID-19 outbreaks affecting long-term care facilities, factories (including a major Amazon warehouse outbreak), manufacturing sites, farms staffed by migrant workers, and food plants. Those same sites rarely offer paid time off, which would allow sick people to isolate. That’s why governments need to step in and implement guaranteed paid sick days, but so far, that’s not happening. 

“I have no idea why when all the doctors, scientists, mayors, everybody is saying you need this,” Arya said. It seems more like ideological opposition or political will, rather than listening to science.”

University of Alberta infectious disease specialist Dr. Lynora Saxinger, also a proponent of paid sick days, said politics has influenced how governments all over respond to COVID-19 spikes. “They’re focusing on the economy and taking the assumption that lockdowns are damaging rather than helpful,” Saxinger said. 

I hope there will be a reckoning, come the next election cycle. 

Another article looks at the economic and social effects of the pandemic so far, and looks ahead to what will change after the pandemic is over.

Life-altering moments tend to be followed by significant change. The Second World War showed that government could get things done when it wanted, and politicians used that momentum to put in place many of the programs that we now take for granted. Overreach in the 1970s led to high inflation, high interest rates and high unemployment, setting in motion a partial dismantling of what was built after the war. The Great Recession triggered a new resolve to constrain the biggest banks, which ensured the financial industry had big reserves of cash with which to confront the latest economic crisis.

COVID-19 will bring similar structural change. Governments won’t have to do all the work. Reyhany, the pharmacist, raised about $40 million by listing his company’s online pharmacy business, Mednow Inc., on the TSX Venture Exchange in early March. The pandemic has made investors keen to get behind both health and technology companies, and Mednow offered exposure to both. Open Text’s Barrenechea said he’s in the process of hiring about 300 people in Canada, and for the first time, location isn’t an issue because the pandemic has shown that companies like his can function without an office. “Modern work works,” he said. “We’re embracing it.” 

I should note, for my US readers, that the second article is relevant to them.