Week Seven of social distancing and closing the economy has brought a little more clarity on what Canadians can expect in the coming weeks and months. From the West to the East Coast, provinces have been announcing plans to loosen physical distancing restrictions and to open their economies. While Canadians may have been hoping for a national framework on the subject, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has stated repeatedly that until Canada gets a vaccine, life will not return to normal. In the coming months, however, social and economic restrictions will be eased across the country on a province-by-province basis. What that looks like across the country may not fit into the national puzzle the Prime Minister is trying to put together.
The federal government believes that each province should take its own decisions on how to restart their individual economies. They should base them on their geography, number of COVID-19 cases and specific industry considerations. Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer has recently criticized this approach as it has evolved saying it “has raised concerns about a possible patchwork approach across the country. Other countries have released national frameworks. So why hasn’t Canada?” Although both the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland have closely monitored how these processes have emerged in other countries, they have said those examples have only encouraged the federal government to support their provincial counterparts.
At the national level, the federal government’s focus has been on a patchwork of financial measures to Canadians and businesses across the country. Their immediate support measures have resulted in over seven-million Canadians receiving the CERB, over 500,000 businesses applying for federally-supported business loans and more than 100,000 Canadian businesses asking to be part of the wage subsidy program, which in turn will supplement the salaries of one million workers.
These are seen as the first wave of the federal government’s emergency measures. Long-term, Canadians have seen clues as to what specific stimulus packages will look like for various industries and sectors (Read more), but the federal government is still working to support Canadians in the here-and-now as economies slowly re-open. Prime Minister Trudeau said last week that “various steps that are going to be needed as we get people out of their homes and back to work, but for now we’re still very much focused on how we help people through this.” Until then, Canadians are anxiously watching provincial announcements to get a sense of when their lives could regain a sense of normalcy.
