Thursday is a grim, gloomy day of data. But it’s a good day because the skies are clearing through the fog.
On the day that Canada got the first glimpse of the economic toll, we also got the first glimpse of the human toll that COVID-19 portends. And Justin Trudeau opened up on the path ahead, talked even about the “year” in which we’ll be fighting the pandemic, and in so doing helped us understand where we stand and how we can stand together.
The day is rife with symbolism: the 103rd anniversary of the heroics on Vimy Ridge, the eve of Easter, the day after Passover. These social intimacies are muted by socially distances. But Trudeau found his feet Thursday in linking memories of those celebrations and commemorations to both the battle of these times and the quest for a renewal of these familial rituals.
The bracing data was the news of the day: more than one million jobs lost nationally in March, many more to come, and somewhere between 11,000 and 22,000 to succumb to the coronavirus. It’s all finally getting out in the open for Canadians, hard as it is to swallow.
Trudeau calls this moment “a fork in the road.” He is compelling the country to take the most conservative route of strict public health measures. Any economic revitalization is only due “in the coming months,” and we will need to be “vigilant” to not put COVID-19 behind us until we are vaccinated for it – “some say six or eight months, some say a year or a year and a half.”
This was his most stark, open discussion yet of what the country faces. It serves as a far better compass, even if the path will be treacherous, because it calls on us not to self-exempt from responsibility. It also served as Trudeau’s most genuine gesture of trust in those he governs; to date he’s been tepid at times in telling the truth of the task or scolding in his spending.
Speaking of spending: a $184 billion federal deficit is coming this year. At least, that’s today’s best guess.
The health data hinted of regional pandemics, and that felt instinctively true to the concept of our country as giant geography that sorts itself by medium-sized land masses. So, a B.C. one, a Prairies one, an Ontario one, a Quebec one, a Maritimes one, a Northern one, some interior provincial ones, a Newfoundland one. All are being addressed with some uniformity but some regional distinctions, so that is bound to yield different outcomes.
Our country’s chief health officer, Theresa Tam, was helpful in unfurling that, but it ought not to breed any sense that if our province is doing better than others it is an opportunity to take our foot off the gas pedal. The long weekend is a solid test for our discipline in adhering to the new rules of the road.
Much as it feels we are in a different world in the space of a few weeks, some things just never change. The sizable changes to financial legislation require Parliament to resume, but our political parties can’t set aside their partisan DNA to reconvene agreeably to get the job done. This is an embarrassment that has the emerging feel of the gridlock of Washington.
Sure, it would be ideal to have a sitting, socially distanced House of Commons for a fuller-fledged dynamic. Yes, it will take a few weeks to construct a virtual Commons to replicate the joys of Question Period. But meantime, the country needs the money that only MPs and Senators can approve, so let’s have a few of them drive over to Parliament Hill safely, pitch the partisanship over the side and do the pretty on the process to amend bills here and there to send the money here, there and everywhere. Elected office is not a licence for self-importance, and much as there may be modifications to make and political points to score when they can stand in the chamber – it’ll be an echo chamber in social-distancing, I suppose – the best service to constituents during this crisis is to sanction the cheques to keep the lights on and the stomachs fed. On with it, please.
Kirk LaPointe is publisher and editor-in-chief of Business in Vancouver and vice-president, editorial, of Glacier Media.
