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New data from Statistics Canada suggests how hard the Canadian economy was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and the public-health measures intended to stop it: an 11.5-per-cent decline in GDP the second quarter ending June 30.
It’s the largest drop the monitoring agency has ever recorded. But economists say there are reasons for optimism. The drop was less than expected, they said this morning, and the recovery in June – as lockdown measures lifted – was faster than anticipated. What happens if a second wave hits, though, remains to be seen.
During the same period, the federal government ran up a $120-billion deficit trying to prop up the economy through emergency payments and business supports.
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TODAY’S HEADLINES
Leslyn Lewis, who emerged as a new voice in the Conservative Party with her strong finish in the leadership race earlier this week, says she might run in a riding out west in the next election. The Toronto lawyer says her home is in Ontario, but she’s been receiving entreaties from Western ridings.
The federal government is looking to hire an executive search firm to help it find diverse candidates for high-ranking positions in the public service.
U.S. President Donald Trump accepted the Republican nomination for his re-election campaign with a political rally on the front lawn of the White House.
Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister since 2012, says he is resigning due to health problems.
And in Lebanon, negotiations will start Monday to select a new prime minister. The country was devastated by a massive explosion at the Beirut port earlier this month, and the cause of the explosion is being blamed on a culture of political corruption. One new figure emerging in the uncertainty is billionaire businessman Bahaa Hariri, son of one former prime minister and brother to another, who had mostly stayed out of politics until now.
Campbell Clark (The Globe and Mail) on whether we’ll get a fall election: “Unlike the other major opposition parties, the NDP’s strategy is to work with the minority Liberals. Many senior New Democrats think their voters like to hear them talk about making Parliament work, and that their party succeeds when it claims credit for forcing progressive policies on the Liberals. The NDP isn’t flush with cash, so if Mr. Trudeau wants to, he can bargain for its support. He’d have a hard time presenting a big interventionist budget that doesn’t get it.”
Ian Waddell (The Globe and Mail) on how the Liberals and NDP can work together: “A potential road map for Mr. Trudeau’s Liberals and Mr. Singh’s NDP could be found in the 2017 confidence-and-supply agreement between the B.C. Greens and the B.C. NDP. Both parties agreed that they campaigned on some similar points, including making democracy work for people, creating jobs, acting on climate change, building a sustainable economy that works for everyone, fixing the services people count on, and making life more affordable for people. The written agreement established a method of more formal consultation between both caucuses, and even has a dispute resolution process.”
Sean Speer (National Post) on the NDP holding the balance of power: “The choice before the party may be bigger than whether we have a fall election. It strikes at the heart of what the NDP’s identity and purpose is. Is it a political party vying for power or an ideological movement trying to shift the political centre of gravity to the left?”
Dale Smith (The Globe and Mail) on why the old tradition of prorogation ceremonies should come back: “Associating a certain amount of pomp and pageantry with prorogation ensures that there is visibility for the exercise, and would absolutely curb its tactical usage. After all, it would have been hard for Mr. Harper to write a prorogation speech in 2008 about what he had accomplished from his Throne Speech three weeks prior. In 2009, it would have prevented him from simply phoning in a prorogation request to former governor-general Michaëlle Jean, forcing him instead into the visible exercise of him walking up to Rideau Hall to make the request. In this year’s example, it would have compelled Mr. Trudeau to draw attention to his request for prorogation, so he couldn’t simply append the news to his announcement about a cabinet shuffle that same day.”
Sarmishta Subramanian (Maclean’s) on going back to school: “But this isn’t a teachers’ issue. It’s a parents’ issue, a children’s issue, and much more broadly a citizens’ issue. If a poorly conceived back-to-school plan ends up jeopardizing our hard-won gains on COVID, straining health care systems and the economy further, we’ll all be affected.”
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