The argument seems like a strong one: If Canadians would just follow the lead of countries and regions around the world that appear to have licked COVID-19 for now, not only would our health crisis be over, but so would our economic one.
As epidemiologists like Peter Jüni, director of the applied health research centre at Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital, know, under perfect conditions, breaking the link in the chain of viral spread for a mere matter of weeks would stop the disease in its tracks. Like a forest fire on an island, as soon as the available fuel is gone, it burns itself out.
“Theoretically if you have the possibility of doing a hard lockdown … after nine days you see the effect kick in very reliably,” Jüni said in a phone conversation Wednesday. “Stuff like that is theoretically possible.”
But in medicine, just as in economics, he said, theory and practice are two different things.
As the Vancouver-based Asia Pacific Foundation has shown in its research, places like China and Singapore did something very much like what Jüni suggests, got the virus under control and reopened businesses. In Taiwan, they never closed.
China imposed strict lockdowns and quarantines in places where the disease struck. Subways, restaurants and shopping streets were empty. Those who did go outside wore masks. The economy went into a tailspin, shrinking 6.8 per cent in the first three months of the year, its worse performance since the 1960s.
Shoppers visit Yorkdale Mall in Toronto as suburban dwellers shopped closer to home because of the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto on Oct. 13, 2020. (Nichola Saminather/Reuters)
In China, after 85,000 cases and nearly 5,000 deaths, the country’s case count is now estimated at 400 in a population of 1.3 billion. That’s about the same number as Toronto reported on a single day this week.
Now, as China’s businesses reopen, the economy has bounced back. Retail spending recently climbed above pre-COVID-19 levels.
When the pandemic struck, experts at Johns Hopkins University in the U.S. “forecasted that Taiwan would fare badly due to its proximity and dense business and travel ties to China,” says an Asia Pacific Foundation report looking for lessons on how Taiwan stopped the spread of the disease.
In Taiwan, a fast response by government agencies, strict quarantines, near universal mask wearing and compliance with regulations meant that while businesses and schools did not close down, the total case count was about 600, with seven deaths.
Peter Vandergeest, an Asia specialist at Toronto’s York University and founding director at the York Centre for Asian Research, is irritated that critics put the region’s situation with the virus down to autocratic governments and an obedient population.
He said that certainly doesn’t apply to Thailand, a place he has often visited for his research and where cases remain low.
A pro-democracy protester takes part in an anti-government protest in Bangkok on Oct. 18, 2020. (Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)
“Anybody who’s been to Thailand knows they are not rule followers,” said Vandergeest. “But when it comes to something like the virus, they take it very seriously.”
Vandergeest said that willingness to wear masks and comply with quarantines may be because of a history of experience with epidemic disease.
While scoffing at the idea that Asians are somehow all alike but different from North Americans or Europeans, Vandergeest, like many others, points to New Zealand, which has had only 25 deaths, and Australia, despite a second peak, which has cut serious cases to near zero.
Like Taiwan, New Zealand’s success can be partly attributed to its early and strict crackdown and careful watch on infections from abroad. But Australia was a different case, where the second severe lockdown led to complaints from business leaders at the time that it would be devastating for business. This week, restrictions were lifted and business began opening again.
While the St. Mike’s epidemiologist, Jüni, is encouraged by successes in Asia and Oceania, he is skeptical that they can be repeated here in Canada. That is because while it is theoretically achievable to stop the disease in its tracks, he believes that is effectively impossible in a climate where people spend so much of their time indoors.
“It has an unfortunate tendency in certain situations to become highly contagious in indoor settings,” said Jüni. “When we reach May and we all go outside again, we will be able to keep the thing relatively easily [under control]. But now it’s next to impossible.”
The problem of winter
Jüni even worries that Canada’s Atlantic bubble, based on early action, a relatively spread-out population and strict rules about new arrivals, could see a winter outbreak without careful attention.
Critics have pointed the finger at businesses and politicians who support them for worrying about short-term profit rather than long-term elimination of the virus, but research by Aya Aboelenien from the University of Montreal’s business school, the Hautes Études Commerciales, shows there are other issues at play.
“I think the problem is that the public trust in the government is fading,” said Aboelenien.
She points to new signs of coronavirus fatigue as businesses are asked to lock down a second time after the first one did not seem to work.
Jüni has sympathy for businesses that have suffered serious losses. And he is sympathetic with government officials who honestly do not know the best strategy to follow.
For now, he is convinced that the goal in Canada cannot be the virtual elimination of the virus, but something more moderate: preventing a growth in cases that would fill up hospitals and lead to a public health catastrophe.
Now that a vaccine seems feasible before next autumn, Jüni said the important thing is to keep businesses and their customers motivated and people staying within bubbles as much as possible, with the knowledge the reward will come in five months, when we move outside again.
“If we can make it to then without ending up in uncontrolled exponential growth, it will get easier.”
OTTAWA – The New Democrats confirmed Thursday they won’t help Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives topple the government next week, and intend to join the Bloc Québécois in blocking the Tories’ non-confidence motion.
The planned votes from the Bloc and the New Democrats eliminate the possibility of a snap election, buying the Liberals more time to govern after a raucous start to the fall sitting of Parliament.
Poilievre issued a challenge to NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh earlier this week when he announced he will put forward a motion that simply states that the House has no confidence in the government or the prime minister.
If it were to pass, it would likely mean Canadians would be heading to the polls, but Singh said Thursday he’s not going to let Poilievre tell him what to do.
Voting against the Conservative motion doesn’t mean the NDP support the Liberals, said Singh, who pulled out of his political pact with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a few weeks ago.
“I stand by my words, Trudeau has let you down,” Singh said in the foyer outside of the House of Commons Thursday.
“Trudeau has let you down and does not deserve another chance.”
Canadians will have to make that choice at the ballot box, Singh said, but he will make a decision about whether to help trigger that election on a vote-by-vote basis in the House.
The Conservatives mocked the NDP during Question Period for saying they had “ripped up” the deal to support the Liberals, despite plans to vote to keep them in power.
Poilievre accused Singh of pretending to pull out of the deal to sway voters in a federal byelection in Winnipeg, where the NDP was defending its long-held seat against the Conservatives.
“Once the votes were counted, he betrayed them again. He’s a fake, a phoney and fraud. How can anyone ever believe what the sellout NDP leader says in the future?” Poilievre said during Question Period Thursday afternoon.
At some point after those comments, Singh stepped out from behind his desk in the House and a two-minute shouting match ensued between the two leaders and their MPs before the Speaker intervened.
Outside the House, Poilievre said he plans to put forward another non-confidence motion at the next opportunity.
“We want a carbon-tax election as soon as possible, so that we can axe Trudeau’s tax before he quadruples it to 61 cents a litre,” he said.
Liberal House leader Karina Gould says there is much work the government still needs to do, and that Singh has realized the consequences of potentially bringing down the government. She refused to take questions about whether her government will negotiate with opposition parties to ensure their support in future confidence motions.
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet hasn’t ruled out voting no-confidence in the government the next time a motion is tabled.
“I never support Liberals. Help me God, I go against the Conservatives on a vote that is only about Pierre Poilievre and his huge ambition for himself,” Blanchet said Thursday.
“I support the interests of Quebecers, if those interests are also good for Canadians.”
A Bloc bill to increase pension cheques for seniors aged 65 to 74 is now at “the very centre of the survival of this government,” he said.
The Bloc needs a recommendation from a government minister to OK the cost and get the bill through the House.
The Bloc also wants to see more protections for supply management in the food sector in Canada and Quebec.
If the Liberals can’t deliver on those two things, they will fall, Blanchet said.
“This is what we call power,” he said.
Treasury Board President Anita Anand wouldn’t say whether the government would be willing to swallow the financial implications of the Bloc’s demands.
“We are focused at Treasury Board on ensuring prudent fiscal management,” she said Thursday.
“And at this time, our immediate focus is implementing the measures in budget 2024 that were announced earlier this year.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
OTTAWA – Treasury Board President Anita Anand has been sworn in as federal transport minister at a ceremony at Rideau Hall, taking over a portfolio left vacant after Pablo Rodriguez resigned from cabinet and the Liberal caucus on Thursday.
Anand thanked Rodriguez for his contributions to the government and the country, saying she’s grateful for his guidance and friendship.
She sidestepped a question about the message it sends to have him leave the federal Liberal fold.
“That is a decision that he made independently, and I wish him well,” she said.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was not present for the swearing-in ceremony, nor were any other members of the Liberal government.
The shakeup in cabinet comes just days after the Liberals lost a key seat in a Montreal byelection to the Bloc Québécois and amid renewed calls for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to step down and make way for a new leader.
Anand said she is not actively seeking leadership of the party, saying she is focused on her roles as minister and as MP.
“My view is that we are a team, and we are a team that has to keep delivering for our country,” she said.
The minority Liberal government is in a more challenging position in the House of Commons after the NDP ended a supply-and-confidence deal that provided parliamentary stability for more than two years.
Non-confidence votes are guaranteed to come from the Opposition Conservatives, who are eager to bring the government down.
On Thursday morning, Rodriguez made a symbolic walk over the Alexandra Bridge from Parliament Hill to Gatineau, Que., where he formally announced his plans to run for the Quebec Liberal party leadership.
He said he will now sit as an Independent member of Parliament, which will allow him to focus on his own priorities.
“I was defending the priorities of the government, and I did it in a very loyal way,” he said.
“It’s normal and it’s what I had to do. But now it’s more about my vision, the vision of the team that I’m building.”
Rodriguez said he will stay on as an MP until the Quebec Liberal leadership campaign officially launches in January.
He said that will “avoid a costly byelection a few weeks, or months, before a general election.”
The next federal election must be held by October 2025.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said he will try to topple the government sooner than that, beginning with a non-confidence motion that is set to be debated Sept. 24 and voted on Sept. 25.
Poilievre has called on the NDP and the Bloc Québécois to support him, but both Jagmeet Singh and Yves-François Blanchet have said they will not support the Conservatives.
Rodriguez said he doesn’t want a federal election right away and will vote against the non-confidence motion.
As for how he would vote on other matters before the House of Commons, “it would depend on the votes.”
Public Services and Procurement Minister Jean-Yves Duclos will become the government’s new Quebec lieutenant, a non-cabinet role Rodriguez held since 2019.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
— With files from Nojoud Al Mallees and Dylan Robertson
