ATLANTA —
U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said he would follow public health advisers’ advice if they called for a national shutdown should he take office and the coronavirus had not abated.
“I would be prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives. We cannot get the country moving until we control the virus,” Biden said in an interview broadcast Sunday night on ABC News.
Asked specifically whether he’d push a national shutdown if scientists said it was necessary, Biden replied: “I would shut it down.”
The former vice-president has previously called for the nation’s governors to impose mask mandates in their states, effectively a national mask mandate. But when he made that call, Biden avoided saying he’d attempt to use a nationally applicable executive order himself.
The former vice-president’s remarks came as part of his first joint interview with vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris. The pair accepted their party’s nominations during a virtual convention last week. On Monday, Republicans begin their convention to nominate Trump and U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence for a second term.
Biden laughed when asked about Trump’s recent assertion that the only way he’d lose was if the election were rigged, and the Democratic challenger dismissed any notions that Trump wouldn’t leave the White House voluntarily if he loses.
“The American people will not let that happen,” he said. “No one’s going to allow that to happen.”
Both Biden and Harris downplayed their bitter debate encounter last summer during the Democratic primary. Harris, a California senator, levelled deeply personal criticism against Biden for his opposition in the 1970s to federally mandated busing to desegregate public schools and remarks he’d made about having worked amicably alongside racist senators when he first came to Washington.
The first Black woman on a major party national ticket, Harris said she and Biden are on the same page on race amid the nation’s ongoing reckoning with systemic racism.
“There are real racial disparities that are rooted in systemic racism,” Harris said, noting wealth gaps and the disproportionate effects of COVID-19 on Black and Hispanic communities. Biden, she said, “is addressing these truths, he speaks these truths.”
Biden said, looking back, he understands how Harris, who was among the minority students bused in the 1970s, would criticize him so harshly. But he also said she and others may not have known his full record on civil rights. He said he, as a 77-year-old white man, cannot understand her lived experiences and that she, a 55-year-old daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, can’t understand his.
But, he said, they “have the same value set” and are “on same exact page about what the possibilities are right now.”
Likewise, they downplayed policy differences that emerged when they were primary rivals, especially on health care. Biden has consistently backed adding a “public option” to existing private insurance markets. Harris signed on to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ bill that would create a single-payer government insurance system to replace private insurance.
“I signed on to bills that were about great ideas to fix the problem,” Harris told ABC, arguing that she and Biden “are completely aligned on making sure everyone has health care.”
Biden called any differences “tactical” but said, “We both believe that health care is a right, not a privilege.”
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales in August fell to their lowest level since January 2022 as sales in the primary metal and petroleum and coal product subsectors fell.
The agency says manufacturing sales fell 1.3 per cent to $69.4 billion in August, after rising 1.1 per cent in July.
The drop came as sales in the primary metal subsector dropped 6.4 per cent to $5.3 billion in August, on lower prices and lower volumes.
Sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector fell 3.7 per cent to $7.8 billion in August on lower prices.
Meanwhile, sales of aerospace products and parts rose 7.3 per cent to $2.7 billion in August and wood product sales increased 3.8 per cent to $3.1 billion.
Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.8 per cent in August.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.
