OTTAWA —
As Ottawa businesses reopen under Step 3 of Ontario’s COVID-19 economic reopening plan, the head of the Ottawa Board of Trade suggests rising COVID-19 vaccine rates, continued use of rapid tests in businesses, and the possibility of a vaccine passport could prevent further lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic.
President and CEO Sueling Ching is calling on governments to create policies and programs to help us to live with COVID and keep the economy open moving forward.
Ottawa and Ontario entered Step 3 of the reopening plan on Friday, allowing indoor dining rooms, movie theatres, museums and fitness centres to reopen, along with relaxing some restrictions on other businesses.
“I think that we have a lot of opportunities in front of us,” said Ching in an interview on Newstalk 580 CFRA Saturday morning when asked about Ottawa’s economic recovery.
“I think we’ve learned a lot of lessons over the course of the last 16, 17 months that we may not have otherwise learned and now the opportunity is for us to leverage that and to move forward so that we can grow back, rebuild our economy and perhaps even take advantage of new opportunities that weren’t there before.”
Earlier this week, Ching told Newstalk 580 CFRA the Ottawa Board of Trade supports the idea of a vaccine passport in Ontario for non-essential businesses to show customers and staff have received a COVID-19 vaccine.
Ching told 580 CFRA on Saturday that now is the time to be “pragmatic.”
“For some time now, we have been calling for policies and programs that would allow us to live with COVID. So whether there will be an uptick (in cases), it’s just common sense isn’t it – when the summer is over and everyone’s back to school and we’re fully reopened, but we’ve learned a lot of things compared to where we were at this time last year,” said Ching.
“We’ve got a lot of businesses who have put protocols in place to keep people safe, we have more information about what that means, the general public understands how their behaviour affects that and we have tools like rapid testing, like vaccine passports possibly – those kinds of things we can put in place.
“What we’re asking for is the opportunity to create an environment where businesses don’t have to be locked down, and that the harms from continual lockdowns we don’t want them to start to outweigh the actual harms from COVID-19 itself.”
Premier Doug Ford said he is not in favour of a vaccine passport for non-essential businesses. Ching says officials in Ottawa have been talking with private sector companies about the possibility of setting up digital tracking for visitors and international travellers, along with in workplaces.
The Ottawa Board of Trade has distributed rapid testing kits to small and medium sized businesses for staff testing this spring.
“It’s part of being able to bolster consumer and business confidence by saying we have a plan to resume normal activities, and that is a part of our plan.”
Ching says entrepreneurs and businesses have been the “hardest hit” during the COVID-19 pandemic, and governments need to make sure lockdowns never happen again.
“Just the stress and harms that have happened overall to our society and our economy as we’ve tried to implement, I understand, countermeasures to prevent the spread of COVID. So now that we have the vaccines, we have more knowledge, we have better behaviours, we want to create an environment in which we can keep our economy open,” said Ching.
The President and the CEO of the Ottawa Board of Trade says one of the lessons learned is that the economy can no longer be separated from public health policy.
“Businesses that have been resilient for these last 16 or 17 months, they’re fatigued. What we really want is for us as residents and for the government to provide some reasons for businesses to have confidence to keep going, that we will support them and that we won’t lock them down any longer,” said Ching.
The Ottawa Board of Trade is encouraging businesses to integrate rapid testing into plans now in case COVID-19 cases continue to rise in the fall.
“What we want everyone to be thinking about is when the fall comes, if the numbers start to go up it’s already too late. So making sure that we continue to follow the protocols, use the measures that are available to us, everyone get double vaccinated so that when the fall comes that we’re in a better position,” said Ching.
“Let’s get ahead of the game when everyone returns to school and hopefully that we’re fully reopened.”
OTTAWA – Canada’s unemployment rate held steady at 6.5 per cent last month as hiring remained weak across the economy.
Statistics Canada’s labour force survey on Friday said employment rose by a modest 15,000 jobs in October.
Business, building and support services saw the largest gain in employment.
Meanwhile, finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing experienced the largest decline.
Many economists see weakness in the job market continuing in the short term, before the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts spark a rebound in economic growth next year.
Despite ongoing softness in the labour market, however, strong wage growth has raged on in Canada. Average hourly wages in October grew 4.9 per cent from a year ago, reaching $35.76.
Friday’s report also shed some light on the financial health of households.
According to the agency, 28.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 or older were living in a household that had difficulty meeting financial needs – like food and housing – in the previous four weeks.
That was down from 33.1 per cent in October 2023 and 35.5 per cent in October 2022, but still above the 20.4 per cent figure recorded in October 2020.
People living in a rented home were more likely to report difficulty meeting financial needs, with nearly four in 10 reporting that was the case.
That compares with just under a quarter of those living in an owned home by a household member.
Immigrants were also more likely to report facing financial strain last month, with about four out of 10 immigrants who landed in the last year doing so.
That compares with about three in 10 more established immigrants and one in four of people born in Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information says health-care spending in Canada is projected to reach a new high in 2024.
The annual report released Thursday says total health spending is expected to hit $372 billion, or $9,054 per Canadian.
CIHI’s national analysis predicts expenditures will rise by 5.7 per cent in 2024, compared to 4.5 per cent in 2023 and 1.7 per cent in 2022.
This year’s health spending is estimated to represent 12.4 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. Excluding two years of the pandemic, it would be the highest ratio in the country’s history.
While it’s not unusual for health expenditures to outpace economic growth, the report says this could be the case for the next several years due to Canada’s growing population and its aging demographic.
Canada’s per capita spending on health care in 2022 was among the highest in the world, but still less than countries such as the United States and Sweden.
The report notes that the Canadian dental and pharmacare plans could push health-care spending even further as more people who previously couldn’t afford these services start using them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
As Canadians wake up to news that Donald Trump will return to the White House, the president-elect’s protectionist stance is casting a spotlight on what effect his second term will have on Canada-U.S. economic ties.
Some Canadian business leaders have expressed worry over Trump’s promise to introduce a universal 10 per cent tariff on all American imports.
A Canadian Chamber of Commerce report released last month suggested those tariffs would shrink the Canadian economy, resulting in around $30 billion per year in economic costs.
More than 77 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S.
Canada’s manufacturing sector faces the biggest risk should Trump push forward on imposing broad tariffs, said Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters president and CEO Dennis Darby. He said the sector is the “most trade-exposed” within Canada.
“It’s in the U.S.’s best interest, it’s in our best interest, but most importantly for consumers across North America, that we’re able to trade goods, materials, ingredients, as we have under the trade agreements,” Darby said in an interview.
“It’s a more complex or complicated outcome than it would have been with the Democrats, but we’ve had to deal with this before and we’re going to do our best to deal with it again.”
American economists have also warned Trump’s plan could cause inflation and possibly a recession, which could have ripple effects in Canada.
It’s consumers who will ultimately feel the burden of any inflationary effect caused by broad tariffs, said Darby.
“A tariff tends to raise costs, and it ultimately raises prices, so that’s something that we have to be prepared for,” he said.
“It could tilt production mandates. A tariff makes goods more expensive, but on the same token, it also will make inputs for the U.S. more expensive.”
A report last month by TD economist Marc Ercolao said research shows a full-scale implementation of Trump’s tariff plan could lead to a near-five per cent reduction in Canadian export volumes to the U.S. by early-2027, relative to current baseline forecasts.
Retaliation by Canada would also increase costs for domestic producers, and push import volumes lower in the process.
“Slowing import activity mitigates some of the negative net trade impact on total GDP enough to avoid a technical recession, but still produces a period of extended stagnation through 2025 and 2026,” Ercolao said.
Since the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement came into effect in 2020, trade between Canada and the U.S. has surged by 46 per cent, according to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.
With that deal is up for review in 2026, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Candace Laing said the Canadian government “must collaborate effectively with the Trump administration to preserve and strengthen our bilateral economic partnership.”
“With an impressive $3.6 billion in daily trade, Canada and the United States are each other’s closest international partners. The secure and efficient flow of goods and people across our border … remains essential for the economies of both countries,” she said in a statement.
“By resisting tariffs and trade barriers that will only raise prices and hurt consumers in both countries, Canada and the United States can strengthen resilient cross-border supply chains that enhance our shared economic security.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
