A man stands on Summit Avenue holding a flag as cars parade in front of the Governor’s residence during a “Liberate Minnesota” protest in St. Paul, Minn., on Friday, April 17, 2020.
Evan Frost/The Associated Press
President Donald Trump appears to be encouraging protests against state-level COVID-19 containment measures, and has announced guidelines for reopening the U.S. economy. Some governors are preparing to ease stay-at-home orders in the next two weeks. And companies are drawing up plans to restart operations in a physically distanced world.
But public-health experts warn that the country still does not have enough ability to test for and trace novel coronavirus cases to safely contain the outbreak once people return to work. New infection hot spots, meanwhile, are emerging in states that thought they had the pandemic under control. And supply chains have been so disrupted that many companies cannot easily resume business.
It all means that restarting the world’s largest economy will be a stuttering process, potentially with long-term distancing measures in public spaces and on the job, rather than the swift ramp-up Mr. Trump has envisioned.
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“We must have a working economy, and we want to get it back very, very quickly, and that’s what’s going to happen,” the President declared at the White House this week. “I believe it will boom.”
On Friday morning, Mr. Trump tweeted support for demonstrations against physical-distancing measures in Democratic states. In one protest earlier in the week, thousands of people – some toting rifles, Trump posters and Confederate flags – descended on Michigan’s state capitol to demand that Governor Gretchen Whitmer rescind her stay-at-home order.
“LIBERATE MINNESOTA! LIBERATE MICHIGAN! LIBERATE VIRGINIA,” the President wrote.
Under Mr. Trump’s guidelines, states that have seen declines in coronavirus cases would follow a three-phase plan to gradually reopen businesses, offices and schools, and allow for progressively larger public gatherings.
Some governors and experts, however, say the Trump administration has laid out no plan for the necessary public-health infrastructure to prevent a resurgence of coronavirus when containment measures ease.
Among other things, states need more and faster COVID-19 tests; staff to track down the close contacts of infected people so they can be isolated; and sufficient capacity in the health care system, with proper supplies of personal protective equipment.
A giant banner depicting President Trump is flown in front of the Governor’s residence during a “Liberate Minnesota” protest in St. Paul, Minn., on Friday, April 17, 2020. A
Evan Frost/The Associated Press
Protesters carry rifles near the steps of the Michigan State Capitol building in Lansing, Mich., Wednesday, April 15, 2020.
Paul Sancya/The Associated Press
“We’re just nowhere near that point. Until we get there, it would be premature to talk about reopening,” said Dr. Leana Wen, a health-policy expert at George Washington University and former municipal public-health official. “There is no part of our country that is there.”
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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said states need federal help to expand testing before they can reopen, but Mr. Trump’s guidelines leave governors to sort out testing for themselves. “That is passing the buck without passing the bucks,” he told reporters in Albany on Friday.
Even states that had appeared to dodge the worst of the pandemic, meanwhile, have recorded new outbreaks, highlighting how little control officials have had over the spread.
The Smithfield Foods slaughterhouse in Sioux Falls, S.D., for instance, has become a major COVID-19 hot spot, with 634 employees testing positive and 1,157 cases in the surrounding county. South Dakota is one of only seven states that have not implemented stay-at-home orders. In an appearance on Fox News, Governor Kristi Noem argued such measures force people to “give up their liberties for just a little bit of security.”
Smithfield shut the plant last weekend.
Commuters wear face masks as they exit a subway train on April 17, 2020 in New York City.
Scott Heins/Getty Images
“I don’t know how we can reopen the economy when we’re still trying to keep people safe and alive to begin with,” said Nancy Reynoza, head of Que Pasa, a Sioux Falls Latino community organization that helped Smithfield workers organize a protest outside the slaughterhouse last week. “Everybody wants to get back to work, everybody needs to get back to work, but what’s the price to pay for that?”
Some states and companies, however, are taking steps to reopen.
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Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said this week that he would begin loosening coronavirus containment measures on May 1. Mr. DeWine did not detail exactly how this would work.
At least three automotive parts suppliers – Lear Corp., Magna International and Aptiv – have published manuals on how to reopen factories while maintaining COVID-19 precautions. Among other things, they envision creating space between employees on the job, issuing protective equipment to staff and isolating workers who fall ill.
Columbus Dispatch reporter Randy Ludlow asks a question of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine about nursing home death totals during the daily coronavirus news conference on Friday, April 17, 2020 at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio.
Doral Chenoweth/The Associated Press
Glenn Stevens of MichAuto, a Michigan car-industry group, said his sector faces another logistical hurdle: Auto supply chains stretch across North America, meaning companies in numerous jurisdictions would have to restart around the same time for production to resume.
“You’re talking about 2,000 parts that are coming from all over the world and have to come together in an assembly plant in a very synchronized manner,” he said. “There has to be synchronization not just between states, but between international borders, too.”
While states have banded together in regional blocks – the New York metropolitan area, the West Coast and the Great Lakes – to co-ordinate reopenings, some contended that a fully national effort was needed to prevent a resurgence of the pandemic.
Maura Calsyn, who co-wrote a reopening plan for the Center for American Progress think tank, said testing, at least, had to be co-ordinated by the federal government and not downloaded to states that can ill afford the cost, or might perform it unevenly.
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“It’s really dangerous and reckless to say ‘we don’t have any cases in this area, so we’ll just open it up.’ How do you know that if you’re not testing?” she said. “Anything that does not address how to quickly and aggressively ramp up testing levels is totally incomplete. They’ve just punted that.”
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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.
