The COVID-19 crisis has exposed many hard-truths about the state of Canada’s economy in 2020.
The incompetence of our private sector in long-term care homes, for one. The lack of manufacturing capacity to produce critical goods when we need them, another. Generally unhelpful income security programs.
The list goes on.
But there’s a deep fault line in this crisis that runs straight through the world of work.
The world is emerging, slowly and carefully, from almost six months of pandemic-enforced isolation. We’re expanding our bubbles – a phrase few of us would have understood only months ago – and seeing relatives we’d dared not visit until just recently.
How open our communities depends on which province we live in – and beyond that which country or region. Travel between regions, and especially across international borders, remains limited.
Jerry Dias, Unifor National President & Renaud Gagné, Unifor Quebec Director
Against any semblance of good judgement, the United States is on the verge of yet another trade war with Canada by slapping a new round of tariffs on Canadian aluminum.
Sadly, this is the culmination of the current US administration’s stubborn refusal to understand just how important Canadian aluminum is to the US and its willingness to sacrifice jobs in both countries on behalf of special interests.
The American Primary Aluminum Association (APAA) recently called on the U.S. federal government to reimpose national security tariffs on certain aluminum products, arguing that a ‘surge’ in Canadian imports endangers the future of the U.S. industry.
If anyone should have a guilty conscience, it’s Randy Hillier.
Guilty of intolerance.
Guilty of shooting his mouth off.
Guilty of making a complete fool of himself.
And, just this week, guilty of casually, and apparently for the sake of cheap humour, questioned the integrity of an upstanding federal cabinet minister with his flippant comments.
Canada’s conservatives must be popping champagne corks today after the sale of Canada’s largest newspaper to two of its avid supporters.
The Toronto Star has been a consistent voice for working class Canadians for more than 100 years, leading the debate on issues Conservatives can’t stand to talk about – decent wages and working conditions, the rights of marginalized Canadians, reasonable immigration policies, and more.
It’s shocking enough that a bomb threat was made against picketers at the Co-op Refinery, but to learn that no one – not Regina Police, not the mayor, not the province – lifted a finger to warn anyone puts every citizen of Regina in danger.
Think about it. A bomb at a refinery. An explosion there would put thousands of lives at risk far beyond the picket line – so you have to ask why would anyone bury such a threat.
Eight weeks into the shutdown, the prescriptions Canadians got filled before the pandemic or in its early days are starting to run low.
For those who rely on those medications to stay healthy, or even to stay alive, this is a new and personal health crisis stacked on top of a very public one. After all, those with underlying health problems are most at risk if they contract the coronavirus.
In many ways, COVID-19 has exposed the inequities in our society. It has taken the cracks in our society and blown them wide apart – including access to medications.
Canada’s news organizations are in mortal peril, and it’s time for the federal government to take on the two marauding tech giants that are largely to blame.
Facebook and Google have pillaged the Canadian digital advertising market over the past decade. Between them, they have scooped up the vast majority of the revenue in Canada’s $6-billion-plus online advertising market — advertising that has been the chief source of revenue for Canadian media organizations.
COVID-19 has sparked an important conversation about the nature of decent work and the inadequacies of Canada’s social safety net that is long overdue.
The vital roles played by jobs that many once considered undeserving of a minimum wage hike, and the importance of ensuring that all of us have enough money to pay the rent and put food on the table, are important lessons that we must all remember in the post-pandemic world.
