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The federal government has been signing agreements with pharmaceutical firms to try to ensure a supply of potential vaccines to the novel coronavirus. How much are those contracts worth, and what are the terms of the deals? Ottawa won’t say.
“Parliament and Canadians will want to know that they are not being subject to price gouging by private-sector companies and are co-ordinating with international partners on purchases and distribution,” former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page told The Globe.
Most health experts agree that the global pandemic will only end when (a) successful vaccine(s) are tested, produced and supplied to the world. Getting there, though, will be as much about politics as it is about medicine. Like the space race a generation ago, world leaders are vying for their country to be the one that crushes its outbreaks first.
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TODAY’S HEADLINES
Economists are raising concerns with Statistics Canada’s monthly jobs report, as fewer people have been filling out the survey since the pandemic started. As well, far more people have taken emergency payments from Ottawa than are unemployed, according to the survey data.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer says the federal government has not been sending as much equalization money to the provinces as it is supposed to.
With borders still closed around the world, fewer international students are coming to Canada this fall – an absence that will leave a huge gap in the funding for most universities and colleges. Postsecondary institutions are hoping the federal government can help make up the shortfall.
The federal government has agreed to the certification and mediation of a class-action lawsuit led by the Assembly of First Nations concerning the welfare of Indigenous children.
A group of residential-school survivors has written to every senator to ask them to once again suspend Lynn Beyak from the Red Chamber.
Can romance and COVID-19 mix? Maybe not: Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam says if you’re having sex with a new partner, wear a mask and don’t kiss – and if you really want to be safe, go do it by yourself.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who has frequently warned of the threat of voting irregularities, is urging supporters in North Carolina to vote twice this fall.
And Erin O’Toole spoke to Erin O’Toole for the first time earlier this week. One of those O’Tooles is the new leader of the Conservative Party. The other is a Colorado radio host. The two marvelled about sharing not only the same name, but also the same birthday. “Well, we should both go out and buy lottery cards tonight because we have the luck of the Irish already, Erin,” one Erin told the other.
John Ibbitson (The Globe and Mail) on how Canada can address its pandemic-fuelled shortfall of immigration: “There is a fix, though only for the short term. Tens of thousands of international students, temporary foreign workers and asylum claimants who are in Canada right now could be fast-tracked to permanent residency.”
David Parkinson (The Globe and Mail) on what’s needed for the next stage of economic recovery: “The early evidence of the economic bounce-back – employment up 1.4 million in June and July; GDP up an estimated 10 per cent over the same period; retail sales surpassing pre-COVID levels – indicates that the initial rebound has been faster and stronger than many experts had anticipated. The government’s massive injection of funds has certainly contributed to that. As the economy has reopened, the income supports have moved away from serving emergency needs to, increasingly, acting as economic stimulus.”
Erica Ifill (The Globe and Mail) on challenging the stories we tell about Canada’s history: “The removal of monuments exalting the father of Confederation has been in the national discourse for years. However, Canadians like to engage in the vanity exercise of cherry-picking the history we’re comfortable with, leaving out the icky bits that don’t uphold our worldview of being ’good people.’ The reality, though, is that Canada’s first prime minister was an oppressive colonist whose deployment of state violence was instrumental in the formation of the nation. These aren’t ’mistakes made by previous generations who built this country,’ as Mr. Trudeau falsely characterized them; rather, this was a man who committed real atrocities that formed and informed how the Canadian state interacts with Black, Indigenous and people of colour, to this day.”
Elizabeth Renzetti (The Globe and Mail) on the politics of hate: “We should be worried about the spread of political violence and the President’s incitement of it not just out of concern for our American neighbours, but out of concern for the rest of the world, too. Borders won’t contain these flames when global communication carries inflammatory hatred and conspiracy theories as fast as a wildfire spreads.”
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