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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau began his Monday by offering some more details on the government’s 75-per-cent wage subsidy announced late last week.
Speaking at his daily press conference, Mr. Trudeau said the subsidy will be available to large and small companies as well as charities and non-profit organizations to keep employees on the payroll and weather the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mr. Trudeau also said the Canadian Armed Forces stand ready to assist provinces if they request support, but noted that so far the military has not been asked to intervene.
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TODAY’S HEADLINES
News is currently dominated by the COVID-19 outbreak. For a full rundown, you can subscribe to our Coronavirus Update newsletter (sign up here). Here are some stories that speak to the political and governmental response.
Canada is seeing a surge in COVID-19-related hospitalizations, intensive-care admissions and deaths, with the situation in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta posing the greatest concern, according to the country’s chief public-health officer. Theresa Tam said the country is entering a critical period during which it will become clearer whether recent social-distancing measures are starting to slow the rate of new cases.
The Globe spoke to nurses at a Bobcaygeon, Ont., nursing home, where nine residents had died as of Sunday evening, presumably of COVID-19. "It’s a war zone. I’ve never seen anything like it in all my years of nursing,” Sarah Gardiner, a nurse at the Pinecrest Nursing Home, said through tears.
A new Nanos Research poll shows the majority of Canadians are pessimistic about the outlook of the coronavirus crisis but support the federal government’s response to it. The survey, commissioned for The Globe and Mail and CTV News, found that 67 per cent of Canadians surveyed believe the situation in their community will worsen, while 17 per cent believe it will get better and 10 per cent said it will stay the same. Read more on the poll and methodology here.
Global Affairs Canada says it is fully aware of the stressful situation many stranded Canadians are facing abroad as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, including in Peru. The Globe spoke to some of those Canadians, including Toronto’s Cory Foster, who has been rationing her thyroid medication and her asthma puffer while she is stuck in Peru.
Canadian airlines are pushing for a wide-ranging aid package to help their industry weather the pandemic as anxiety builds that the country’s wider air transport system is at risk of collapse without government intervention.
South of the border, U.S. President Donald Trump extended the voluntary national shutdown for a month on Sunday, bowing to public-health experts who told him the coronavirus pandemic could claim more than 100,000 lives in the country. Only days after musing about the U.S. reopening by Easter, Mr. Trump said his hopes had only been “aspirational.”
André Picard (The Globe and Mail) on Canada’s concern over the COVID-19 epicentre in the U.S.: “In Canada, we have a lot less wiggle room, and the ability of hospitals to withstand an influx of cases will be tested in the coming days. First, we need to see if we can handle our own outbreak. Then we may have to deal with impact of the coughing monster next door.”
John Ibbitson (The Globe and Mail) on the pandemic’s reshaping of the social landscape: “After major events, people always say: Things will never be the same again. And they’re right, Things did change after the Berlin Wall came down, after the attacks of Sept. 11, after the financial crisis of 2008-09. How will they change after COVID-19?”
Joanne Liu (The Globe and Mail) on the pandemic coming for Canada: “In our fight against COVID-19, we have made economic and political decisions that would have been unimaginable a few weeks ago. We now need to confront the unimaginable on the health side and prepare for the worst. We need to do it now. Because the full force of the pandemic is coming."
Niall Ferguson (The Globe and Mail) on Trump gambling with lives: "The one thing to be said in his defense is that, like his British counterpart U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson – who very nearly gambled on a strategy of herd immunity and has now tested positive – he has skin in the game. The President too will be at risk if this gamble goes wrong.”
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