OTTAWA — In politics, as in everything, the pandemic has sparked a widespread reimagining — about the role of government, about the holes in our social safety net, about what we can accomplish together.
It has exposed some ugly realities, such as the troubling situation in long-term care homes that have emerged as hot zones for COVID-19. It has proved that the Employment Insurance system is out of step with today’s workforce. It has stirred questions about globalization and whether international supply networks are truly a virtue in times of desperate need. It has spurred plodding bureaucracies, known for their cautious approach to issues, into impossibly speedy policy decisions to rush aid to Canadians. And it’s left Canadians with a deficit hangover.
In these and many other areas, the pandemic has laid bare problems and blown up old ways of doing things.
The question now for politicians and policy-makers is whether they return to the status quo or seize on the pandemic to correct, reform and make better. Here are several ways government services and programs could be different:
Seniors
The issue: The pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in Canada’s long term care sector, where both public and privately operated facilities have suffered from staff shortages, lack of training and lack of personal protective equipment. Residents — and a handful of employees — of long term care facilities have accounted for more than 80 per cent of COVID-19 deaths.
The future: Better infection control measures, including the ability to physically distance residents, and providing dignified living conditions and proper hygiene have been identified as priorities.
But experts say all levels of government must also address bigger issues, such as inadequate and uneven pay levels for personal support workers, and the lack of national standards for care, working conditions and accessibility.
There have been calls for Ottawa to take control of the sector by bringing it under the umbrella of the Canada Health Act.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, relying on York University research said the COVID-19 pandemic showed public health services must be broadened to include nursing homes, which it says should be non-profit. It wants an end to privatized nursing care, and praised B.C. for effectively making all seniors home workers into public employees; as the epidemic grew, that province raised workers’ wages to union rates and ensured they were offered full-time work in a single home.
The National Institute on Aging, based at Ryerson University, urges governments to consider a radical shift, one that would see more money spent to support an aging population with home- or community-based care, as opposed to care delivered in buildings housing large numbers of seniors. It points to countries like Denmark as success stories.
Child care
The issue: Women were disproportionately side-swiped in the economic fallout from the pandemic. COVID-19 shutdowns hit first and hardest in areas where women predominantly work: education and child care, retail, personal services and restaurants.
Any hopes for a recovery will stall as long as there are unclear provisions for safe child care and safe school spaces to enable women to get back into the workforce.
“It’s women who went home,” said economist Armine Yalnizyan. She says the experience in New Zealand shows “they won’t come back, even when their governments say come back, because it’s unclear that the schools and the child care systems are sufficiently staffed.”
Like seniors’ care, child care is a provincial responsibility, and there’s a patchwork across the country. Childcare is delivered in homes and centres run by a mix of for-profit and non-profit employers, or the public sector. It’s plagued by low levels of pay and high staff turnover. Outside of Quebec, the lack of public funding makes it very expensive for parents.
The future: Martha Friendly, executive director of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit, warns many child-care centres have shut down and laid off staff because they were unable to carry costs in provinces where parent fees dried up during the lockdown. She is tracking provincial responses, but it’s not yet clear how much space has been lost.
She says Ottawa must set clear standards for child-care delivery based on the Public Health Agency’s review of research on risks to children and caregivers. Provinces are muddling along, she said, but “they’re all over the map.”
The pandemic makes clear the federal government needs to play a greater role. It might mean tying federal funds more directly to services, to ensure the creation of a publicly funded system that can survive a crisis like a pandemic.
“Germany is a federation too, and it has a lot bigger national role in child care,” Friendly said. “We are not suggesting the federal government boot the provinces out. I think they should work with the provinces much more collaboratively but the federal government needs to be a player.”
Yalnizyan says the argument is an economic and social one. “If you don’t do something, you’re actually looking at a prolonged recession. If you keep women at home, household incomes fall. If you wait for too long to do something, people can’t afford the rate of child care that’s out there (and) you have to subsidize it,” she said.
“If you think this is just another economic downturn that simply needs some shovel-ready stimulus at the end of it to get back to whatever you think is normal, you are not watching what is happening.”
Government bureaucracy and decision making
The issue: Once federal, provincial, territorial and municipal governments realized the scope of the COVID-19 pandemic, they moved with unusual speed. At the federal level, the public service designed and began rolling out massive economic relief measures for workers forced to stay home, for students unable to find summer work, and for provinces struggling to address needs in hospitals and long-term care facilities. Billions of dollars were shovelled into programs with little preparation, including some that required tweaking after being announced.
But once the crisis passes — or at least stabilizes — will Canadians tolerate a return to slower-moving public policy?
The future: Canada’s public service has been grappling with these issues for some time. Some elements within the bureaucracy — notably some of the new digital governance shops — have been advocating “move fast, break things” approach, with a higher risk tolerance than the public service has traditionally been comfortable with.
Lori Turnbull, the director of Dalhousie’s School of Public Administration, said that there’s a hope for the public service to incorporate the positives of the federal government’s COVID-19 response — speed, risk tolerance, nimbleness — into a post-pandemic world.
Turnbull said that if senior public servants embrace a more nimble approach to public policy, the crisis could produce lasting benefits for the bureaucracy. But she cautioned that there’s another shoe to drop — right now, Ottawa is focused on pushing out economic relief. Before the end of COVID-19, that bill will come due, and Canadians will have to pass judgment on the totality of the government’s response.
Domestic production
The issue: For a generation, many countries have increasingly relied on overseas manufacturing and global supply chains for critical supplies such as medical equipment and pharmaceuticals. COVID-19 has demonstrated the fragility of those relationships — from the United States attempting to block 3M from exporting personal protective equipment to Canada, to drug supplies being threatened by outbreaks in India and China.
But how should Canada adapt to a world of rising protectionism, in which countries move to be less dependent on global trade? Are Canadians prepared to pay more for goods and services in a less globalized world?
The future: It’s less a question of if Canadians will pay more, and more a question of how they will adapt, according to former Liberal policy adviser Robert Asselin.
Asselin and Sean Speer, a Conservative who advised the Harper government, co-authored a report proposing a new Canadian industrial policy. They argue that in a time of rising protectionism and questioning of postwar free-trade tenets, Canada needs to play to its strengths while recognizing the global trade we depend on is facing severe challenges.
“The world has changed. We’ve moved from a world order that worked pretty well for Canada … and we’re basically moving this to a managed-trade era, where basically the U.S. and China are going at each other, and this will have huge implications for Canada,” Asselin said.
“There’s a reason these things were made in China, right? The labour costs were lower, they were very efficient in doing these things, shipping these things, and we were happy to go to Walmart and buy these things.”
Asselin and Speer advocate for Canada to retool its industrial capacity to excel where it can, especially in the new “intangibles” economy. That includes areas such as data management, intellectual property and brands — think the federal government’s investments in artificial intelligence.
But if the tide of protectionism and self-sufficiency rises, you should probably brace for spending more at Walmart.
Employment Insurance
The issue: A wave of unemployment has laid bare the shortcomings of Canada’s Employment Insurance system, which is ill-equipped for the workforce of today.
The future: When tens of thousands of Canadians were suddenly unemployed, Ottawa pointedly didn’t rely on the EI system to deliver assistance. Instead, it created the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), which is universal, simple and has delivered funding fast.
That, some say, should be the model for a revamped EI system going forward.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has criticized EI for its “overly harsh” qualifying rules, especially for workers in contract and part-time jobs. Fewer than 40 per cent of those who were unemployed in 2018 got EI benefits, and the rates are lower still for self-employed and part-time workers, the centre says.
Though these shortcomings were known, there was no impetus for bold reforms. Until now.
“Without the necessity of a new system, there was more tinkering, It really took a crisis to crash the entire EI system (and) forced us to rewrite it in a way that was built for 2020, not the ’70s,” said David Macdonald, the centre’s senior economist.
Macdonald says the government should use the crisis to bring EI more in line with the principles of the CERB.
That would see a minimum payment, perhaps $500 a week as paid by the CERB. It would cover gig workers. It would be fast. It would have universal eligibility rules rather than a patchwork that relies on local unemployment rates.
“No more EI regions where different rules apply to different regions. It’s just standard across the country, much easier to understand,” he said.
Macdonald said eligibility should be expanded to include workers who decline to return to work because of concerns for workplace safety. Otherwise, he said, “there are a lot of workers coming up that will have a choice between their health and their income.”
Deficits
The issue: Ottawa’s pandemic spending spree to keep individuals and businesses afloat during the economic shutdown has pushed the deficit to $252 billion, according to the Parliament Budget Officer, a figure that’s certain to climb higher.
The future: A post-pandemic deficit will hang over federal decision-making.
Ottawa’s deficit fight in the 1990s brought funding cuts. Will Canada emerge from this health crisis into a period of austerity this time around?
That would not be smart move in the short term, according to Rebekah Young, director of fiscal and provincial economics at Scotiabank Economics.
Young cautions that ill-timed austerity measures to control the deficit could depress economic activity and ironically, produce even bigger deficits. “I think we’re a couple of steps away from what could we do to rein in the deficit and debt,” she said.
The biggest risk for federal finances is the pace of the economic recovery. Nursing that recovery will likely require even more spending, targeted at getting people back to work.
“Right now, we are in crisis mode. As soon as we get out of that mode, the next priority is stimulating-growth mode,” Young said.
“On balance, we may need to spend more but shifting away from social expenditures to growth-enhancing ones, getting the infrastructure rolled out,” she said.
The budget officer says the combination of higher spending and a sharp drop in GDP will push the federal debt-to-GDP to 48.4 per cent in 2020-21. That’s up sharply from 30.8 per cent in 2018-19, but well below the 66.6 per cent of GDP level in 1995-96.
While the deficit fight of the 1990s did involve expenditure cuts, it was a growing economy that ultimately shrank the debt-to-GDP ratio. That’s likely to be the solution this time around, too. “Once the budgetary measures expire and the economy recovers, the federal debt-to-GDP ratio should stabilize and then start declining under precrisis fiscal policy settings,” the budget officer noted.
There are caveats. Young says the spending measures were vital to prevent even greater economic hardships, a “depression-type scenario.” But as the economy returns to normal, those measures should be dialed back, she said. “We can’t continue providing very, very generous supports beyond the immediate crisis.”
https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2020/05/08/covid-19-has-exposed-ugly-failings-of-our-politics-heres-how-ottawa-can-build-on-the-lessons-of-the-pandemic.html
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