News after the Speech

Rosemary:

That is the Prime Minister of Canada on this Wednesday, giving his daily briefing on his government’s response to COVID-19. The pandemic. Telling us that there will be some news on mask wearing in this country coming up at the noon briefing from public health officials here in Ottawa. After more conversations with provincial health officials. So, we’ll stay tuned for that because that will be important information for people. Vassy kapelos and David Cochrane join me to help with our coverage there and dissect a few things that the Prime Minister said. Let’s do the commercial lend programme as we were talking about before, Vassy and then David I’ll turn to you on another issue I know you want to get into. It doesn’t sound, other than sort of encouraging land lords, like there is much that can be done to force people to do this. and there is a bit of risk for landlords antenanlzes are desperately hoping they will take advantage of the programme.

Vassy:

It is entirely predicated on the landlord’s willingness to participate. By participating, that means that the landlord has to take less money. So t federal government would help subsidize the rent and pay about 50% of it. The tenant would pay a quarter of it. and then the landlord would essentially have to eat the other quarter of it and that depends on a sliding scale, obviously. and the number of properties or units that the land lord has. They have to make that calculation. But some landlords, for example, have approached their tenant already and worked out a deferral system. So, tough calculate is it better to get the full raenl year from now or over the no*ix year or do I take a hit right now that might help My tenant more? it depends on the tenant situation and the landlord situation and the Prime Minister got a few direct questions there about why not just dlekts help to the tenants, you know, a straight line to the tenants and that is something that opposition parties, specifically the NDP Has brought up, but also the tenants themselves saying why are we doing it this round-about wait a minute. and I’ve heard from landlords saying it would have been easier if this got funneled through. My understanding is there will be one form for all of your tenants but it is a lengthy process and tough agree to a lot of stuff, that kind of thing. Which is fine. But it is not something that will happen overnight. The only news out of Prime Minister today, on the programme, was that application will open on may 25. So, that is next Monday. and that the money should flow quickly. That has been the case, to be fair to the government with other financial aid programmes so there’s no reason to think that it won’t be the case this time. But the last time it does apply is June. The question is also for the provincial governments. My understanding is only Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and this is last week so I could be wrong, but only those two provinces have put a moratorium on commercial evictions. You heard, for example, premier doug ford talk tough about landlords there and the way in which they should behave, he has not, nor has most other province, put a moratorium on commercial evictions. So rent is normally a provincial issue, it’s provincial jurisdiction. So I think a lot of tenants, a lot of small business owners do have questions for provincial governments. In the meantime, while all these details are being worked out, can we not have a moratorium on us getting evicted because we can’t pay our rent and most provinces have come back at this point with a no. Premier ford says he was waiting on details from the programme from the federal government before deciding whether he had to throw the hammer down even harder is what he said yesterday. But, again, far lot of these tenants, it’s too late. There are businesses closed all around Ontario right now. a number of restaurants that I keep seeing on instagram every day who have had to shutter their businesses because they weren’t able to make rent or did get evicted. It doesn’t make sense to a lot of people. Why would – what tenant do you think you’ll get throughout a pan democrat snick – pandemic but it is still happening and there is a gap in the policy from the provincial and federal government to address that. But the applications will open next week. So, the message from the federal government to landlords is go to cmhc. Ca and a start figuring out what you need to apply.

Rosemary:

Yeah. I think, and correct My if I’m mistaken from My conversation with bill morneau last week, because it is a jurisdictional issue t only way the federal government could offer support was through the mortgage programme so it had to go to landlord. Maybe there was – maybe there was some sort of creative way to get it to tenants. I think they were sort of limited in terms of how they would put forward the money. Landlords are worried about either being exposed with their own mortgages or worried that the business won’t come back regardless of whether they have commercial rent help. So, it’s a calculation that landlords have to make, too, I guess, on whether they think it is worth investing. Although the Prime Minister said it is in everybody’s interest that the economy work and landlords take this programme.

Yeah. Very much so. It’s not an easy calculation as you rightly put it for each landlord. It depends on their situation. and I should mention that it’s April, may and June. So, as we watch this very slow process of the economy re-opening, some of the other financial aid packages, the data with them have given us sort of an insight into how slow this recovery is going to be. Probably slower than we anticipated a few months ago. Although it might help bridge a few months for those tenants and for the landlords, there is still the problem of what happens after. Some of those businesses haven’t opened yet and thinking specifically of restaurants, right? they’re operating at 50% capacity, which means revenues are down. It keeps getting more complicated. There is no quick fix. But these three months – I think there is a desire to participate in the programme and it will be interesting to see what the uptake is like.

Rosemary:

The Prime Minister talked about the lee ff programme, the large enterprise money. I wanted to highlight that because he made it very clear, his language has been consistent that this is a loan programme, not bailout. This is to get you through the crisis. and that’s sort of it. David, you – you want to talk about some child benefit that the Prime Minister mentioned off the top because there was a top-up that people would have seen in their bank accounts today. But some people were surprised at what they saw in their bank accounts today.

Reporter:

Yeah. This is an interesting thing that we’re learning today is we’ve known for some time that there is going to be a one-time $300 per child top-up through the Canada child benefit for people. What we didn’t know is that the payments are going to be expanded to people who don’t normally qualify. We started getting e-mails and reports saying I got a Canada child benefit top-up today and I don’t ever get it normally. Do I have to pay this back? is this a mistake? no, it’s not. What apparently happened is everybody who already had a child and qualified for the Canada child benefit gets $300 per child. and then there is about 50, 000 families that are above the normal cutoff threshold who will get a payment of some sort and it is going to be scaled based on their income. So if you have – if you make too much money, prepandemic and didn’t normally qualify for a top-up for the Canada child benefit f you are in those 50, 000 families, you are going to get one. This is not a mistake. This isal. Part of the programme design I’ve been told by government officials. This wasn’t really communicated to anybody. I went on the web page and looked at it and says who qualifis? if you have a kid and president, you get 300. That is all it says. We’ve heard of payments of $500 and people are qualifying over above they were anticipating with the payment sent out today.

Rosemary:

Don’t panic if you have a little extra cash deposited in there by the government of Canada.

Reporter:

It is a feature, not a bug. You were meant to get that. [laughter]

Rosemary:

Ok. I found it interesting to hear the personal reflections on mask weigh er as we wait on some new information about the recommendations and the advice from public health officials. The Prime Minister saying that he is now wearing a mask, for instance, on his way to parliament hill where he is headed now. He will take it off when he gets to his desk but put it on again when he goes past people. He is not sure he can maintain that two metres of physical distancing. Obviously he’s had a rethink in terms of how to best keep other people safe around him and certainly we’ll hear more information around some of the advice and whether it match’s the Prime Minister’s personal views on that. We want to turn to Manitoba because they are seeing sites returning like the forks. Tina McKay is president with the forks north portage partnership. Hi, how are you?

Rosemary:

I’ll briefly pull away from Dr. Testimony AM tam, DTP touch on the evolution of the advice of mask wearing in thiscountry. It’s been six weeks since we got the lab suggestion from health officials on how to approach masks in Canada and now it has changed so slightly today, bu tin an important way. Dr. Iris gorfunkle, a family physician joining us fromtoronto. Good to see you, doctor.

Thank you for having me.

Thanks for standing by. The shift today was before it was suggested that a nonmedicalmask would be hell. Helpful and now this is a recomm. Does that seem to you to make significant difference to regular people and how big of ideal is that, do you think?

I think the message has to be, I protect you by wearing my mask and you protect me by wearing your mask. We know that asymptomatic transmission is a real problem and up to 50% of individuals may actually carry COVID-19 and not even be aware of it so bearing that in mind, wearing the ma skis an important societal message as well as a huge health impact to reduce the COVID-19 as wereopen.

One of the things Dr. Tam talked about was building trust between Canadians, which realize is a fundamentallal part of public health and how you approach public health and that she herself had seen a shift incanadians. is that why it’s not needed yet to go to a mandatory requirement for wearing masks?

It’s interesting. There are 30 countries now that make it mandatory to wear, but we don’t need 100% compliance. If we had 80% compliance and masks were 60% helpful, we would stop the spread. So with our societal freedoms, it’s possible to do, but the message has to be, I care enough about My fellow man to do that. The masks are not going to protect me from getting it, but it will protect other people from getting it. and that’s why it’s soimportant.

Obviously this is the recommendation now, but, ofcourse, the pandemic looks different depending on where you live and in Quebec, forinstance, they strongly recommended this sometime ago, because it has been more sever eon the island of Montreal. Does that complicate factors, that it is so different across the country? or should we all be wearing one and get over it?

Well, the thing about it is, COVID-19 has been so humbling. It’s not there until it’s there. and what we’ve realized is that, you know, looking overseas and saying it’s not us, it rapidly became us and can spread from province to province, especially as travel is opening. But I think the idea of a broad acceptance of the use of masks, independent of how common it is right now, it would make a lot of sense, because we’ve beenhumbled. It changes and it can changerapidly.

and the fact that we are seeing economies reopen across the country in a significantway, in some places less significant than others. Does the timing seem right for you as we emerge from our home?

Absolutely. The timing makes a lot of sense and what would make more sense is when kids get back to school in the fall, all the kids should be wearing masks, because they are potentially carriers ofcovid-19 to much higher patientpopulations. So I think we need to even take it to the next step and recognised the fall is a longtime away from now, but just thinking in terms of when large masses of people are coming back and congregating. Masks have been shown to make substantial difference. If we look, for example, at hongkong or Singapore, countries where the acceptance of it is almost 100%, the death rate fromcovid-19 has plummeted and nowwe’re pushing six thousandcanadian lives lost and so this is a huge impact.

Hard to get kids to wear am ask all day, geez. Might have to train them through the summer. I’ll LAN on this, the Prime Minister made a point of talking about his personal decision on wearing a mask and also, then, we saw him going into parliament wearing a mask. How significant is it for leaders to be demonstrating that right now?

I think it’s tremendously important and I think that, also, what happens is once we reach a certain tipping point, shall we say, if over 50% of people start wearing masks, what happens is I’ll become the odd man out if I’m not wearingmasks.

Right.

So as more and more people define it as the norm, it becomes the norm and that’sprecisely what we saw in china happening around SARS. So they’ve gone through SARS and now they rapidly have adoptedit. So just like – I hate to use fashion statement, but it is somewhat of that. There’s a societal pressure that actually works. I care about you, you care about me and this is what I do.

Yep, yep. Doctor, thank you. I appreciate you weighing in. Dr. Iris gorfinkle, thank you. As we stand by and wait for this committee to get underway, they are still reading petitions. Parliamentary work is sometimes long and I’ll bring back vasseykapelos and David Cochran. So maybe not, you know, breaking the walls down, exciting masknews, but it was a shift and an important one at that in terms of it becoming now the recommendation for Canadians to wear masks when they can’t get the physical distance. I’m sorry, this won’t happen. I’ll go back to the west bloc getting to the question and answer period of the special committee and here is the leader of the official opposition, Andrew Scheer.

They’re expecting represents to do the same. Last week’s Quebec’s national assembly will sit three times a week and then four times a wee kin June. and can the Prime Minister tellcanadians why he believes that we should not go back to work here in the or house of commons? the right honourable Prime Minister. Mr. Speaker, for a number ofweeks, we have ab been sitting three times a week, twicer, virtually, f to allow omp’s acrsthe country, not just those who live in Ottawa, to be able to take part in the sittings of the house and represent their constituents and we will ensurethatt our parliament can functineven if this is a pandemiccrisis. Nth Prime Minister knows the house is not sitting normally and this is a committee of the whole and not the normal way the house of commons does its business and the prime minister should acknowledge that. I’ve raised the issue of granttracking. As conservatives have beenasking, for the liberals to amend the way subsidies to allow companies that have acquired another company to compare based the two previous companies. Last week the government announced a change to eligibility to the wage subsidy for companies formed by anamalgamation. There are many employees whose jobs depend on the answer to this question. Can the Prime Minister confirm whether these same rules will be extended to acquisitions?

The right honourable Prime Minister.

Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau:

In response to the honourablemember’s first comment, these are not normal times. We are in a pandemic situation where Canadians are having es to adjust many different ways and at the same time, it is important that we keep ourparliamentsary institutions going and that we provide opportunities for M.P.s to askquestions on the half of theirextents of the government andthat’s why we have had threesittings a week over the pastnumber of weeks. Sin regards to the business inthe member opposite’s riding, ican highlight that financeofficials have been in touchwith thatan company and wecontinueen to look at ways ofclosing further gaps, even as we’ve helped millions ofcanadians and hundreds ofthousands of companies, there ismore to do and we willing keep pworking on that.

Andrew Scheer:

In March of2018, the ratings agency issued debt level and said thatcanada’s gross general government debt remains close TA level that is, quote, incompatible with trip a status. If our credit is downgraded, that will mean that taxpayer swill pay more to service the cost of that debt. Can the Prime Minister tell the house how much it will costcanadians in additional debt charges if Canada’s debt rate isdowngraded. Overviews there are two g7countries that have triple athat Art going into this countryand that is germany and Canada. We have a perfect score in termsof credit agencies because wehave managed to keep our datathe size of our gdp undercontrol. We were responsible over thepast five years, which meansthat when this pandemic has hitus, we have had the means toinvest, to help directly millionupon millions of Canadians whoneed ed this help. Needed that help.

Andrew Scheer:

The exactoppositewa is true. When this government waselected, just $10 billion a year four years and they had to throwaway that metric and as well as our debt to GDP ratio remainsconstant, that would be Ok. The economic output has shrunk and remember, it was this government that said, loblawsdeserved $12 million for new fridges and MasterCard deserved50 million in corporate bail-outand this government made canadaweak heading into this pandemicand all of this additionalspending being borrowed toprovide assistance is coming onthe heels of record deficits andis hurting Canada’s ability tomaintain its credit rating. One of the ways to protect yourcredit rating is if you show thepeople you owe the money to hownto pay ig G back. is the government willing toprovide Canadians with an updateto get Canadians fiscal trackback under control when thispandemic is over?

The right honourable prime

Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau:

Mr. Speaker, it’s DEA VI allover again. We’ve heard ye tho again the same economic arguments that the conservatives are been making for years. They made them in the 2015 2015election, where we proposed to invest in Canadians and they talked about debt reduction an din 2019, after four years of demonstrating investigating incanadians could not only create million new jobs but lift overs million Canadians out ofpoverty, they continued to make the same tired argument expose dejected by Canadians. We have demonstrated that fiscalresponsibility, that managing our finances properly while investing in Canadians has been the responsible thing to do and left us the fiscal fire power to invest in Canadians during thispandemic.

We will now consider withmr. Blanchet. Thank you, chair. We had agreed to put in place special rules so that we could ensure that we would have representation of each politicalparty, 32 M.P.s and I wouldinvite us to count how many weare. The NDP is respecting thenumbers and the bloc quÉbÉcoisis respecting the numbers andthe green party is respectingthe numbers are not. Either this is equal, safety orboth and it’s not right now. So that said, why have anagreement when you won’t respectit? the government made two veryformal commitments onapril 29th with regard tocreating incentives for jobs, for people who are getting thecanada emergency responsebenefit and this has not beenresolved or respected and hasbeen said very clearly.

Rosemary:

We’re going to pull away from this question and answer period. You can continue to watch it on our website and whether the house of commons should resume in some form on Monday becausethat’s when the time runs out so those negotiations continue tohappen. There’s a recommendation that you wear one mask if you cannot maintain that physicaldistancing. I’m rosemary Barton and I’llhand it over to Andrew Nichols.

Andrew:

We’re tracking the latest on the developments on the COVID-19 story and that new advice that the federal government has on wearing masks that Rosie was just mentioning and we’ll get to provisional updates throughout theafternoon. This is the scene, though,