Parses captions for PM Trudeau's daily speeches and presents them in a more human readable format
Loans to commercial property owners to reduce rent by minimum of 75% and governments would chip in 50% of it. The landlord, another 25% and the tenant, 25%. let me show you this happening as we wait for the Prime Minister. That is the speaker’s parade because debate inside the house of commons resumes today after parties could not reach an agreement about extending thispause, essentially, of what was the normal sitting of the house of commons. There will be a motion on how they plan to continue throughout this into the summer months, asneeded. There’s been a proposal on the table by the liberals for hybrid model. We’ll talk more with mycolleagues, Massey kapelos from”power & politics” and davidcochran. I will admit, even afterlistening this morning about whywe’re at now, other than, iknow, the Prime Minister will beat question period later andthere will be a question period, what seems to be the hang-upright now, Vassy, from what youcan understand?
Vassy:
The number of statements and press conferences from party leaders, namely theNDP’s leader, jag meet Singh, they are outlining differentthings. The bottom line is from about few weeks ago, we heard the conservatives driving the narrative or message they wanted an expanded sense of parliament and a big return of normalcy. We’ve had a committee that is focused solely on COVID-19 and there have been accountability within that committee and there are virtual sittings that seem like question period done virtually and in-person with anumber of M.P.s once a week andthere’s back and forth. M.P. S can question ministers onthe actions taken so far withcovid-19. The bottom line, and echoed byother opposition parties is thatat this point is not enoughaccountability and they can’tcompel a witness to testifybefore a committee and can’ttalk about issues outside ofcovid-19 and that’s what theopposition had been driving for. The liberals, instead, proposeexpanding the amount ofaccountability under thecovid-19 umbrella, so more ofwhat we’re seeing right now, basically, but still not a fullreturn to parliaments, even witha reduced number of M.P.s. So more of a hybrid model as you point out. What’s interest, and what I’mlooking for out of the Prime Minister’s remarks is centred around what the NDP Issaying, which is, basically, that we’ll give you our support for what you have proposed, which would be enough to make ithappen, if you do what we’vebeen asking when it comes to sick leave. This is something that premier john Horgan has asked for, ten days of paid sick leave backed up by the federal government. So I’m looking to the Prime Minister’s remarks to say what he says about that and if the liberals lean that way and asking for help, something the employment Minister could becoming this week so we’ll watch for that, as well. But, basically, looking to see if the liberals acquiesce and in the absence of a deal, there would be debate or a few M.P.sreturning here to ottawa. There will be smaller numbers inperson and will look a bit morelike what we were used to seeingpre-pandemic-like.
Rosemary:
We didn’t have that under this COVID-19committee and the request by theNDP Of those ten paid sickleave is to coincide with the14-day cycle that people believecovid needs in order to run itscourse and it would allow peopleto get that paid sick leave, ifneeded. It’s interesting, david, whatbecame a conversation about thereturn to the house of commons, to parliament, really pushedaggressively by theconservatives has become anegotiating table for the NDP Who saw a moment there to try to get something out of thegovernment instead of going onand on about how parliamentshould come back.
David:
The NDP Has been quite never in advancing some of the things it’s wanted in terms the expansion and fine-tuningthe emergency responseprogrammes. It’s done it with CERB, with thestudent’s benefits for childrenor disabilities and they’redoing it here now, picking up onthe new democratic premier, johnhorgan, loudly advocated andthere’s a unity with jagmeetsingh. If you pull back from thepolitics and parliament beingheld hostage to the parties, howdo you have a reopening andreturn to normal, if in, particular, low-wage frontlineworkers do not have theprotection of some sort of sickleave that if they get a coughor symptom that allows then tostay home without the risk oflosing their job or facingeconomic insecurity, because ifthey had returned to work and goover a certain amount, theymight lose access. This is a huge policy hole thatthere needs to be a conversationabout. There is a real patchwork, nevermind sick leave but just sickdays that you’re allowed to takeif you work in a nonunionizedwork situation, near from threemthree to five days, you can bedismissed or absenteeism. In the middle of a healthemergency, that’s a libertypublic policy concern that needsto be sorted out in somecapacity. Whether or not parliament needsto be held up in all of that, idon’t know. Civil society groups are askingfor this and, I think, a lot ofcanadians making the minimumwage and taking the maximum riskwould like a level of securityto know that if they come downwith something, they do have theeconomic security to stay homeand not run the risk ofinfecting other people orgetting worse themselves.
Rosemary:
We’ll wait to hear from the Prime Minister has to say on that and that might give us a hint in terms of housingnegotiations. They’ve put on the able to try to deal with the concerns bit by the opposition party but nowhenear what the conservative party was looking for. They don’t need to make deals, as we know. I’ll come back to you, as we wait for the Prime Minister to come out of his home. Obviously, the case numbers in this country, particularly inontario and Quebec continue to be troubling. But Montreal is still theepiinter. Montreal has the highest number of confirmed cases in a city and one of the poorest and half of the population are visibleminorities. More than 40% are immigrants. Marjorie provides support in other places and joins me frommontreal and margorie, nice to see you.
Hello.
So tell me what you areseeing, what you are hearing in the community around COVID-19, because it has hit portions ofmontreal differently.
Yes, our community, I would say is very hardly strikedbecause there’s a lot of people living in that community who work in the health field. So they help people in thehomes. and those homes are very infected and the people who are working there are infected, too. and they live in a neighborhood with a very small apartment. So they are afraid of bringing of virus in their home and this is what we are facing right now.
So a lot of people are working in the long-term carecentres as support workers andthey go home and there might bemany people inside oneapartment. is that essentially it?
That means they live with their parents. They live with their kids andso, I think there’s a big fear of bringing the virus home and sometimes that happens.
and what is your organization or what is the province doing to reach out to these communities, these communities giving so much to everyone else but struggling.
Sometimes we open to make afoot distribution and when they stop working, they don’t have no food and things like this and we are working about the kids, to all of the kids to get some computers and internet to continue to work at home.
Today is part of thepremier’s plan to open up some retail stores across montrealand some people aren’t sure this is the right time. What are your thoughts on thegovernment’s reopening plan, given what you’ve seen in thesecommunities?
Our community is very atrisk. We don’t see more risk this week because those people didn’t goon consignment, so they have to work and they have to take, probably, transportation since the beginning and there is consignment for them and wedidn’t use that consignment.
Right. Do you feel like the quebecgovernment has done enough for these communities for the people that we’re talking about here?
What we are asking since two weeks now, prime ministertrudeau and prime ministerlegault, if those workers who are asylum seekers who have been rejected, why don’t we allow them to use the fast-trackto have their permanent visa. This is what we are asking forthem. Because a lot of those men andwomen, they are at risk of beingtaken from the country, ibm, andthere are asylum seekersrejected but they still have aworking permit and work in thatfield.
You know, one of the things evacuee seen through thepandemic, margorie, a lot of the weaknesses in society have been further weakened by this and people who are marginalized and poorer have been hit muchharder. Can I ask for your thoughts onthat, as someone who works in this organization all of thetime, what you’ve been struckby?
Well, we are not struck bythat, because it just reveals to the society that the weakest part of the society, when there is a pandemic like this, we have to be aware of where are the weakest part of the society and what can we do for them? we don’t fear that in all in that society, actually, because the weakest part, we just abandon them and this is the impression in this neighborhood. and when they start to do things like that do now, testing and cleaning and things like that, but it’s four or five weeks toolate.
I’m just waiting fort prime prime Minister to come out of his front door and what would you say about his hometown inpapineau and what people aredoing?
Well, I would say that people are struggling very hard and we would like to feel some humanitarian action about this, because we are struggling very hard to keep the society inhere.
Marjorie villefranche, thank you for making the time, appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
She provides support to thehaitian community in Montreal.
we are waiting for the Prime Minister and this is a response to some of the pictures and numbers that we saw over the course of the weekend and I’llbring in Vassy and David as we wait for the Prime Minister. Probably a two-minute warning. I showed this on Friday orthursday and I’ll show thisstartling statistics now to giveyou a sense of how things aregoing in Ontario and quebecversus the rest of the country. If I can put up the board of thenumber of tests. So these are more than athousand new cases in ontarioand in Quebec and 45 in the restof the whole country. Just to give you a sense of thepace at which reopening ishappening in other parts of thecountry and the struggle that isvery real, still in Ontario andin Quebec and, although, thepremier calling now for allpeople who want to get tested to get tested and he made that callon Sunday, Vassy. It was a difficult weekendbecause it was lovely outsideand we saw people pushing thelimits on what would be allowedin terms of public healthrecommendations, anyway.
Vassy:
The image that was really circulating was at trinity bellwood’s park, hundreds upon hundreds of people in close proximity. It, of course, raised the specter of issue of testing and the issue of the number of cases in both Montreal, as you just pointed out in your last interview and 60% of the cases are in the gt and some are come out public ally and said, we are worried this reopening is happening too quickly. The idea behind the testing announcement from the premier, and he did signal yesterday more people would be able to be tested and today we’ll get details on how that might rollout. But it’s significant because the amount of tests that can be done in Ontario is 20, 000 or close to20, 000. Only a few times in the past month have they been anywhere near that. In the last seven days, they’vebeen around 50%, a little lower or higher and part of the reasonis, it’s one of the last provinces to expand the parameters for that testing. and so, as a result, you know, there isn’t a good picture of the spread of the virus inontario and, actually, theontario picture we do have is that there are over, forexample, 400 cases today and more cases than you were seeing even on some days last week and that trend line is going in the wrong direction for reopening and that’s why you’ve heard allot of apprehension from customers and businesses about the whole process. The big fear, of course, is that things will have to be shut down again or you’ll have to take five steps back for every step you take forward. a lot of people keenly interested in what the premier lays out when it comes to the testing strategy for Ontario and when that capacity might actually be met.
Rosemary:
If we could put up that chart showing exactly whatyou’re talking about, Vassy, the trend is very much going back up and epidemiologists and anyone would note that spike happened around the mother’s day weekend because people were feeling that they needed to see people andyou’re quite right in terms of the testing target. in May, they’ve only met the target ten out of 23 days, the province has, and that’s less than half and, frankly, not good enough if we’re trying to reopen things and let people go back TA new sense of normal, David. It’s problematic in Quebec, as well. and when the rest of the drive is looking, you know, at how places are doing and they see two large provinces, the most popular province in Ontario, struggling still, it is worrisome because that means that all sorts of, like, inter country travel and all of those things become points ofconcern, I think, for people.
David:
Big provinces and major cities struggling to deal with this. When we heard the premier over the week saying go get tested and you saw doctors saying, no, it can’t be this way. You can’t just have a flood of people show up in a minivan show up to get tested. We need a sense who is coming. We need the swabs and tests ready and we’ll be overrun. You can’t pull the fire alarm and say, go get tested. It needs to be more structured than that. I would say that the public health communications in ontariohas really been a bit of jumbled mess and you compare Otto the clear communication frombonnie Henry, who has been one of the stars to be empathetic and gets people to understand what they want you to do and it has not been in good withontario with mixed messages and disagreement between all of the public health agencies. So that’s a challenge. Just to go back to something earlier on sick leave. I was texting with a political source throughout this and I was told this would be a good day for people and so, in terms of that means whether the Prime Minister, who we were told will address the NDP Requests for sick leave, it seems like it will be something positive. The indications are, as we’resaying, this is a public policy choice for this government dealing with these parties to deal with this situation tomake. The challenge in all of this, you have to get the problems onboard because many of the jobs fall within provisionaljurisdictions. There has been a lot of collaboration and cooperation and this seems like an easy one to come to a conclusion on. British Columbia has been pushing this quite hard, especially if the federal government will pony up with the money on this to make it happen.
Rosemary:
I would imaginethat’s what they would do. That’s where the funding would come from. It’s complicated because we’reexpecting the Prime Minister to talk about the rent assistanceprogramme that opens up today. It’s more complicated when it’sa split jurisdiction or there’san overlap in jurisdiction for the federal government to come up with something they can get all of the provinces to then sign on to. It’s not a matter of, here is Apple of money, but saying, we will use this money for this thing rather than just getting the money and doing whatever they want. So it’s more complicated andi’ming interested to see if this is good news, as your sourcesays, if there’s provisional bu yin British Columbia who has been vocal saying what they want tohear. But that would also, then – andwe’ll see what he says. But Vassy, I would wonder what the conservative’s message is, what they take from that? because I would imagine they would be upset and get more time to ask questions of the Prime Minister but you could view that as a political gamble that is lost from their perspective. I only have about 30 seconds.
Vassy:
Yes, it will depend on what the Prime Minister says in the specific language. is there an agreement from the federal government to do whatjagmeet Singh is saying and ifso, it looks like the liberal swill pass their motion and their version of parliament willcontinue. The ask from the conservatives has been different and has been for an expanded amount of time in parliaments and, specifically, and the kinds of subject they can talk about beyond COVID-19 and this is different from what they’veasked for. I’m not sure what the reaction will be but it’s something they were pushing hard for last week.
Rosemary:
It certainly is easier to find a deal when you have a bunch of parties on the progressive side. Here is the Prime Minister ofcanada.