Parses captions for PM Trudeau's daily speeches and presents them in a more human readable format
Standing by for the Prime Minister’s update outside his home, expecting to get underway in 15 minutes’ time, 11:15 eastern. He is expected to address the government’s emergency support programs, including the future of the Canada emergency responsebenefit, the CERB. Also, how to move forward with plans to potentially improve and increase the uptake on the wage subsidy program and the government interest-free loan for businesses. Lots on the go for the government and the Prime Minister today, as well as on this week Wednesday is the day that the united nations will vote on who will become the rotating member of the security council. It’s a vote that the Prime Minister has spent a lot of timepushing for by talking to various world leaders. The foreign affairs Minister is in new york to help with that push. Let me bring in My colleagues, the host of “power & politics,” Vassy kapelos, and david Cochrane. Good to see you both. Let’s start with you, Vassy.
Vassy:
Sure. a couple of things. We’ve been hearing from people trying to access the emergency business loan. Back on may 19, the Prime Minister announced that the parameters, the qualifications for qualifying for the loan would be expanded, especially targeting people who either have sole proprietorship or use contractors or pay themselves or their family who run the business through dividends. Finally, because so many people have been anxious to hear since the middle of may when that application will be expanded, my understanding is you will be able to apply under those new parameters by the end of the week. I’m not sure if the Prime Minister indicated that they were looking at helping out trying to make sure that new businesses that hadn’t filed tax returns yet or didn’t have a business account at that point would be able to qualify. I’m not sure if that will be looped into the expanded application process. We’ll listen to the Prime Minister to find out today. The second thing you touch on, Rosie, and we heard this from jag meet Singh. There is anticipate of Wednesday’s drama where the government will be putting some – I want to explain this about what they have spent and what they plan to spend estimates out for vote. It’s a pretty important vote in the house of commons, because if the government doesn’t get enough support they could follow. That’s the extreme scenario, but what we heard from jag meet Singh, the leader of the NDP, is he has predicated his support on whether or not the federal government extends the CERB. This is important for about, according to Jennifer Robson at Carlton university, about 2 million Canadians. 2 million of the 8 million unique applicants who have been accessing the CERB will be coming up against the four-monthperiod that they qualify for in two weeks’ time. Mr. Singh has been saying we need something to soften the blow. The uptake has not been what thegovernment anticipated. That can change as economies reopen. We are seeing a big change in Ontario, Quebec, and many other provinces already over the past few weeks, but really the uptakehasn’t been there. There are a number of Canadians, maybe 2 million if not more, whowould be without necessary income support. The NDP Said we’ll only support you on Wednesday if you extend the CERB. My understanding is there will be a hint of that, throe the details are still being negotiated. From the government’s perspective what I’m told is thewage subsidy program is an issue. They need to find out what the uptake is like, but they are looking at e. I. and transitioning people from the CERB to e. I. because they can’t for sure knowhow many people at this point orexactly what the needs are, that’s going to be a process in and of itself. It’s not like tomorrow all those2 million Canadians could transfer to e. I. so there would have to be some sort of extension.
Rosemary:
If we hear something about that from the Prime Minister, and I know you want to get in on, David, but that would speak to the needs ofcanadians and this issue, this standoff, in terms of parliamentary votes on Wednesday. Just to remind people on the wage subsidy in terms of the uptake, it is relatively small in terms of what the government had expected the last time they updated that, it paid out $10 billion, which is nowhere near the $73 billion they had expected, David. Part of what’s happening here is obviously some companies not using it yet I guess or maybe we’ll get some updated numbers this week and it will be better reflected, but the government trying to get people off that emergency relief and back into the workforce if their companies are ready.
David:
a couple of things. What we are going to get from the Prime Minister is an indication that the CERB will beextended. I think that is an inevitability, especially with the NDP Saying they need that to voted in favour of the estimates. It’s good faith to win people’s cooperation for that. The details will come later in the week. The spending on the wage subsidy has been low. This speaks to the real challenge in the way the country is responding to the COVID-19 coronavirus in that way, in that the federal government is dining the aid programs and paying the bills, but it is the provinces who are dictating the opening. While they want a national program, businesses won’t necessarily take them up on it. It was only Friday you could acidity on a patio and have a beer in Ottawa. Why would that bar reopen and take on the burden of managing that and eat up some of its subsidy time. With the reopen, the hope is more people will sign up for this. a lot of this is retroactive. You will see that number spike considerably once it happened. This is the challenge now is extending CERB because the economy just isn’t at a point where everybody can go back to work. They need to find a way to transfer the CERB into employment insurance if not employment insurance directly, with a regional focus where benefits and eligibility vary depending on how the pandemic looks in your particular part of the country and they need the wage subsidy to take off. If you listen to the Prime Minister, it’s almost a tone of pleading and begging companies to sign up. They need this to work and they’re willing to pay a significant portion of the national payroll. They’re not getting the uptake they were hoping for and we’ll see that pleading language from the Prime Minister today.
Rosemary:
On Friday you could also get your haircut. a lot of people will wonder if anyone’s had their haircut. It’s not David and not me.
David:
I got mine yesterday. There’s never a better time to be a bald man in the pandemic.
Rosemary:
We’ll see if the Prime Minister joined everyone else getting their how are you cut. I will join you again as we wait for the Prime Minister. Another thing people are speaking about over the course of the weekend is the cases rising in the United States, even though there is a reopening. I spoke with Dr. Anthony fauci about this. I want to talk to you about the reopening in the United States because in the past week or so we have seen increases in cases. Does that tell you the reopening is happening too quickly? what are your concerns about that?
Interview:
Whenever you start to reopen or get to some degree of what we call normality, there will be increase in cases. The interesting and important thing is to identify, isolate, and contract trace so you can blunt those blips and prevent them from being true rebounds ofinfection. You’re right, we are seeing appearance of additional infections, particularly in the areas that are opening. If we handle them well, we could be okay. If not, then we really have a significant problem. But I think what you mentioned about some states now having an increase in the number of cases makes one pause and be a little bit concerned.
Rosemary:
For more on this I’m joined by Dr. Isaac bogoch, an infectious disease specialist at Toronto general hospital. Good to see you. I appreciate you making the time. I want to start on a bit of news out of Quebec. In Quebec, they have decided to decrease the physical distance space. The rest of us are doing two metres, but in Quebec they say you can move to 1.5 metres and if you’re under 16, one metre. This strikes me as curious and not what I understood the science to be. Tell me what you think.
Isaac Bogoch:
I think it confuses matter. It’s easy to have a two metres across the board. In some European countries it’s one and a half metres. We should just take a Canada-wide approach and make ittwo metres. It makes it easily understandable and no ambiguity. I would have taken that approach.
Rosemary:
I must what the extra half a metre gets people in terms of physical distancing. We’ll dig into that over the day. Going back to what Dr. Fauci was saying and what I spent My weekend reading about is this spike in cases in the southern United States, Florida, Texas, California, Arkansas, Oklahoma, also some concerns in the state of new York from the governor there. What should we make of this?
Isaac Bogoch:
It’s very concerning. It’s very concerning if we look at the epidemiologic state of these southern states, we see them headed in the wrong direction. I know Dr. Fauci was being a little bit conservative when he was discussing this. When we see Florida having 2, 500new infections or Arizona having so many new infections. When we are seeing a rapid case count, it gives pause for concern. People don’t stay stationary. If we open up our border, we can import those cases and undo all the hard work we did before. This is very concerning.
Rosemary:
In Florida they’ve shut down all the bars and patios, which is what we moved towards here in Ontario over theweekend. Does it suggest anything to you about the pace of reopening, that we could take, that Canada could look at as a message as well?
Isaac Bogoch:
Absolutely. We have taken a pretty slow approach to reopening. and I think generally across the board we’ve been rather careful and measured about how this is being done. I also like how we have seen different reopening paces even in the provinces. In Alberta, Calgary and brooks were left behind while they had to deal with their underlying epidemic this. In Ontario, parts of the g. T.a. and windsor were left behind. I think that’s a reasonable strategy to take. Certainly it appears things are getting under better control as many of the harder-hit parts of Canada. We’re doing relatively well. There have been some bumps on the road. Our reopening has been slow. Dr. Fauci also pointed out you need to have the infrastructure in place to rapidly identify cases if they merge, so you can quell them so they don’t turn into a big outbreak. We have that infrastructure in most places here.
Rosemary:
It’s not because there is more testing, it’s community spread. It seems to be the case in many of the states. It also speaks to an increase inhospitalizations. Again, it’s not just people testing and more testing. I don’t know how you would qualify it. It’s not a second wave, but something is going on, it’s fair to say, in the United States.
Isaac Bogoch:
Absolutely, absolutely. and we keep hearing some of the epidemiologists talk about a spike in the first wave or a second wave. I think it’s irrelevant. It’s a greater number cases that has to be taken care of. As you point out, this is not a trend or from increased testing. Arizona is running out of I. C.u. Capacity. They’re getting close to the edge in several of these places. It’s nice to see places like florida taking measures to curb the spread of the infection. These are the types of situations where you have that degree of community transmissionwhere you need bigger public health interventions to keep this under control and at a timewhen they’re considering reopening, this should be done in a measured manner with the appropriate infrastructure in place so they can quell outbreaks. It doesn’t appear that was beingdone and they probably opened too soon and too fast.
Rosemary:
I want to ask you about masks. I noticed anecdotally over the weekend fewer people in stores and places wearing them and certainly on Twitter there were lots of people speaking about it. Can you remind people what is the deal on mask and why public health officials want you to wear them.
Isaac Bogoch:
In places where you might not be able to practice physical distancing, Ina grocery store or in an office building, you can’t spread apart by two metres, where you will have prolonged exposure, put a mask on. We can reduce the spread if a mask is worn. You can help prevent the transmission in community settings. If you’re going inside and you’re going to be close to other people or you’re not sure if you will, put a mask on to help curb the spread of the virus.
Rosemary:
Dr. Isaac bogoch, ihaven’t spoken to you a while. I appreciate you making time forus. That was Dr. Isaac bogoch, an infectious disease specialist attoronto general hospital. There has been an increase in cases in the United States, increase in hospitalizations too, which leads us to believe it’s not just because there is more testing, but community spread. We are expecting the Prime Minister to talk about the emergency business loan that is available for businesses, but potentially as David and Vassy had been reporting to give us more information what is happening to the emergency relief benefit, CERB, which so many used in the early days of this pandemic. It is coming, if you started using it four weeks ago, it is coming to an end. Many are wondering what will happen if there are no jobs to return to. Let’s bring back Vassy and David. I’m sure he’ll come out as soon as I bring you back. Vassy, I think you talked to Dr. Bog och last week – there heist. He might do that on purpose. We’ll talk about it after. Here is the Prime Minister of Canada on this Monday morning with his daily update.