Jul. 17, 2020

CONTINUING SUPPORT FOR THE CANADIAN ECONOMY

  • Canadian Federal Government is providing provinces and territories with $19 billion in direct transfers for a ‘safe restart’ of the economy. Funding focuses on 7 priority areas:
    • $4.2 billion for enhanced COVID-19 testing and contact tracing
    • $4.5 billion for purchase of personal protective equipment for front line and essential workers
    • $625 million to fund more child care spaces
    • Up to $2 billion toward operating costs of Canadian cities for 6 – 8 months
    • Match up to $1.8 billion of new funding that provinces and municipalities put towards public transit
    • $1.1 billion to create a temporary national sick leave program providing 10 days of sick leave to those who do not have it through their employers
  • Canadian Emergency Wage Subsidy program providing 75% of wages to qualifying businesses and non-profits has been extended to December 2020.
  • Bank of Canada left interest rates at 0.25% and said that they will stay at that level until Canada has ‘sustainable’ inflation of 2%.
    • Bank of Canada will continue buying $5 billion of bonds each week

REOPENING SCHOOLS IN A PANDEMIC

  • 26% of Americans think it is safe for public schools to reopen this fall, 55% felt it was not safe and 19% are not sure
  • 4 in 10 parents said they would likely keep their children home if classes resume.
  • 3 in 10 white women felt schools are safe to reopen. 8 in 10 white women are still concerned about the spread of COVID-19.
  • California and Mississippi are showing that 10% of infections are in those younger than 18.
  • Some families in California are spending $7,000 per month per child for private “micro-schools” for their pre-school aged kids.
  • 5 million Canadian women lost their jobs in the first 2 months of the pandemic pushing their participation in the labour force to the lowest level in 30 years.
  • Employment among women with toddlers and school-aged children fell 7% between February and May vs a decrease of 4% for fathers of children the same age.
  • Single mothers with a toddler or school-aged child saw their employment drop 12% between February and June vs a 7% decrease for single fathers.
  • Women accounted for about 45% of the decline in hours worked over the downturn but will only make up 35% of the recovery.

10 WAYS THE WORLD IS GETTING BETTER – JONATHAN DUROCHER, PRESIDENT NATIONAL BANK FINANCIAL – A REMINDER THAT GOOD NEWS IS GRADUAL

  1. The average Canadian retires at 65…in 1929, life expectancy was 58
  2. In 1911, only 25% of Canadians were still in school at age 16, now the vast majority still are
  3. Police-reported crime rate in Canada has been falling for 20 years
  4. Canadian child mortality in 2019 was 0.428%…in 1950 it was 4.1%
  5. In 1960, 25% of students enrolled in university were women, now they are the majority
  6. In 1929, Americans spent more than 60% of their disposable income on necessities…by 2016, they spent 33%
  7. Early in the 19th century, it is estimated that only 12% of the population could read and write
  8. Over the course of the 20th century, Americans became 96% less likely to be killed in a car accident
  9. In the last 20 years, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty has almost been cut in half
  10. The average time Americans spent washing their clothes has fallen from 11.5 hours/week in 1920 to only about 1.5 hours/week in 2014