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