Along with much of the world, Canada’s economy has suffered from the COVID-19 pandemic and other events in 2020, notably the shock to global oil markets. How badly? An examination of the immediate data and longer trends indicates significant damage, with a lengthy recovery period ahead.
Let’s start with labour markets, where there are signs of recovery but also growing evidence of damage. The unemployment rate exploded to nearly 14 per cent from 6 per cent during the shutdown from March to May. The rate has dropped steadily since as many displaced workers have been re-engaged, but the second pandemic wave and renewed shutdowns in many provinces have meant more job losses. Employment fell by 63,000 in December, and…
Of all the COVID-inspired clichés of 2020, “we can’t go back to how we were before” gets my vote for most trying.
Taken literally, it is empty. We can’t undo the deaths, restore students’ lost instruction, give young people the first jobs they didn’t get, erase the huge debts, enjoy the travel and human contact that didn’t happen. No, we can’t go back to 2019 — which is too bad.
Taken as an exhortation — “we shouldn’t go back to how we were before” — it is too often a prelude to magical thinking, a great leap to some environmental, economic or political nirvana previously out of reach. That is silly. A sick person who was never an athlete can dream of completing a triathlon. But their first task is to recover. In the same…
The federal climate plan provides the clarity that Canada’s economy needs - Globe and Mail Op-Ed
The horse is out of the stable. Earlier this month, the federal government announced its plan for meeting Canada’s targets for greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris Agreement, the centrepiece of which is a carbon price of $170 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions in 2030. Ottawa also announced that it will explore using border carbon adjustments to address “carbon leakage,” and will forgo a Clean Fuel Standard for gaseous fuels.
To those who are suspicious of Ottawa, this plan may feel like a jab at Canada’s beleaguered petroleum industry. And to be sure, the painful adjustments involved should not be downplayed. Based on today’s engineering, a $170-per-tonne carbon price would mean much higher costs for oil sands…
