Accelerate Infrastructure Projects and Adapt Restructuring Processes: Crisis Working Group on Business Continuity and Trade
June 17, 2020 – Accelerating productivity-enhancing infrastructure projects could provide much-needed stimulus and help Canada’s economy recover from the COVID-19 crisis, according to a C.D. Howe Institute Crisis Working Group.
The Crisis Working Group on Business Continuity and Trade, in its most recent meetings on May 26 and June 2, 2020, also emphasized the need for adapting Canada’s bankruptcy and restructuring process to cope with the potential for widespread insolvencies.
The group of industry experts and economists, co-chaired by Dwight Duncan, Senior Strategic Advisor at McMillan LLP and former Ontario Minister of Finance, and Jeanette Patell, Vice-President of Government Affairs and Policy for GE Canada,…
Hodgson, Van Dijk – Cornerstones For A Realistic Fiscal Plan
From: Glen Hodgson and Peter van Dijk To: Canadians concerned about the recovery Date: June 17, 2020 Re: Cornerstones for a Realistic Fiscal Plan The pandemic-induced economic shutdown has created a deep crater in Canada’s fiscal position, federally and provincially. Exceptional spending programs, combined with shrinking government revenues, will mean massive fiscal deficits and much higher public debt […] The federal government owes Canadians a fiscal update – Globe and Mail Op-Ed
Parliament is being asked to authorize massive amounts of spending to mitigate the economic damage of COVID-19. To best represent the interests of Canadian taxpayers, who some day will foot the bill, parliamentarians need the best picture possible of the underlying context. That should include a fiscal update.
The Prime Minister rejected the idea of a fiscal update last week, arguing that “in this situation any prediction we make will be widely unreliable from one week to the next.”
Many past updates and budgets, vital to the parliamentary process, would have failed the reliability test.
The infamous 1995 budget, widely viewed as tackling a fiscal crisis and putting the country on a sustainable fiscal path,…
Glen Hodgson on BNN – PBO projections and the risks of Ottawa’s mounting debt
Glen Hodgson, Fellow-in-Residence at the C.D. Howe Institute, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss how Ottawa might approach the task of paying down the mounting estimated $256 billion dollar debt brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rosalie Wyonch – Low-value Care: Re-opening The Healthcare System And Living With Covid-19
From: Rosalie Wyonch To: Healthcare policymakers and managers Date: June 16, 2020 Re: Low-Value Care: Re-opening the healthcare system and living with COVID-19 Canadian provinces are in the midst of re-opening their economies and healthcare systems following the restrictions imposed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The shutdown came fast, but the recovery is slow. This […] La bourse a-t-elle la berlue ? – La Presse Opinion
Qu’est-ce que peut bien voir la Bourse pour regagner si rapidement le terrain perdu, alors que l’économie réelle se contracte comme jamais dans une profonde récession ?
Comme se plaisait à répéter mon ancien collègue de La Presse Alain Dubuc, « la Bourse, ce n’est pas l’économie ! ». Elle est plutôt le reflet d’opinions variées quant à l’évolution future des bénéfices des seules entreprises cotées en Bourse. Ici, le mot clé est futur.
La Bourse est un marché qui met un prix sur le futur, diablement difficile à prévoir, surtout au beau milieu d’une crise sans précédent. Ce prix est rajusté au fur et mesure que le marché digère de nouvelles informations, parfois contradictoires, d’où la…
When the pandemic subsides, preserving the arts must be a top priority for governments – Globe and Mail Op-Ed
One of the tragedies of the COVID-19 crisis is its devastation of arts and culture organizations in this country. Even with emergency support by the federal government, the future for many of these groups is uncertain. As the economy slowly opens up, crowd restrictions and social distancing will mean galleries, museums and the performing arts generally (theatre, music, dance), will face tremendous challenges. Many see a dim and uncertain horizon ahead as revenues shrink or disappear.
Financial struggles were a long-standing a fact of life for the arts community well before the pandemic crisis. Notwithstanding pre-pandemic increases in public funding, including the injection of new money for the Canada Council, public financing…
Jeremy M. Kronick – A Baseline Understanding Of Fiscal Sustainability
From: Jeremy M. Kronick To: Government debt watchers Date: June 15, 2020 Re: A baseline understanding of fiscal sustainability When the COVID-19 crisis erupted, and it was clear economies would be shut down, there was widespread agreement that both fiscal authorities and central banks would have to inject unprecedented stimulus to create a bridge to […] S2 E9 – The Vape Debate with Ian Irvine
Vaping is safer than smoking. But is Canada taking the right approach to a technology that could save lives? C.D. Howe Institute Research Fellow and Concordia University professor Ian Irvine says the drop in cigarette sales illustrates vaping’s upside. Lemieux, Schirle, Skuterud – Initial Impacts Of Covid-19 On The Labour Market
From: Thomas Lemieux, Tammy Schirle, Mikal Skuterud To: Employment and Social Development Canada Date: June 12, 2020 Re: Initial impacts of COVID-19 on the labour market The COVID-19 pandemic forced the Canadian economy into a medically-induced coma in March, and by mid-April about one third of the Canadian workforce had applied for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB). While […] Janice Mackinnon – The Cerb Decision: Reform Or Replace?
From: Janice MacKinnon To: Policymakers in Ottawa Date: June 12, 2020 Re: The CERB decision: reform or replace? The Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) begins to wind down next month, and the government must decide what happens to its most popular, and expensive, income support measure. There are two possible paths: either the CERB – reformed […]