Episode 15: Are we there yet?

As we enter month two or maybe it’s three (?) of the COVID-19 pandemic Canadians are beginning to sound like whiny kids in the backseat of a car on a VERY long road trip asking the question that is like nails on a chalkboard to any parent. ARE WE THERE YET?

In Canada it seems that there has been a steady stream of emergency funding and constant reminders to stay apart since the month of March, but as the curve appears to be levelling off, provinces begin to re-open and social distancing fatigue sets in everyone is beginning to ask the same question, what are the actual rules? Are we still not supposed to be seeing our friends and families even though we’re now able to go shopping? As people begin to move around more freely and we enter the phase of the “new normal” is  social distancing so last week?

Speaking of last week, and the week before that and the week before that, there has been a near constant stream of emergency funding benefits to various segments of the population, both for individuals and businesses. You could be forgiven for thinking that every person in Canada has received some sort of support and that these last funding announcements for seniors and students are the last of the emergency funding flows. But are they? Were the most recent announcements the last of the COVID cash or will we continue to wake up to Groundhog Day-esq funding announcements as groups of Canadians continue to fall through the cracks?

Amid some slips of the tongue, on this week’s episode, Richard, Rachel and Jeff ponder these very things and talk about how having a basic income in place may have saved the government and taxpayers money and may have provided a wider financial safety net for Canadians instead of the current piecemeal approach and they try to define what social distancing actually means.