Apr 2 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — The income supports are in place, the wage subsidy is set to go to employers, and the central bank is greasing the wheels of the money markets so that they can function in a predictable way. Federal authorities have now put more than $193 billion into forming a cushion, hoping Canada’s collapsing economy can ride […]
Mar 31 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — Way back before the COVID-19 crisis came upon us, the federal government had planned to deliver a budget this week. The plan was to focus on climate change, deal with the economic downturn in Alberta and perhaps nudge Canada closer to the digital economy’s cutting edge. One day, the government will probably return to those […]
Mar 29 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — Federal authorities have identified their economic arch-enemy in this crisis, and it is bankruptcy. Both the federal government and the Bank of Canada showered small businesses with money and measures on Friday — tens of billions in subsidies, credit and deferred taxes, plus many billions more to help the financial system function well enough to […]
Mar 24 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — What does the federal government know about the state of the economy that the rest of us don’t? The Liberals displayed a shocking lapse in judgment this week by lacing their legislation for economic aid with an attempt to corner vast tax-and-spend powers for the next 21 months. Aside from blundering politically and underestimating the […]
Mar 23 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — There’s been help offered for homeowners, help for the unemployed, help for small businesses — hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, supports and tax breaks, with much more to come as Ottawa tackles the current economic crisis. But there are many people who are still at risk of quickly falling through the cracks that […]
Mar 21 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — Finance Minister Bill Morneau is up to his eyeballs, dishing out billions of dollars, figuring out how to finance billions more, under the scrutiny of the entire country wondering whether the national economy is about to fall off a cliff. And his sister in Switzerland has just been diagnosed with coronavirus. Nevertheless, he says he […]
Mar 18 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — Just a few months ago, Gillian Fedchak was on a roll. Her new tourist-oriented property management business in Prince Edward County was growing, she had just got married, and she was loving her life with her husband and her dogs out in the countryside. Then came coronavirus, social distancing and fear. All the money dried […]
Mar 17 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — As the coronavirus pandemic carves its jagged course through Canadian society, Justin Trudeau has consistently made one big promise: he will have our backs, no matter what. When Finance Minister Bill Morneau rolls out his first big aid package on Wednesday, it will be the first test of just how committed Trudeau is to that […]
Mar 13 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — Amid the pandemonium of coronavirus deterrence and financial turbulence, there was a flurry of collaborative Canadian leadership on Friday that will serve us all well. After several days of piecemeal advice from provincial and federal health and border authorities about how far we should restrict movement, Ottawa finally set a bar for what kind of […]
Mar 12 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — No basketball, no hockey, no baseball. And to top it off, no money — or at least, a lot less of it after Thursday for pretty anyone who has investments. We thought the market carnage of Monday was bad, when stock prices took their biggest dive since the crash of October 1987. Thursday was worse: […]
Mar 10 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — One of the world’s leading economists offered some succinct advice for governments dealing with the chaos and panic that accompanied Monday’s market meltdown. Olivier Blanchard, the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, took to Twitter during the carnage and called for two “vital sets of measures” — one to deal with the COVID-19 […]
Feb 27 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — The news this week that one million people had moved out of poverty in Canada over the past four years doesn’t ring true for Saeed Vahid. The 51-year-old Richmond Hill man may be above the poverty line, but he’s well acquainted with hardship. For him, making ends meet is not getting any easier. Vahid has […]
Feb 24 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — The federal Liberals can breathe a little bit easier now — but only for about five minutes. The Teck crisis has been averted, with the company standing down Sunday on its plans to develop a massive oilsands mine in Alberta that the federal government had to approve or disallow this week. And the shortages of […]
Feb 21 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — It’s now 15 days into the Coastal GasLink showdown, and propane in rural Ontario and Quebec is running desperately low. Layoffs in rail transportation and manufacturing are in the air. Spontaneous protests are popping up unpredictably across the country. Even if the federal Liberals don’t want to impose a deadline in resolving the Wet’suwet’en conflict […]
Feb 14 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — If governments need another reason to settle with Indigenous communities and figure out once and for all who controls what land, they need only look at their own books. Thursday’s shutdown of rail service for passengers across Canada and for cargo in half the country is only a sliver of the cost of conflict between […]