Articles by Heather Scoffield

Jun 4 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — Here’s a remarkable thing about the pandemic and its effects on Canada’s most vulnerable people: the homeless population has sidestepped disaster. Let’s not jinx it by calling it an outright success. Yes, vulnerable, low-income people are hit harder, and the homeless population in big cities across Canada are indeed suffering from COVID-19 and paralyzed by […]

Jun 3 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — Ahmed Hussen, a Somali immigrant and the only Black member of Justin Trudeau’s cabinet, remains deeply disturbed by developments in the United States. He can’t bring himself to talk to his 10-year-old son about the George Floyd video quite yet, although he knows that day will come. “The reason is simple — it’s because I’m […]

Jun 3 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — It was a virtual thought bubble of anguish, begging to be filled. Let’s assume that during those excruciating 21 seconds when the prime minister paused Tuesday before answering a question about why he wasn’t speaking out about Donald Trump’s treatment of anti-racism protesters, Justin Trudeau was evaluating whether it’s more important to shield the Canadian […]

Jun 1 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — In the normal course of a big economic downturn, economists would be picking through the detritus right about now in search of what they call “green shoots” – signs of a natural recovery that will sprout and bring jobs and profits, investment and productivity.

May 28 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — Bill Morneau is calling it the “safe restart.” The finance minister says he has moved past the emergency response to the pandemic’s effect on the economy and is now fully engaged in how to switch from dousing the inferno with billions of dollars to sweeping up the ashes. But in an interview with The Star […]

May 26 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — Maybe the most disturbing element of Leonard Rodriques’s heartbreaking story was his reluctance to seek help at the local hospital for fear of being mistreated the way Blacks are in the United States. Rodriques, a Black personal support worker in Toronto’s long-term-care system, was eventually persuaded to go to the emergency room. But then he […]

May 21 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — Evan Siddall has dared to go where his fellow regulators won’t. The head of the national housing agency is talking publicly — and with numbers — about his forecast. He is warning of a deep plunge in housing prices, a spike in mortgage defaults and a strain on his own agency’s balance sheet. The mountain […]

May 19 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — It will be a “summer of restraint” in more ways than one. Teresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, warned Canadians to resist the temptations of the fair weather and be mindful of the threats of the coronavirus even as our instincts tell us to enjoy cocktails on the dock with family and friends.

May 14 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — It’s a story that’s become far too familiar. Arlene Reid was a personal support worker from Jamaica who lost her life to COVID-19 last month. Her union says the Peel Region long-term care homes in which she worked didn’t have the right protective gear available. Christine Mandegarian was a personal support worker who died of […]

May 12 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — The federal government’s long-anticipated plan to backstop the country’s biggest, most-troubled companies had a whiff of generals fighting the last war when Finance Minister Bill Morneau rolled it out this week — and with good reason. With an eye to the populist backlash against the rich that seized much of the Western world after the […]

May 8 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — The job market was such a disaster in April that the normally by-the-book analysts at Statistics Canada had to surface an obscure indicator just to capture it. They’re pointing to the “recent labour underutilization rate,” which StatsCan said has entrapped 37 per cent of the workforce in its April jobs report released Friday. What it […]

May 7 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — A wage top-up for essential workers is the least we could do. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a $4-billion, shared-cost program with premiers on Thursday that the provinces will distribute as they see fit — perhaps to the personal support workers, the cleaners, the grocery store clerks and those who are central to our food […]

May 2 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — There’s never been a more important time for a feminist approach to governing, but the federal Liberals missed an opportunity on Friday when they passed over Carolyn Wilkins to be the country’s top monetary policy-maker. Wilkins is the senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, the right-hand woman to Stephen Poloz and a deft, […]

Apr 28 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — Here come the optimists. As premiers cautiously open the door to relaunching provincial economies and gently propose lifting pandemic restrictions as conditions allow, idealists have set to work on how best to reset the way Canada works, hoping to create a stronger country in the wake of a global catastrophe. And with COVID-19 as a […]

Apr 24 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — Fri., April 24, 2020timer4 min. read The federal government swooped in yet again with a dramatic plan on Friday, this time to cover off 75 per cent of the monthly rent for small business. There was no precise price tag, no specific rules to make sure companies would pay back the money, no guard against […]