MARKETS – Stocks rebound on Tuesday

There’s a fiscal lesson to be taken from those community-minded grocery store managers who are setting aside sanitized shopping carts just for the elderly.

Even as panicky customers were lining up all weekend for supplies, those stores decided to prioritize the vulnerable, the people who are the most at risk of being whacked hard by the coronavirus.

As Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill

Morneau rush to put together a massive rescue package to help Canadians through the coming months, they should adopt the same priority as the grocers: Target the most vulnerable first.

It’s almost impossible to figure out what the entire aid package should look like.

On the economic front, we know it’s really, really bad, but no one has any idea how exactly how bad it will be or for how long. There is no predictable bottom to this.

Just a month ago, economists were looking at some mediocre growth in the Canadian economy this year.

Last week, they tossed those forecasts and began projecting a mild recession for Canada as countries around the world reeled under pressure from measures to slow the virus.

And this week, they’re shredding them again, looking at such deep contractions in the next few months that they want to invent a new word to describe what we’re seeing.

“We need a new economic vocabulary that goes beyond the ‘R’ word to (appropriately) capture depth, duration and breadth,” says Beata Caranci, chief economist at TD Bank.

The downturn will be sharp and its duration dependent on the spread of the virus.

At CIBC, chief economist Avery Shenfeld sees the economy shrinking at a three per cent pace this spring, but he readily admits to making that number up. “There’s too many pieces of the economy that are actually being shut down,” he says. “The second quarter is going to be a deep negative.”

There is no way to quantify exactly what is happening, and even defining the worst-case scenario is proving difficult. Entire sectors of the economy are paralyzed — hospitality, travel, airlines, retail. And those that are still functioning are getting side-swiped, especially oil and gas. Recovery will come, economists say, but it’s hard to imagine what it will look like.

But it’s easy to figure out who will be in need of help most urgently — lots of it, and right away. Part-timers, temporary workers, the self-employed, the working poor — they are in immediate danger of losing their livelihoods. The cooks and cleaners and cafeteria workers, the musicians and entertainers, the cashiers — the people who are often on the front lines of service industries that suddenly have no customers.

The federal government will need to deliver money to those workers quickly so that they aren’t forced to compromise their personal health by staying at work, says the Hassan Yussuff, president of the Canadian Labour Congress.

Yussuff is one of many experts urging Morneau to use existing programs to funnel money directly into the hands of the precariously employed and those not covered by Employment Insurance benefits.

Topping up the Canada Child Benefit or bolstering GST rebates could work, as would writing cheques for a range of workers so they can pay the rent.

The government also needs to make sure their employers survive, Shenfeld says. When the pandemic recedes, a rebound will be so much harder if small businesses have shut their doors permanently.

A smart stimulus package will target them as well, he says.

When Morneau and Trudeau roll out their stimulus package, the markets and the public will be focused on the big number — how much the package is estimated to be worth overall. And there’s no doubt, it will be larger than life.

But more important than the amount is the design: getting the money quickly to those who need it most. The innovative grocery stores are showing the way.

“

. . . were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment

latter.” to prefer the — Thomas Jefferson.