What Canadians think of the lockdown
Governments across the land, and in many places throughout the United States, have lowered the boom to get people off the streets, out of parks and into their homes in order to stop the spread of COVID-19. What had been “self distancing” has become more extreme, with citizens everywhere told to get home and stay home in a virtual lockdown.
During the transition, our DART & maru/ Blue polling was extensive in both Canada and the United States, and we took the public pulse as a new normal started to take hold.
There’s an old Canuck joke that goes like this: How do you get 100 Canadians out of the civic pool? Easy, just lean over and politely say “Would all of the Canadians please get out of the pool.”
And in much the same way, when the order came to go home and stay home, Canadians heeded the call, albeit with a bit of nuance. In a poll conducted March 27 to 29, almost unanimous support ( 90 per cent) was given for staying the course and keeping things locked down as much as possible — until there is either a medical solution ( 44 per cent) or until things are manageable within the health- care system ( 46 per cent). Only about one in 10 ( seven per cent) felt we should be loosening restrictions, while a mere fraction ( three per cent) believed our lives should be getting back to normal.
In short, except for a straggler, nine in 10 Canadians not only got out of the pool but were good to stay in the change room until things got sorted out — and on the presumptive timing for all of that to occur, there is really no end in sight.
In fact, Peter Donnelly, president and CEO of Public Health Ontario, said at a news conference last Friday that he expects two more waves of the COVID- 19 disease and that the pandemic could last for 18 to 24 months.
It has become clearly evident that the ground game is to keep people holed up for as long as possible while the federal government puts money into their hands, and every other level of government splits their efforts between providing the healthcare system with desperately needed support, and ensuring peace, order and good governance. As for tax collection, the economy and jobs, it appears they will have to take a back seat, for now.
To that end, the Canadian public wants a similar focus, with a majority (65 per cent) viewing the health threat of coronavirus as being greater than the threat to financial well-being (24 per cent). The concerns of those who put the focus on finances were evident in another poll undertaken the previous week: roughly five per cent of the public reported being in dire circumstances while one in five (19 per cent) were close to running out of cash.
In other financial concerns, four per cent of Canadians indicated they’re on the edge of declaring bankruptcy and another nine per cent were somewhat close to doing so. When it comes to homeowners with a mortgage, almost one in 10 ( nine per cent) indicated they are likely to default on the loan payment over the next three months.
So, when you add it all up, the majority of Canadians are focused on protecting their health while roughly another quarter put a priority on their jobs, pocketbooks, and the roof over their head.
And housebound as they are, most Canadians have been tuning in and watching the goings- on in the United States — sometimes finding it hard to fathom what it must be like at street level. Well, it turns out it is similar to this side of the border. We adopted the definitions that Public Health Canada uses and adapted another to compare our two countries when it comes to the now more “extreme” self- distancing rules, and found the results to be in total lockstep: 7.0 per cent of Canadians said they were self- monitoring versus 9.0 per cent of Americans; Self- isolating: 5.0 per cent of Canadians versus 4.0 per cent of Americans: Isolating: 1.0 per cent of Canadians versus 2.0 of Americans; Home- stay: 72 per cent of Canadians versus 70 per cent of Americans; and none of these: 16 per cent of Canadians versus 16 per cent of Americans.
The apparent overarching public question in our previous poll appeared to be all about process — how people of all stations would be able to get money into their hands. The federal government appears to have answered the call and set up a system to soon start delivering.
While seemingly compliant for the most part, and with money now flowing into bank accounts, much of the public will begin to look up and wonder when any new normal will be in sight, or whether this is as good as it gets, for perhaps months to come. The next two weeks, with an anticipated rising death toll, may just keep the answer at bay for the time being, and people in their homes without much complaint for a while longer.
But what will soon weigh heavy on elected and public officials will be the need to provide the public with a good spoonful of hope in exchange for their bucket of compliance.