Canada, U.S. plot different strategies

ECONOMIC RESTART

WASHINGTON • In the shark-infested seas of the world’s new normal, Canada and the United States are in the same leaky economic boat — but one is bailing water while the other swims for shore.

Both countries confronted historic and harrowing employment statistics Friday, with two million people out of work in Canada last month for a jobless rate of 13 per cent. There were 20.5 million Americans who reported the same fate, bringing U.S. unemployment to a breathtaking 14.7 per cent.

But as President Donald Trump leads a U.S. charge toward reopening businesses and easing stay-at-home orders, to the chagrin of nervous public health officials, Canada is taking a dramatically different go-slow approach, extending a federal wage subsidy program through June and counselling against unsafe work.

“It is a well-established principle in Canada, a hallmark of our values as a country, that no one should be asked to work in unsafe conditions,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during his daily news conference.

“We’re going to have to be very careful to ensure that we’re doing what we need to do, right across the country — businesses, orders of government and all Canadians — to ensure the safety of the people who are working to provide for the rest of us.”

Trump, on the other hand, is champing at the bit to restart a presidential re-election campaign that hinges on his ability to resurrect an economy that was stopped in its tracks by COVID-19. And he’s seizing on the images of Americans protesting outside state capitals, many of them forgoing masks and physical distancing measures, to make his case.

“The people are going to force it,” the president said Friday in a telephone interview with Fox News. Not all states will reopen at the same pace, while those that do will continue to insist on keep-safe practices, he said. In some cases, COVID-19 may flare back up, but that will simply be the cost of doing business, Trump suggested.

Some people, including Democrat governors in states that are moving more slowly, don’t want it to come back “for political reasons,” he added. “We may have fires and we’re going to put the fires out,” he said.

As of Friday, there were 1.3 million cases in the U.S. and 77,000 deaths. Canada had 65,399 cases — 35,238 of those were in Quebec — and 4,500 deaths.

The White House is referring to Americans as “warriors”, a move seen by some as bracing for the possible impact of a resurgence in COVID-19 as states continue to lift restrictions.

More bad jobs news will likely come in May, but as more businesses open their doors and federal stimulus efforts take hold, the third quarter of the fiscal year should show signs of improvement, said senior White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow.