The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Here’s a few overlooked pandemic numbers
OTTAWA – The National Post reviewed a host of information tabled recently in Parliament and pulled out some of the interesting numbers of the pandemic.
The government spent billion on programs like CERB and the wage subsidy, but there were also lots and lots of relatively smaller bills the government had to account for during COVID-19.
And on top of the money, there were other numbers that stick out in this pandemic.
$37 MILLION
In response to an inquiry fromconservative MP John Brassard, the government revealed it had spent $37 million on quarantine hotel sites between March and August of this year. The government had a total of 1,600 rooms available in hotels in Calgary, Vancouver, Kelowna, Winnipeg, Regina Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, Fredericton, St. John's and Whitehorse. The government requires international travellers to quarantine at one of the hotels when they can not provide an adequate plan for quarantining at home. When the government announced Brassard's question, it was negotiating new contracts for hotels and declined to provide a more detailed breakdown of the costs.
9.5 MILLION
The government has received tens of millions of N95 or K95 masks from around the world to deal with the virus, but 9.5 million of the KN95 masks it received didn't meet quality standards. In a response to an order paper question from Edmontonmp Kelly Mccauley, the government said it was still in discussions with the suppliers of those masks about resolving the dispute. The KN95 is similar to the N95 masks that became highly sought during the pandemic. The KN95 is a Chinese standard whereas the N95 is an American one. In total the government has ordered nearly $190 million N95 masks and has received roughly half of those. The government has also invested in two facilities to make the masks in Canada.
$560,894.35
The government gave contracts to limousine companies in the Maritimes, Aworld Class Limousine Service based in Halifax and Silver's Limousine Services based in Fredericton, to transport international travellers to quarantine hotels. Anyone arriving in Canada is required to quarantine for 14 days and isn't allowed to take any kind of public transportation to get to where they are hunkering down. The Public Health Agency of Canada said the limo companies were there for travels who couldn't find another way. “This service is used as a last resort once all other options have been exhausted,” wrote a spokesperson in an email to the National Post.
18.9 PER CENT
Conservative MP Bob Saroya asked the government in an order paper question how many small businesses they forecasted would go under due to the pandemic and the data so far showed an interesting result. According to statistics from the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, Canada saw 18.9 per cent fewer bankruptcies to August 2020, as compared to the same time frame in 2019. The government did caution, however, that bankruptcy is a lagging indicator of the health of the economy, with the worst results often coming much later in a typical recession. The government wasn't sure whether the typical trends would carry through this time, in part because of the large amount of help businesses had received through the wage subsidy, rent programs and low-interest loans, but pledged to continue monitoring the situation.
$112,204.38
That's the bill for plexiglass at Employment and Social Development Canada as contained in a detailed response Conservative MP Tomkmiec received when he asked all government departments to detail their purchases for the germblocking material. ESDC runs Service Canada offices across the country where people can go for benefit payments. While the offices were closed for months early in the pandemic, they began to reopen in July so Canadians could make claims in person. To do that evidently required a lot of clear barriers between the public and employees. Minister Ahmed Hussen said when he announced the reopening that the agency would be doing so gradually, with the plexiglass and other sanitary measures in place. According to the agency's website, in normal times, they see as many as eight million visits a year. The agency was the biggest spender on plexiglass, but it wasn't alone. Many government departments spent on the clear dividers; including Heritage Canada who spent $2,155.78, the CRTC which dolled out $5,927.46 and Health Canada, which spent $6,808.75.