Fare thee well, poor pandemic Parliament
Well, it was good while it lasted. The rare spirit of “Team Canada” solidarity between the government and opposition parties has been deteriorating for some time, but on Wednesday it breathed its last. That much was obvious in a Parliamentary sitting that lasted all of 12 minutes and ended with no opposition party being willing to support the federal government’s latest pandemic relief legislation.
And so the legislation, which included some new flexibility in pandemic benefits for seasonal workers and people with disabilities, as well as measures to crack down on fraudulent Canada Emergency Response Benefit applicants, is going nowhere. This strange session of Parliament is over, and the new session won’t begin until September.
The opposition parties had different reasons for refusing to support the legislation. The New Democrats said they were opposed because the CERB fraud measures would disproportionately target poor and marginalized Canadians. The Conservatives have been complaining loud and long about fraudulent abuse of the CERB, also refused to support measures that would have addressed that. What is the rationale for not supporting legislation that you have been calling for? It seems they are still in a snit about the government not acquiescing to their demands for a full return to Parliament, so just decided to head home for the summer.
What will the next Parliament look like? Notwithstanding Conservative concerns about the death of democracy, this pandemic version of the government worked reasonably well. But clearly it can’t be in place indefinitely. At some point, a return to more traditional parliamentary oversight will be needed. And then we will be treated once again to the hyperpartisan, shallow, talking points over substance model we all know and — well, don’t love. Who really misses the Question Period bear pit where many participants behave worse than unruly children?
Come to think of it, pandemic virtual Parliament wasn’t all that bad, was it?
And now, the latest twist on our bizarre pandemic journey: Reports about who is getting infected with COVID-19 are revealing that 20-somethings, more so than older Ontarians, are testing positive.
The problem is, we don’t really know why. Is it because they’ve been gathering in thousand-strong protest marches, with little regard for distancing? Is it because of their youthful feeling of invincibility, aided by the knowledge that for most young people, COVID-19 is nasty but not fatal? Or because more of them live in communal living situations, as in with roommates?
Other possibilities, such as young workers being more likely to work on large construction sites, have also been raised. And it could simply be that with testing more readily available, more younger people are getting tested. And more testing is bound to mean more reported cases.
Who knows? But we do need to find out, and that is why health authorities are on the case hoping to solve the riddle of the 20-something pandemic spike.
For what it’s worth, we choose not to believe the spike is the result of some indifference or arrogance on the part of younger Ontarians. That would mean they don’t care about the fact that the risk to themselves is only part of the equation, and since they probably won’t get seriously ill, only a small part at that. But what about the people they come in contact after they disregard distancing? What about their parents and older relatives? No, whatever is happening cannot be because they don’t care about others. That would be a serious disappointment.