Canadians praised for working together
OTTAWA • Health Minister Patty Hajdu told senators Friday that Canada’s less fractured political culture has been an asset in the fight against COVID-19, especially compared to America.
Speaking at the Senate committee on social affairs, science and technolog y, Hajdu said politicians of all stripes had worked together to avoid the division seen in the United States.
“We don’t have the level of political animosity that we see in our southern neighbours around whether or not the virus was real,” she said. “No politician in Canada questioned whether the virus was real, which really helped Canadians take it seriously.”
Hajdu spoke as several U. S. states saw frightening new numbers of coronavirus cases including nearly 9,000 in a single day in Florida. Many of the states now seeing huge spikes in new cases were among the first to reopen and did so widely with fewer limits.
Hajdu said all levels of government in Canada have moved slowly and cautiously in their reopening plans.
“There is no politician in Canada that does not understand that the economy of Canada is actually critically connected to the health of Canada.”
She said the U. S. spikes in new cases will hurt their ability to recover economically.
“The United States added 34,000 cases yesterday and that’s just the cases they know about and this obviously has a detrimental effect on their economy.”
Dr. Theresa Tam, said Canada was monitoring the U. S. cases and keeping restrictions in place to keep people here safe.
She said the public health agency was also preparing for a possible second wave of the virus in the fall or even earlier. But they were watching for outbreaks to prevent them from spreading.
“The strategy is putting out those fires and little sparks, while at the same time still preparing for a bigger wave.”
Hajdu said the collaboration between governments in Canada had been remarkable especially given so many political parties were represented. She said one area they were hoping to improve was data collection.
“That has been a weakness for us all along, the ability to understand what is happening nationally, in some cases even the most basic information in the early days,” she said.
Hajdu said data collection had improved as the crisis went on and they were getting the basic data they needed, but more granular information, like the race and ethnicity, was also required.
The federal government is negotiating with the provinces, offering $ 14 billion to help the economy restart, but has insisted the money be spent on items like contact tracing, testing and support for municipalities.
Hajdu said standardized data collection was also one of the items they were looking for from the provinces. She was hopeful it would happen.