Are Doug Ford's Days as Premier Numbered?

The most interesting development over the last few days as the Ford Government deals with the spread of the pandemic's new variants was the announcement of new restrictions including giving the police enhanced powers to stop and question people as to where they were going.  Even more interesting was the response of those charged with enforcing those rules - the police.   A number of forces actually said they would not be enforcing the rules. And, in the wake of the backlash, the Ontario government has scaled back this measure with many forces now saying they will simply educate people they come across who are obviously out and about where they should not be.

This may be nothing but from my experience, when the palace guard decides it will no longer do as told, it means that a coup is in the offing.  It is quite remarkable when the civil authorities are told to do something and they simply respond with no.  And now, the story is that the provincial government is going to suspend the legislature.  Ostensibly, this sounds as a measure to provide protection from the pandemic and keep the legislators safe. However, if you were Premier and had gotten wind of a bunch of back benchers, who were plotting to remove you as leader given the growing dis-satisfaction with the pandemic management, why not deprive them of a stage? Or perhaps the party has already delivered the grim news to the Premier and the legislature is being shut down because really, who wants to have a  coup and transition of power while the legislature is sitting.

While the current government has always been a sort of shoot first and then backtrack type of administration, it has gotten worse.  The party may want to preserve its governing role and their own seats prior to the next election by dumping Mr. Reverso and bringing in a fresh face.  However, one has to wonder if it will be too little too late to save them given that it may simply be the case of new face, same gene pool when it comes to the ability to govern effectively.  The hospitals are filling up and the situation is worse than last spring because essentially that time, hospital capacity was saved by first, shutting down surgeries, and then simply not treating those most affected - seniors in long term care homes - in a hospital setting.  This time its different. It is difficult to shut surgeries down given the obvious costs of that strategy the last time and the ill are not dementia patients who cannot advocate for themselves but younger ambulatory people who show up at emergencies.

There is plenty that has gone wrong during this pandemic at the federal and provincial level. And, the stiff-necked Ontario public which either cannot comprehend rules or does not want to, has not been much help either.  Moreover, the sparse staffing and hospital capacity in Ontario is the outcome of decades of government under-funding and not just the current government.  Still, how to fix things in a pinch? Unlike Ontario universities which can be treated as expendable because the anti-intellectual climate of our times allows governments to foster the view that they are simply teachers with longer summers, now is probably not the best time to restructure hospitals yet again.  However, Premier Ford's call this week for health workers from other provinces and an appeal for federal assistance suggests a desperation that means things are really about to go sideways.  The federal government as the cavalry to save Ontario now?  The federal government is too busy monitoring vaccines and trying to re-invent public spending and society on a grand scale.  Stay tuned for announcements and decrees from the balcony of the Pink Palace in Toronto.

What Is Federal Health Minister Hajdu Really Up To?

 

Part of the strength of Canada’s political system is its federal structure and the perennial back and forth between Ottawa and the Provinces.  The fact that regional differences are accommodated within a common framework of shared responsibilities is a strength of our system of government and in normal times the endless bickering is really a sign that everyone is still talking.  However, as the recent pandemic has illustrated, during times of crisis the tug of war can be less productive with both Ottawa and the provinces to blame as they engage in short term politics.

 

Here is an old joke.  The UN Secretary-General commissions a report on elephants from all of the member countries.  The United States hands in “How to Raise Elephants for Fun and Profit,” the United Kingdom sends “Should You Invite an Elephant to Tea,” France sends in “The Love Life of the Elephant.” And Canada? Why it sends in “The Elephant: A Federal or Provincial Responsibility.”  That is funny – well at least to some people. “Vaccines: A Federal or Provincial Responsibility?” That is not so funny to anyone given the current spread of COVID-19 variants and the race to vaccinate.

 

So, what’s up with Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu? All of a sudden, the Federal Health Minister takes to the media with pronouncements that vaccines are having an impact and that the public is anxious about getting their shot but that the provinces (especially Ontario) are not getting the vaccines out fast enough.  Moreover, the Federal Health Minister now plans to monitor that vaccines are being used in a timely fashion after delivery to the provinces and territories and plans to post weekly figures showing how many vaccines have been delivered, and how many have been administered on a province-by-province basis. According to the Health Minister: “I think this is something Canadians want to know. They want to know how efficiently vaccines are getting out the door, and they are also curious when it will be their turn.”

 

Really? A new type of federalism to add to the lexicon: “Watchdog federalism” with the federal government as a large dog that barks constantly but never bites.  After all, the federal government has left the heavy lifting to the provinces when it comes to vaccine delivery aside from negotiating one of the biggest options contracts in Canadian history designed to vaccinate Canadians many times over – eventually.  Why did the federal government not invoke the emergency powers it has under the constitution to invest in its own emergency vaccine production and distribution network?  The UK apparently was able to ramp up production virtually from scratch in nine months – we will get domestic vaccine production in 2027.  The federal government’s reluctance to invoke the emergency act early on to deal with the pandemic in the end was probably political.  After all, it would be the second Trudeau in Canadian history to have invoked the emergency powers of the federal government and how would that play in the next election?

 

It is likely that an election is indeed in the offing.  One wonders if the Federal government’s response to this crisis would have been different if it had been a majority rather than a minority government.  Its actions in dealing with the pandemic always proceeded with a timidity that one could interpret as being more concerned with political optics than getting the job done.  Its lagging behaviour in dealing with the pandemic at the outset was a factor in its spread and Ottawa continues to lag.  It took almost a year for the federal government – which incidentally under the constitution also has the power of quarantine – to set up a quarantining program for returning air travelers and that program is as porous as everything else. Apparently, about of quarter of returning air travelers have been getting exemptions of one form or another.  That probably explains why all three new variants – UK, Brazilian, South African - have gotten a foothold in Canada – the only country to do so.  Furthermore, the delay in March in federally procured vaccine supplies arriving provided a one-month lag in vaccinating ahead of the variants allowing for their foothold to grow.

 

The supply of vaccines has now finally begun to increase. The federal response now? Delivery is a provincial responsibility and they are going to monitor and constantly point out provincial shortfalls rather than do something constructive like send in the military to help vaccinate. Unfortunately, Canadians have the attention span and memory of a fruit fly and if repeated often enough will come to believe that any failures during the pandemic were all the province’s fault – just in time for the next federal election.

 

Ontario's Partial Post-Pandemic Employment Rebound

 

Like just about everywhere else in the world, Ontario was hit hard by the job losses that resulted from the assorted lock-downs and coronavirus containment strategies of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Figure 1 presents seasonally adjusted monthly employment data from Statistics Canada for Ontario from 2006 to the present.  From February 2020 to June 2020, Ontario lost 990,000 jobs or 13.2 percent of its employment. These losses, however, were not uniform in size across the major urban centers of the province.  

 

 

 

Figure 2 plots the ranked employment losses from the start of the pandemic in February when the monthly employment losses began to June 2020 when the rebound begins and going  from worst to best performers.  Hardest hit with a 25 percent drop in employment was Belleville, followed by Windsor at 18 percent and then Thunder Bay at 16 percent. The three lightest hit cities were Ottawa with a 10 percent drop, Brantford at 7 percent and Guelph at just below 7 percent.  

 

 

 

With the exception of Barrie, all of these cities have managed to bounce back since June as Figure 3 illustrates.  The largest rebound as was the largest drop happened in Belleville.  Belleville saw employment rise 25 percent and was followed by London at 16 percent and Kingston at 15 percent.  The smallest rebounds aside from Barrie which appears to have continued to shrink were Guelph at 6 percent, Sudbury at 5 percent and St. Catharines-Niagara at 4.5 percent.  

 

 

 

Despite the rebound, only two of these urban areas have managed to recover enough employment to be at more employment than the start of the pandemic drop in February – Kingston and London – though not by much.  Others still have a gap and it varies substantially.  Ontario as a whole is currently at about 96 percent of its February 2020 level of employment. Figure 4 ranks the cities by their employment in February 2021 as a percentage share of their February 2020 employment.  Thunder Bay, Windsor, Sudbury, St. Catharines-Niagara and Barrie have recovered the least.  Thunder Bay is only at 93 percent of its pre pandemic level of employment followed by Windsor at 92 percent, Sudbury at 91 percent, St. Catharines at 88 percent and Barrie at 84 percent.  On the other hand, after Kingston and London, Brantford and Guelph are at just over 99 percent of pre-pandemic employment.  

 

 

 

Overall, Ontario has seen a remarkable 12 months with massive employment losses and a rather large rebound, but which only puts it back at about 2018 levels in terms of employment.  There is still  a lot of recovery to go.