Canada is experiencing difficult times in the face of Covid-19, so the first federal budget in more than two years extends Ottawa’s ‘pandemic lifeline’ for workers and companies in difficulty for a few more months, and aims to lift Canada out of the pandemic once and for all.
Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Finance, announced a budget line of $ 101 billion destined over the next three years to a wide variety of voters, from the elderly and their caregivers to parents and businesses.
Political and economic analysts believe that the federal budget presented this week aims to combat the pandemic and its consequences while serving as a pre-electoral platform.
Record number of new Coronavirus cases
The federal budget responds to the situation in the country. For the first time since the start of the pandemic, Canada surpassed the United States in infection rate: 231 cases per million people, compared to 212.9 for its neighbor to the south, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Specifically, the province of Ontario is facing ever-higher numbers. Even the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, stated at a press conference that “Toronto continues to constantly break infection records.”
“Canada continues to face an incredibly dire situation with this third wave. Cases are increasing rapidly. In many places the numbers are higher than ever and too many hospitals are on edge, ”Trudeau warned.
The Canadian health authorities expressed concern about the evolution of the pandemic after the country reached two consecutive records in the daily records of infections.
For his part, Doug Ford, premier of Ontario assured that the province expanded the emergency declaration in force and will allow the police to patrol the streets to verify that the population remains in their homes. “We are losing the battle because of variants (of Covid-19) and vaccines; the reality is that we have few solutions left, “said Ford to justify the new measures.
He also criticized the federal government for distributing vaccines to the provinces, noting that if Ontario could vaccinate 300,000 people a day, the spread of the disease could be controlled.
New budget
The budget injection proposed by the federal finance minister to take care of the population and counteract the economic impact will require at least one opposition party to support it. Otherwise, this spring we would be facing an electoral process in times of a pandemic.
A hard number to ignore is the trillion dollars of net debt facing Canada for the first time in history. Since the start of the pandemic, the country faces a deficit of $ 354 billion. Analysts estimate that this indebtedness will continue and forecast deficits of the order of $ 155 billion this year and $ 60 billion for 2022 and 2023, respectively.
By Silvia Méndez
