It's Just An Economy

Who could have predicted this?:

A national association representing small business owners says about a quarter of recently-surveyed employers have had staff refuse to return to work when asked — and the group claims a desire to remain on the Canada Emergency Response Benefit is playing a big part.

Of the 868 businesses who explained why employees turned them down, the top reasons cited included a preference to remain on the CERB (62 per cent), health concerns (47 per cent) and child-care challenges (27 per cent), according to the results of a weekly survey the Canadian Federation of Independent Business conducted of its membership between July 3 and July 6.

“Staff have said, ‘I’m a little bit worried about coming back to work, I’ve got some child-care challenges, my bills are being paid by the CERB, so I’m just going to stick out on the CERB for the rest of the summer and give me a call in September,” Dan Kelly, president and CEO of the CFIB, said in an interview.

“That’s a very typical response that we’ve had from members.”

 
No, we are on the hook for that:

The Parliamentary Budget Office yesterday expressed unease with losses by Crown banks. Taxpayers have no true picture of pandemic costs of bad loans, said analysts: “The government is on the hook to cover that.”

The price one must pay for owning a house:

CMHC is spending $250,000 researching a first-ever federal home equity tax. Organizers of the research project earlier likened homeowners to lottery winners whose residences were tax shelters: “The objective is to identify solutions that could level the playing field between renters and owners.”

Bad home-owner!




But don't people already know how to wash their hands?:

The Privy Council Office paid “behavioural scientists” to review a $120 million pandemic advertising campaign that promotes measures like handwashing. Authorities in a report to the Commons government operations committee said input from unnamed scientists was vital: “People know about it because we’ve advertised.”