I'm Sure It's Nothing to Be Concerned About

Lockdowns never cause problems ... except when they do:

Quebec nurses are criticizing the government's proposed plan to curb the critical staffing shortage in the province, saying it won't work because it doesn't address dismal working conditions in the public sector, which they say is a key reason nurses are leaving.

Yesterday, Quebec announced it will provide bonuses of up to $18,000 to full-time nurses, part-time nurses willing to work full-time and nurses that return to the public sector as part of its emergency response to the personnel crisis.

But the vice-president of the Quebec Nurses' Association, which represents over 4,000 nurses and nursing students in the province, says throwing money at a problem that requires real change to working conditions is "ridiculous."

 

It's easy to blame the obvious failures of Canada's healthcare system on the "unvaccinated" or some other bogey-man but a system that elevates bureaucrats above much-needed professionals is bound to peter out at some point.

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It couldn’t be a worse time to be short on staff. Restaurants, hobbled by months of lockdowns and seating limitations, are finally able to pull in serious revenue and start the crawl out of debt as those restrictions ease up. Instead, operations from independents to major chains are abandoning lunch services, or shutting down entirely during weekdays because they can’t find enough workers.

Initially, some argued workers weren’t coming back because rosy pandemic benefits had made lower paying service industry jobs unattractive, but the factors behind the shortage now appear to be more complex: Many workers used the time off during the lockdowns to reconsider their careers and move to different, less precarious industries, start their own businesses or go back to school. An aging population, slowed immigration and continued COVID-19 fears are all also suspected of contributing to the shortage.

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Covering the period from 2000 to 2019 (excluding 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic), the report found Ontario performed well below its own historic economic norms, most other provinces, and neighbouring U.S. states.

In the key metric of per-person business investment which, Eisen said, “lies at the heart of improving our standard of living and job creation,” Ontario recorded the third-lowest average annual growth rate of just 0.3% when adjusted for inflation and population.

Only New Brunswick and Nova Scotia had lower growth rates and Ontario lagged far behind B.C., the top-performing province, where the average growth rate was 2.7%.