Front Burner - Liberals promise child care, one million jobs and more

Episode Date: September 24, 2020

On Wednesday, the Liberals laid out what they called an "ambitious plan for an unprecedented reality" in the speech from the throne, pledging to extend some COVID-19 emergency supports, boost child care spending, create a million jobs, and more. Today, host of CBC's Power and Politics Vassy Kapelos unpacks some of the ambitious promises and the opposition's response.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. The second wave isn't just starting, it's already underway. The numbers are clear. Back on March 13th, when we went into lockdown, The second wave isn't just starting. It's already underway. The numbers are clear.

Back on March 13th, when we went into lockdown, there were 47 new cases of COVID-19. Yesterday alone, we had well over a thousand. We're on the brink of a fall that could be much worse than the spring. It's not every day that the Prime Minister seeks the permission of the Canadian broadcasters to take over their airwaves in prime time. But that's what happened last night when Justin Trudeau addressed the nation with a grave public health warning

and asked Canadians to rely on his government. This is the time for all of us as Canadians to do our part for our country as government does its part for you. There is a covenant between government and the people government serves. You need to know that you can rely on us just like you can rely on each other. His address followed the speech from the throne delivered earlier in the day by Governor General Julie Payette. A speech filled to the brim with programs and promises to lead Canadians out of the pandemic. Today,

host of Power and Politics, Vashie Kapelos, is here to unpack the ambitious promises made. This is Frontburner. Vashie, welcome back to the show. Hi, Josh. Great to be back. Vashi, welcome back to the show. Hi, Josh. Great to be back. So that was quite a speech from the throne. I mean, it lasted almost an hour long.

And it turned out that was a lot of time to present a lot, a lot of plans. The government remains committed to increasing old age security. Further increase access to mental health resources. A disability inclusion plan. Establishing a national formulary. Strengthen local food supply chains. Entirely eliminating chronic homelessness. Updating outdated IT systems. Free automatic tax filing.

Expand urban parks. Ban harmful single-use plastics. Before we get into the specifics, what was the broad messages that you took away from the day? Yeah, that's a great question. I think I don't even know if I've thought that far into it because there was so much and I was trying to kind of accumulate it all in my brain. fall for this government, for whatever may happen, is on the pandemic. And that, in fact, it will necessitate probably a more sustained and a larger, more pronounced response than we had initially ever thought, and maybe even thought throughout the summer. Through the first wave, contact tracing and testing ramped up across the country. The surge this fall further enforces what we already know, that we must do even more. I think what I really walked away thinking was the past two weeks and the increase in cases has kind of focused the government's message in this speech in a way that maybe it wouldn't have before.

And that before we can start thinking about some of the stuff they laid out, maybe towards the end, the longer economic recovery, the broader themes that they wanted to lay out, I think that the issues that we face right now with the pandemic kind of changed the whole game. And they came out of the gates with a pretty clear message saying this is not a time for austerity. Canada entered this crisis in the best fiscal positions of its peers. Canadians should not have to choose between health and their job, just like Canadians should not have to take on debt that their government can better shoulder. Yes, and I think there's a couple ways to look at that. One, look, it gives Canadians a clear signal that they're prepared, and I think they even said it very much literally, they're prepared to do whatever it takes.

And so spending is not going to be something that constrains them in doing so. So I think the message out of the gates as far as that to Canadians was the response will be big, it will be what's necessary, and you'll get the supports that you need. From a political perspective, it kind of creates this interesting dynamic with opposition parties, right, especially those who did want to see more about fiscal responsibility or some kind of plan where spending was concerned. All of a sudden, you have them kind of put on their heels a bit in that the government can say, well, wait, are you for austerity? You know, even though that might not be the case, and it's not totally fair from a messaging perspective, it certainly distinguishes the Liberals from another party or other politicians

who will want to say, hey, let's hold back the rains a little bit. Well, and I want to ask you a bit more about the opposition in a bit. But first, I want to ask you about the headline pledges that were made, starting with child care. And it seemed like it wasn't clear to me whether it was a promise for universal child care or just more investment in child care. The government will build on previous investments, learn from the model that already exists in Quebec, and work with all provinces and territories. What did you take away from the pledge that they were making? Yeah, so it's definitely going to be more investment in child care,

but you've hit it right on the nose there. It's not clear exactly what they mean when they say they're going, that they're signaling, you know, a much larger investment in something that is way more accessible for more Canadians. That's something actually that they've said before, and to their credit, they have invested more money in child care and affordable child care spaces. And in fact, I interviewed the minister, Ahmed Hussin,

in charge of the file. And, you know, he was very adamant that this is, you know, they aspire to a bigger commitment, that they do want to make, you know, many more affordable child care spaces available to parents in this country. But over and over again, I asked, like, is this universal? How much money are you going to put towards it? How many years will this take to put in place? And there are no specific answers to those questions yet. Does that mean universal child care in Canada? What it means is giving parents

an opportunity to have access to affordable quality. That usually doesn't come through the throne speech. He says some of those details will come with the economic update that's coming up. But I think for parents right now who are trying to juggle work and kids at home or kids at school and all of the anxiety that goes around that, some more specific answers the emergency benefits that have been put in place in reaction to COVID, including the extension of the wage subsidy that goes all the way till next summer. The government will work with businesses and labor to ensure the program meets the needs of the health and economic situation as it evolves. And that strikes me as a pretty big commitment. It's a huge commitment. There's no way to, I think, overstate. To me, this was like the most tangible thing that I walked away from the speech with. Yes, there were all these big promises, you know, overarching themes. To me, if I am somebody who's being affected or my business has been affected by this pandemic,

and I'm worried about a second wave and further shutdowns, I need to know that some of the supports that were around for me in the first four to six months of this virus are still going to be around in the future. That wage subsidy was hugely helpful to a number of businesses. They did say that it would run to the end of this year, but now, as you pointed out, they're saying it till next summer. That should help to provide some confidence to businesses and the ability for them to keep people on the payroll

versus putting them over to what was CERB and is now EI and hopefully will help buoy employment numbers, even in the midst of all this uncertainty. Right. you know another promise that that seemed directly to stem from one of the tragedies of the pandemic i just want to mention it's related to long-term care homes. And the government is promising to make changes to the criminal code to go after those who neglect seniors in their care. The government will also work with the provinces and territories to set new national standards for long-term care. You know, that issue is something that we have covered in the past and CBC obviously covered it as well. And it's certainly something that we're going to be keeping an eye on as well.

It stood out as quite interesting. I want to ask you, though, about another interesting promise, which was that they're going to create a million jobs. Over one million jobs, restoring employment to previous levels. That's a lot of jobs, and it certainly raises a lot of questions like what kind of jobs and how exactly do you do that? Yes, it does raise a lot of those questions. I think this is one of those parts of the speech that was almost like relics of the past, right? And by the past, I mean, five weeks ago, when we thought that this speech was going to be almost solely or primarily focused on a long term economic recovery for for the country, But things really changed, right?

And now all of a sudden we're thinking, oh, wait, we're still a ways off from any kind of recovery. So this seemed like something they would have written five weeks ago. It was like, don't worry, we're going to, you know, we're going to stimulate the economy and create these million jobs. I don't think they're going to be able to do that until the worst of this pandemic is over or until a vaccine comes, whatever your definition of kind of this thing being over is. There were very few details. Obviously, there are certain areas. I know they mentioned manufacturing or clean energy. Global consumers and investors are demanding and rewarding climate action. Canadians have the determination and ingenuity to rise to this challenge and global market opportunity.

Like there's lots of things that they're doing, I think, that might direct themselves to that goal or help aid them in that goal. But that will be one of the sort of overarching things that I think journalists ask for many months to come, sort of like, what is this promise specifically? When do these jobs actually materialize? Or is this just mostly indicating ways in which you plan to stimulate the economy once the worst is over? Right. And perhaps that whole green recovery or that vision for a greener future is also a relic from, you know, five weeks ago. They made a few of those promises in the speech as well. One that stood out to me that I thought was kind of funny was...

Using nature-based solution to fight climate change, including by planting two billion trees. And they were just making headlines last week for not planting any of those two billion trees, which they promised Greta Thunberg they would. Yeah, it was one of the re-promises included in in this uh document and now to sort of give them the benefit of the doubt probably part of the reason for that even where the trees are concerned is because they were only three months into the year when their entire you know agenda was essentially hijacked by the pandemic so i think you can cut them a little bit maybe a little bit of slack for that but i do think you know the the two billion trees like now that means you have to somebody did the math.

I can't remember who, but now it's like exponentially higher how many you have to plant each month. Is it even realistic? And I think it kind of sort of feeds into greater questions about their agenda where climate change is concerned, which I think is of concern to a lot of Canadians who are sort of feeling like we kind of could have known the pandemic was coming, given what we're hearing. Like, is climate change the next pandemic? And so many scientists tell us that it is such an emergency, right? And what we heard today was... The government will immediately bring forward a plan to exceed Canada's 2030 climate goal. The government will also legislate Canada's goal of net zero emissions by 2050. They have said that they'll do that already in the past. We have not made that headway yet.

Like, it's important to realize the latest analysis from Environment Canada shows that we are only 19% below 2005 levels if we do everything the government has promised to do, but hasn't even yet implemented. So it's going to require more than two or three paragraphs for the government to lay out exactly what they plan to do. They said they'll legislate it. They said immediately. I don't know what immediately means. And I, you know, there's part of the plan laid out there, some announcements, for example, where like electric vehicles are concerned and net zero targets are concerned. But if you're going to exceed those targets, which I think is a pretty serious issue, it's going to require a very detailed and comprehensive

plan. And that was not in this, I don't think we expected it to be, but we haven't seen it yet. Right. I mean, it seemed like there was kind of there was a category of promises that had clear targets and clear goals associated with it. I mean, the seemed like there was kind of there was a category of promises that had clear targets and clear goals associated with it. I mean, the extension of some of the benefits, I guess the creation of one million jobs has a clear number attached to it. But there was this other word that kept popping up, which was how they were going to be accelerating things. They were going to accelerate the national farmer care program. They're going to accelerate work on the national action plan in response to the missing and murdered indigenous women's inquiry. The government will accelerate the connectivity timelines and ambitions of the universal broadband fund.

I mean, is it fair to say that that promise to accelerate these kinds of programs is pretty vague, but also a euphemism for we are re-promising promises that we haven't actually delivered on yet. It's entirely accurate to say so. Yeah. I mean, it's it. Yeah. Like you're accelerating. What does accelerating mean? Some of this, like, for example, the MMIW inquiry that was supposed to be responded to already. They said that they couldn't because of the pandemic. Like there are, you know, a lot of people who argued, including the commissioner of that inquiry that that, you know, they could have done so by Zoom, they could have done so electronically, like they weren't satisfied with what the government said. So I think that there's a huge,

you know, the pharmacare stuff, there's still so many questions, like the word accelerating doesn't provide me with the answers to the questions I would have for these politicians. Like, you say accelerate pharmacare care you had only allotted a certain amount of money to consult with provinces you hadn't promised to implement it lots of provinces are against it how do you plan to work through all of that there were some hints they said that they would work with provinces who are willing so maybe they'll just leave the others behind but what is the timetable for that look like? These are hugely expensive and comprehensive agreements that almost cross jurisdictions between the federal government

and the province. So this isn't something that you can just decide to do. You know, I've accelerated it, so it's going to happen next year. Like, that can't happen. So some specific timelines, I think, I just feel like they gave us so much meat to work with, right? Like, so many questions we can ask over the coming months, when will this stuff actually happen? And these pledges range from the ones that we've mentioned, like national childcare and creating a million jobs, to ending chronic homelessness. The government will add to the historic national housing strategy announced in 2017 by increasing investment to rapid housing in the short term. So what would it mean for a government to actually try and achieve all this?

Well, I think it depends on the way you look at it, right? Or who is answering the question. I think for people who are homeless, that goal is, of course, obviously, you know, a long time coming. I think that people who have rare diseases or whose kids have rare diseases are thinking that national pharmacare could mean the world to them. People who right now had to, you know, step away from their job or lost their job because they had to stay home with their kids, that child care promise is of utmost importance to them. I think that there's a lot in there for so many different Canadians that the rubber hitting the road, though, will really be what actually materializes,

because you can promise people a lot, but can you deliver on it? And governments of all stripes, of course, have trouble doing that in the best of times. But during a pandemic, an ongoing pandemic, it could be even harder. On the other side, you do have that sort of overarching concern expressed primarily by the Conservative Party at this point, but lots of other people like former Liberal Finance Minister John Manley, around like a level of fiscal responsibility. Can you really give everyone everything that they need or they want? Like, is that the job of government? Obviously, during this pandemic, it's clear that this government thinks that that to a certain degree is. But beyond that, how do you sort of figure out how to rein things in so that eventually, you know,

younger generations don't continue paying for it beyond what they can really afford? I think that's sort of a question that the government acknowledged to a certain degree and the prime minister did in his address. Low interest rates mean we can afford it. And in fact, doing less would end up costing far more. Doing less would mean a slower recovery and bigger deficits in the long run. But he's focused on what that means in the context of this more immediate response to the pandemic. I think those questions will persist once we're over that hump and you start looking at a longer recovery. And if they're not giving us any indication of what might be their fiscal anchor,

or if there even is one, you know, that might prompt more questions later on. Well, I mean, did they give any indication about how they might raise revenues, specifically tax-wise? A very small one in which they said... The government will also identify additional ways to tax extreme wealth inequality and addressing corporate tax avoidance by digital giants. Which I think they meant kind of what the NDP has very much advocated for, which is taxing the wealthiest Canadians at a higher rate. And they also talked about closing a loophole when it comes to stock options and CEOs. And that's actually something they promised back in, I think, the 2015 campaign. And they ended up not going through with it to the dismay of many people who are watch that stuff and especially the ndp so i don't know i mean how much revenue that ends up raising i don't know if it will end up raising

you know north of 400 billion dollars and goodness knows how much higher it goes with everything that they've promised today uh that's going to depend on a lot of things i mean those are the two new revenue measures you'd also be anticipating that revenues would increase if, for example, economic growth took hold and there was a lot more of it. I don't think it's that simplistic. It's obviously there's going to be a lot of factors that go into it. But those were the two revenue indicators that I saw today. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization.

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In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. This speech will be followed at some point by a confidence vote and one that in theory could trigger an election. What are the opposition parties saying in response to this speech? So the Conservatives will not support it and they were critical of the spending and sort of what they called lack of control around spending.

He repeated that line again. The government will go into debt so that Canadians don't have to. This seems to be the same type of thinking that budgets balance themselves. The people of Canada are going into deeper deficit. They also criticized what they called a lack of focus on national unity or acknowledgement of Western alienation. Resource revenues contribute to building of roads and hospitals in every corner of this great country, not just in the provinces where the resources are found.

The Bloc Québécois was very focused, unsurprisingly, on the effect on Quebec. Premier Legault in Quebec had already come out saying he was disappointed. And the Bloc says you have one week to the federal government to transfer more money to Quebec for health care without any strings attached. The bloc agrees that this is an affront to the jurisdiction of the National Assembly of Quebec and does not warrant the support of Quebec. So I'm guessing that's, I'm going to go on a wild guess here and say that's not going to happen. That's probably going to help, right?

So they'll probably lose the bloc's support as well, which is unsurprising, which leaves this whole sort of thing in the NDP's lap. This is all about the NDP now. And that, again, is not really surprising. The liberals throughout the pandemic have had to draw on support

and sort of negotiate with the NDP in order to get pieces of legislation and other things passed. So the NDP has come out, the leader Jagmeet Singh saying, I want two things in exchange. Basically, he's not this clear, but basically for my support. The first is the government to introduce legislation for paid sick leave for Canadians. And the second is for all those people on CERB who are transitioning to EI, for the most part, they'll get less money than they would on CERB. So they want them to raise the amount of money that people get on EI to match what they would have received on CERB.

Well, absent those two things, there's going to be millions of Canadians who are not going to get help. I mean, I want to make it about the people. There's going to be millions of Canadians that in just a couple of days are not going to get any help and they can't go back to work. If those two things happen, I think it's a safe bet that the NDP would support the throne speech. It's not a guarantee at all. I think there's still a possibility of an election, which maybe makes me a crazy person, but there's just no guarantee. We'll have to see what the Liberals end up introducing as far as legislation goes. Well, I saw you pressing Jagmeet Singh to give you an answer about whether or not he would support the government, and he seemed to avoid it.

Well, we'll get to our decision on the throne speech, but right now there's an immediate urgency where millions of Canadians are going to be hurting. And that, to me, is my first and foremost, I'm worried about that. Yeah, he did. He didn't give me a straight answer. I mean, I'm reading between the tea leaves between the lines right now. I think the NDP, I mean, he is clear about the fact that he doesn't want an election, that that's not his goal. I think that makes it the liberals play. And we'll get a pretty clear, I think, idea really soon if the liberals decide to introduce

legislation that acknowledges those asks of Judd Meetsingh, then we're not going to the polls. If the liberals don't end up doing that, that puts the ball in the NDP's court in a very sort of tricky way. At that point, you're almost calling the NDP's bluff. We didn't give you what you want. Are you willing to force an election? And that's where I think things would get extremely interesting. I would be surprised if it got to that point, especially given the kind of nature of the pandemic right now. But politics is not a predictable thing at all, and it's not impossible. Well, I guess there's a chance that it won't just be Americans going to the polls in the fall, but we will see. Vashie, it's always great to talk to you. Thanks so much for having me back.

Before we go today, some news from Kentucky, where a grand jury brought no charges against Louisville police for the killing of Breonna Taylor, a black woman shot to death by police in March during a drug raid gone wrong. Three charges of wanton endangerment were laid against one officer, this for shooting into Breonna Taylor's neighbor's apartment. We'll be talking more about this on tomorrow's show. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner.