BUSINESSVANCOUVER
March 23–29, 2020
Insights
Publisher; Editor-in-chief; vice-president, editorial, Glacier Media | Kirk LaPointe, 604-608-5183 Managing editor | Timothy Renshaw, 604-608-5131 Deputy Managing editor | Mark Falkenberg, 604-608-5174 online editor | Emma Crawford Hampel, 604-608-5138 Business in Vancouver is owned by Glacier Media Inc., 303 West 5th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. V5Y 1J6
Canada’s coronavirus unification factor
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usiness and political leaders cannot afford to waste COVID-19’s unifying role as a common villain. Partisan divisiveness has become a major negative force in 21st-century enterprise and politics that has closed free-trade doors and increased the corrosive fallout from widening wealth gaps and inert governments. The pandemic’s threat to everything from transportation, trade and
The COVID-19 economy has also underscored the world’s overreliance on China travel to entertainment and community events has for the first time this century galvanized communities and countries in a war against a single enemy. That singular focus has temporarily eliminated parochial walls. And Canada needs all the singular focus it can get to allow it to tread water in what is shaping up to be a rapid downshift into global recession that will affect all sectors and social strata in the country.
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last laugh
Civility and empathy in the House of Commons following word that the prime minister’s wife had tested positive for the coronavirus was a welcome departure from current standard operating procedure in the political arena. But singular focus needs to be applied now to the COVID-19 economy. It is devolving into ever-darker degrees of bleak, especially for Canada. In a recent economic assessment, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development notes that COVID-19’s severe impact on the global economy has rendered growth prospects highly uncertain. What is certain is that they are not good. The assessment estimates annual GDP growth dropping to 2.4% this year, which is down from an already anemic 2.9% in 2019. It pegs Canada’s GDP growth at a slim 1.3%, down another 0.3% from 2019 and likely optimistic in light of recent events. The COVID-19 economy has also underscored the world’s overreliance on China as the centre of its manufacturing and supply chain universe. Diversification to domestic and regional sources is long overdue. The COVID-19 challenge has and will inflict a lot of damage in the short term, but its role in unifying local, regional and international virus war efforts could pay long-term social and economic benefits.
Tough COVID-19 questions: how long will, how long can this go on?
Podium Kirk LaPointe
I
hear a lot of people asking: how long will this go on? What I wonder is: how long can this go on? First, the “will” question. The first bout of COVID-19 social distancing and self-isolation might still feel like one part novelty, one part dislocation, but it will wear really thin, really quickly, really. We were born to socialize, and this is, after all, Beautiful British Columbia. This is spring’s first week and our inclinations will be to hit the park, the beach, the hiking trail, the golf course, the tennis court, the bike path, the seawall, the Grind, the Drive, whatever. Mostly, though, we can’t, which
I’m afraid to say might be different from saying we won’t. Several weeks from now, the stir-craziness will be savage among the healthy among us. Naturally we are wise to confine our outdoorsy moments to our front step or our backyard, to a patio at home and not the one we cherish at our favourite (but, sigh, still closed) restaurant. But: singles not dating? Campers not pitching tents? No picnics in the park? Sure we can not do that? The best guess – guess with a capital G – is that the coronavirus will hit its peak in B.C. in June, endures in July and August, and keeps us creeped out about gatherings. Some authorities fret about a resumption in autumn. Many predict three or four social distancing stints. Beyond logistics, can any of us claim we will not fall prey to serious psychological problems from the stress of seclusion and solitary work? Isn’t it already happening? Wasn’t the hoarding of supplies a precursor to fear
what’s your opinion?
contagion? But the bigger question is the “can” question. How long can this go on? The pandemic has already clobbered our economic prospects. That the federal government earmarked last week $82 billion in emergency relief is telltale of symptoms to come. Provinces and cities still have to weigh in with support, but Ottawa’s deeper pockets will be dug and dug and dug into. Spain, after all, disbursed nearly 20% of its gross domestic product to its calamity; Canada is around the 3% level. So, even with the shovelling of money, at what stage can we afford to stay isolated and inactive and not engender a true meltdown? We live in a society of instant gratification, not enduring denial of it. We are social animals with few lone wolves. Our businesses have cultivated us with access to quick delivery, abundant choice and easy refunds and exchanges.
In this environment of tempting online commerce and government underwriting, consumers cannot be quelled, but many bricks-and-mortar businesses can be. It will not take long to take large holes out of our communities, to make permanent the staff reductions in our stores and restaurants, unless there is some sort of accommodation of the seclusion – and that doesn’t seem in the cards. Small business is acutely vulnerable. It bears ridiculous rents and taxes, excessive regulations, a shortage of labour due to unaffordability and global behemoths as competitors. Take two or three months out of their lives and you take out their lives. If governments can’t see, own and act upon their share of the problem and its foundations, they have a death wish on the sector. Larger businesses, too, are suffering a surfeit of silly impediments to investment, layers of taxes and virtue signalling tolls – hardships in normal
circumstances. Under this new normal, this can’t continue. As we feed and nurture those in need, action must be taken toward a reset of government’s size and seizure in the postvirus period. This won’t be the last coronavirus. We are into a period in which the joy of living in a great city is deeply diminished. The head of our province’s restaurant association told me last week he expects one-fifth of the sector to vanish. We need businesses to survive for our post-virus identity as a community; for them to do so, governments have to stop seeing them as an ATM. Think ahead, governments: the geese will not lay the golden eggs for a long time after this ends. Private-sector growth is an oxymoron, but public-sector growth is alive and well. How long can that go on?• Kirk LaPointe is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Business in Vancouver and the vice-president, editorial, of Glacier Media.
| BIV welcomes readers’ opinions. All letters, including those sent by email, must include the author’s name, address and daytime telephone number. Business in Vancouver, 303 West 5th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. V5Y 1J6. Email: news@biv.com. We reserve the right to edit for brevity, clarity and legality.
