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emergency

Friday April 16, 2020

April 24, 2020 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday April 16, 2020

The Bank of Canada rolls the dice

Coronavirus cartoons

If desperate pandemic times demand desperate government actions, the Bank of Canada just delivered big-time. 

It’s printing money out of thin air to fund an estimated $200-billion-plus spending-spree intended to keep the nation’s economy alive. 

The best name for this historic and, frankly, alarming intervention is quantitative easing, and every Canadian should pay close attention to what amounts to a roll of the dice by their central bank.

That’s because while quantitative easing is justified under the circumstances, it’s unconventional, controversial and highly risky. Our 85-year-old central bank has never tried it before, and no wonder. It may cure what’s ailing the Canadian economy today only to infect it with new illnesses a year from now.

It all began at the end of March when the Bank of Canada announced it would spend at least $5 billion a week in the coming months to buy Government of Canada bonds on the open market. In other words, it would buy up much of the federal government’s debt.

That action was meant to ease the pressure on the federal government’s growing debt burden while injecting badly-needed cash into an economy ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic.

And that part of quantitative easing makes sense because it works. The mind-bending part of it comes with the realization that all these billions of dollars are being created digitally. 

It’s as if Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz had donned a magician’s cape, put his hand into a top hat and — poof — the Canadian economy had what it needed to buy its way out of this crisis.

What Poloz did was correct, according to experts such as former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge. At the time of Poloz’s intervention, the rapid spread of COVID-19 across Canada had already triggered government-imposed business shutdowns, huge job losses and what could become the nation’s sharpest economic downturn ever. 

The federal government was mobilizing its fiscal forces to prop up revenue-starved businesses and extend a financial lifeline to the newly unemployed, whose numbers could reach 2.8 million this month.

Other governments around the world were doing the same. And other central banks, most notably in the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union, were also playing their part by making new money to ease the debt loads of their governments.

The Bank of Canada doubled down on that strategy this week when it expanded its bond-buying program to include purchases on the open market of the debts of provincial governments and corporations. They need help, too, but it will mean pulling another $50 billion in new, digitally-created money out of Poloz’s magic hat. 

The sheer magnitude of all this newly manufactured cash is worrisome. If countries can get everything they want by simply printing more money, why doesn’t everyone do it all the time? 

The answer is the world’s financial markets wouldn’t let them get away with it. The U.S. Fed and the European Central Bank are considered to be big and powerful enough to do what they deem necessary. 

Canada, with its much smaller economy, probably won’t be cut the same slack. The value of its currency may slide if quantitative easing lasts too long. Inflation could rise to unmanageable levels even as millions of Canadians remain unemployed and the nation’s economic engines are struggling to fire on all cylinders. 

This spring, the Bank of Canada had no choice but to experiment with quantitative easing. In short order, it must provide Canadians with a plan and timetable for getting out of it.

Canada, with its much smaller economy, probably won’t be cut the same slack. The value of its currency may slide if quantitative easing lasts too long. Inflation could rise to unmanageable levels even as millions of Canadians remain unemployed and the nation’s economic engines are struggling to fire on all cylinders. 

This spring, the Bank of Canada had no choice but to experiment with quantitative easing. In short order, it must provide Canadians with a plan and timetable for getting out of it. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial)

Posted in: Canada Tagged: 2020-13, Canada, Coronavirus, covid-19, emergency, government, hourglass, money, pandemic, stimulus, virus

Tuesday April 7, 2020

April 15, 2020 by Graeme MacKay

April 7, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday April 7, 2020

Trump and 3M reach deal to allow N95 face masks to be exported to Canada

The Trump administration has agreed a deal with the US manufacturer 3M to import more than 166m respirators from China over the next three months and allow 3M to continue exporting its US-made respirators.

Coronavirus cartoons

The agreement breaks a deadlock which resulted in Washington stopping nearly three million of the specialized masks from being exported to Ontario, stirring fears that Canada’s most populous province would run out of supplies for medical staff battling coronavirus by the end of the week.

Donald Trump, who had lambasted 3M over the weekend, had warm words for the company on Tuesday, following the agreement, and its chairman and CEO, Mike Roman, offered praise for the president.

“I want to thank President Trump and the administration for their leadership and collaboration,” Roman said in a written statement. “These imports will supplement the 35 million N95 respirators we currently produce per month in the United States.”

Under the plan, 3M will import 166.5m respirators (masks which form a seal over the mouth and nose and offer much greater protection than surgical masks) from its factories in China, over the coming three months.

Meanwhile, the 3M statement said: “The plan will also enable 3M to continue sending US produced respirators to Canada and Latin America, where 3M is the primary source of supply.”

The clash with 3M and Canada began on Thursday when Donald Trump invoked the 1950 Defense Production Act giving the government “any or all authority” to stop 3M exporting N95 respirators to Canada and Latin America.

March 26, 2020

The masks, which filter out 95% of airborne particles, are seen as a critical tool for frontline healthcare workers in the fight against Covid-19

At a press conference on Monday, Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, said the 500,000 masks had been cleared for release, but nearly three million masks were intercepted by US officials at 3M’s South Dakota Facility.

“We know that the US isn’t allowing supplies across the US border,” Ford said. “The hard truth is, our supplies in Ontario are getting very low and the more new cases we get, the more demand there is on our resources.”

3M initially resisted the president’s executive order, warning in a statement the move would have “significant humanitarian implications” for countries desperate for safety equipment.

Over the weekend, Trump harshly criticised the company, warning it would have “a big price to pay”.

“We need the masks. We don’t want other people getting it,” Trump said in a Saturday briefing to reporters. “That’s why we’re instituting [the] Defense Production Act. You could call it retaliation because that’s what it is: it’s a retaliation. If people don’t give us what we need for our people, we’re going to be very tough.” (The Guardian) 


 

Pandemic Response from r/worldpoliticalhumour

 

Posted in: USA Tagged: 2020-12, Coronavirus, covid-19, Donald Trump, emergency, fire, firefighter, pandemic, scandal, White House

Wednesday January 29, 2020

February 5, 2020 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday January 29, 2020

Bigotry is the virus we should worry most about

Sadly, it didn’t take long for racism, xenophobia and social media idiocy to become part of the coronavirus story. Mere days after the first confirmed Canadian cases were identified, social media content from the wacky to the downright dangerous began making the rounds.

The virus is a U.S.-government patented germ warfare weapon. It can be treated with herbs and spices. It’s a global population reduction tool.

Coronavirus cartoons

But the worst, and the most offensive, social media poison blames Chinese (or Asian) people in general for the virus. It has been linked to hygiene and eating habits and other things that don’t bear repeating.

Viewed in isolation, most of this stuff is just stupid, some is downright laughable. But it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Thanks to social media, the cranks, trolls and plain evil people in the world live next to a fast-moving river. They can toss their garbage in, and watch it circulate all around the world in no time. Broken telephone syndrome sets in, and then even the most innocuous claims and commentary can get twisted into something much worse. They can even devolve into fomenting hatred.

Bigotry and xenophobia directed at Chinese Canadians is not new. In the 19th century, the racist term ‘yellow peril’ was used to describe the threat posed by the expansion of power and influence of people from Asia. Racism was legislated into Canadian immigration policy.

We might have hoped that Canada had evolved past those offensive views. But the SARS crisis of 2003 proved that’s not the case. Chinese people, and anyone who looked Asian, felt naked bigotry. Businesses went from busy to empty overnight. Toronto lost an estimated $1 billion as tourists avoided the city, especially areas with many Chinese businesses.

As the current coronavirus story gained prominence, some of the same people who experienced all that in 2003 worried publicly that the same thing could happen again in 2020. Amy Go, interim president of the Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice, put it this way in an interview in an interview with The Guardian: “I was hopeful it wasn’t going to be like 2003. But it is. It’s happening now and it’s just going to be amplified (by social media).”

A group of Chinese moms worried about the “inevitable wave of racism” that would arrive with the spreading virus. One of them, Terri Chu, said: “My Twitter has just exploded with vitriol since this morning.”

A popular Toronto blog reviewed a new Chinese restaurant on Instagram and the post was drowned in a sea of racist comments. Nine thousand parents at a school board north of Toronto called for kids who have been to China recently to be kept home from school.

Here we go, yet again.

This new coronavirus, like the last one, is a scary thing. But its relative risk to the general population remains very low. In the three cases reported so far, the victims have self-identified, and in two cases have isolated themselves to protect others.

Public health authorities have implemented measures they learned from the SARS crisis. It is too early to call them 100 per cent successful, but so far they’re working. The best advice as of now remains consistent: frequent hand washing, coughing and sneezing into sleeves, reporting symptoms when appropriate and stay tuned to legitimate news sources for the latest updates.

And if you hear or see bigotry or xenophobia directed at Chinese Canadians, or anyone else for that matter, consider saying something. Don’t just scroll by in silence. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial)


 

Media isn’t helping either… from r/Sino

 

Posted in: Canada Tagged: 2020-04, Canada, Coronavirus, emergency, hazmat, health, kkk, pandemic, racism, virus

Tuesday January 14, 2019

January 21, 2020 by Graeme MacKay

January 14, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday January 14, 2019

Ontario government apologizes for alert about Pickering nuclear plant incident sent ‘in error’

Ontario’s solicitor general has apologized for an emergency message sent across the province early Sunday alerting residents about an incident at the Pickering nuclear generating station east of Toronto.

August 15, 1997

“The alert was issued in error to the public during a routine training exercise being conducted by the Provincial Emergency Operations Centre,” Sylvia Jones said in a statement on Sunday.

The alert system is tested twice daily to ensure it is ready in the event of an emergency, Jones told CBC News. In the course of that testing, she said, it appears someone mistakenly pushed the alert on a “live pathway” instead of a “test pathway.”

Who exactly is responsible for pushing out the alert, Jones said, is part of a larger investigation, which will be carried out by Emergency Management Ontario.

“There was no incident at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station that should have triggered public notification. Nor was there ever any danger to the public or environment,” Jones added.”The government of Ontario sincerely apologizes for raising public concern and has begun a full investigation to determine how this error happened, and will take the appropriate steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”

Later on Sunday, OPG Chief Nuclear Officer Sean Granville said in a statement: “OPG has a sophisticated and robust notification process in place that we would immediately follow in the unlikely event of an incident at the station.

July 26, 2019

“I want to assure the public that there was no incident at the station, and the plant is operating as designed.”

At 7:24 a.m. ET, the alert was issued provincewide, saying an incident was reported at the station. The alert also said it applied to residents living within 10 kilometres of the station.

“There has been NO abnormal release of radioactivity from the station and emergency staff are responding to the situation,” the alert read.

The alert said people near the station do not need to “take any protective actions at this time.”

In a tweet about 40 minutes later, Ontario Power Generation said the first alert was sent “in error.”

“There is no danger to the public or environment,” OPG said. (CBC) 

 

Posted in: Ontario Tagged: 2020-02, Alert, emergency, Homer Simpson, Nuclear Power, Ontario, Pickering, The Simpsons

Wednesday September 4, 2019

September 11, 2019 by Graeme MacKay

September 4, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday September 4, 2019

Trump defends weekend of golf while Hurricane Dorian approached and Poland remembered Nazi invasion

President Trump lashed out at Sadiq Khan Tuesday after London’s mayor criticized him for golfing over the weekend as Hurricane Dorian edged closer to the coast of Florida.

April 13, 2018

“The incompetent Mayor of London, Sadique Kahn [sic], was bothered that I played a very fast round of golf yesterday,” said Trump in a tweet that, before being corrected, misspelled Khan’s first and last names. “Many Pols exercise for hours, or travel for weeks. Me, I run through one of my courses (very inexpensive). President Obama would fly to Hawaii.”

Khan, who attended a ceremony in Poland over the weekend commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland that began World War II, chided the president for skipping the event in favor of golfing at his private club in Virginia.

“He’s clearly busy dealing with a hurricane out on the golf course,” Khan told Politico on Monday, adding that Trump “is a guy who amplifies racist tweets; amplifies the tweets of fascists; says things that are deeply objectionable. If I don’t stand up and call that out I think I’m doing a disservice to Londoners who chose me as their mayor.”

Over the holiday weekend, the president played multiple rounds of golf at one of his properties in Virginia, where White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said he received “hourly updates.”

July 18, 2016

Trump’s golf trips have cost taxpayers over $100 million through the first two and a half years of his term, as he’s spent 227 days at one of his golf clubs as president. Former President Barack Obama did usually spend his Christmas vacations in his home state of Hawaii but did not fly there just to golf.

In August, the president canceled a visit to Denmark because the country’s prime minister was not open to the idea of selling Greenland to the United States. His cancellation of the trip to Poland drew little initial criticism until it was learned that he spent the weekend golfing.

“To ensure that all resources of the federal government are focused on the arriving storm, I have decided to send our vice president, Mike Pence, to Poland this weekend in my place,” Trump said last week. “It’s something very important for me to be here. The storm looks like it could be a very, very big one indeed.”

On Sunday, Trump was asked if he had any message for Poland on the 80th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s invasion.

“I just want to congratulate Poland,” Trump replied, adding, “It’s a great country with great people.” (Yahoo News) 

 

Posted in: USA Tagged: 2019-31, disaster, Donald Trump, emergency, golf, golf cart, Hurricane, relief, rescue, response, USA, vehicles
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