Cuba is caricatured by the Right as a totalitarian hellhole. But its response to the coronavirus pandemic — from sending doctors to other countries to pioneering anti-viral treatments to converting factories into mask-making machines — is putting other countries, even rich countries, to shame.
When I first read about the possibility of a multibillion-dollar bailout of the oil and gas sector by the federal and Alberta governments, I was exhausted.
I was exhausted from days of ER work, personal protective equipment drills, obsessive counting of ventilators and considering how to encourage Canadians to have courageous conversations around end-of-life care. I was too exhausted to even think about responding.
“Sick… guess we didn’t move quick enough after all…” — Stephen King, The Stand.
The Covid-19 Shock Meets an Impending Economic Recession
As of March 2020, the world is back to the future. The global financial crisis of 2007-08, which escalated into a global financial meltdown in September 2008, was supposed to be the big bang crisis, a once in a lifetime event. And yet, here we are again.
Some Canadian organizations are asking the federal government to focus any bailout of the oil industry on workers and families, not corporations.
The request comes in an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, released Tuesday morning and signed by environmental organizations, faith and labour groups that the signatories say represent about 1.3 million people.
“Giving billions of dollars to failing oil and gas companies will not help workers and only prolongs our reliance on fossil fuels,” the letter says.
