The Dawn Of The Novel Corona Virus (COVID-19) in Canada; the financial tole
COVID-19 is an emerging, rapidly evolving situation.
Get the latest public health information from:
CDC | US
Canada.ca | Canada
One year later, we’ve acquired many blunders to be touched upon later in this series. We’ve also come together as a nation during a global phenomenon and that’s monumental.
But many Canadian’s feel left behind:
If you live in Canada, there's no doubt you’ve been impacted by the effects of the virus economically; if not personally.
If you’ve been outside, you’ve noticed that not only are a lot of businesses closed. Some are shuttered permanently.
Some provinces & territories have been under a public health order for months.
But let’s take a step back.
Perspective is sometimes hard to have; especially when you’re in the midst of crisis.
At the beginning of Jan 2020, The Corona Virus (Sars-Cov2) seemed like MERS or EBOLA. Something far-off, contained and with Wuhan, China in quarantine it didn’t seem like a global issue; for most people.
As late as Feb 25th 2020, the WHO said it was reluctant to even declare a public health emergency.
Then came the first few weeks of March.
By March 20th, 500,000 Canadian’s filed for Employment Insurance.
Over the next two weeks over 1 Million More Canadians would apply for benefits.
Before the shutdowns and closures there was a ‘a 1:4 ratio of tax payers, versus retired Canadian’s.’
Stats show that; ‘In 2020, there were about 5.25 million males and 5.15 million females between the ages of 25 and 44 living in Canada, which was the most out of any age group. The next largest age group was between the ages of 45 and 64, with 5.03 million males and 5.12 million females.’
So around 21 Million working age adults according to Statista.
According to the revenue agencies stats exactly 8,899,170 Canadians applied for CERB (COVID related job loss) benefits.
Minus for 488,310 who we’re 65+.
iPolitics reports that in October 2020 over 1.4 Million Canadian’s received EI benefits .
If we add these numbers together it amounts to about half of Canada’s working age population.
In 2019 the unemployment rate in Canada according to Statista was 5.67% equaling around 2,072,000.
The economic impact has seen the unemployment rate swell just touching below 10%
The unemployment rate in Canada rose 0.6 percentage points to 9.4 percent in January 2021
We’ve seen over 100,000 small businesses permanently shutter in Canada.
(that’s 1 in 7)
It’s true that the number’s don’t tell you the whole story: If you’re a Canadian, share your story here.
According to the governments own data:
As of February 14, 2021, the numbers of unique applicants that have accessed the recovery benefits are:
1,715,090 for the Canada Recovery Benefit;
333,760 for the Canada Recovery Caregiving Benefit; and
392,280 for the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit.
As of February 14, 2021 there were 2,045,250 active EI regular benefit claimants.
Accounting for benefit crossover, I’ve tried to highlight unique applicant numbers where available.
Our national debt is hovering just below $1T at $896 Billion — (at time of publication)
With some early estimates bringing the total financial cost of the pandemic in at around $250B early last year. Contrasted with a more recent report saying our national debt will double to $1.6T by the end of the year.
