Note: This article was published March 26, 2020. Due to the rapidly evolving nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the information in it may no longer be current.
“Enough is enough. Go home and stay home.”
During a press conference, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made it quite clear how he feels about the coronavirus situation. Aside from this quote, the prime minister has also scolded Canadians for their apparent failure to take the virus seriously.
It seems that in his mind, the average Canadian simply does not care about the virus. They are brash, careless, and foolish. This is problematic, especially for the average-waged worker, which many students are.
While this is already quite rich coming from a man who makes an ungodly $357,800 a year and certainly doesn’t have to worry about paying the bills if he can’t make it to work, it gets worse when the fact becomes apparent that the Canadian government has instituted the Schrödinger Quarantine.
This means your average-waged worker—the ones making your coffee, counting your money, or bagging your food—are somehow expected to pull a half-time quarantine. When workers are on the clock, they interact with hundreds of people. Every transaction is a risk. But when they break physical distancing on their own time, they get a scolding from the prime minister.
Essentially, people both are and are not in quarantine.
We have to come to an agreement. Either we are in quarantine, or we are not. Either there is a pandemic or there isn’t. People can’t simultaneously be told to both “go home and stay home,” while also being expected to pay for food, utilities, rent, etc.
While some steps have been taken to subsidize these necessities, the government has to do more to make aid available to a larger group of Canadians. As it stands right now, the response is limited. Eighty-two billion dollars might sound like a lot of money, but we must remember that it will have to be split all across Canada.
Furthermore, many so-called “essential services” still remain open, despite the nonsensical nature of such a decision. This is a difficult problem to solve. Grocery stores and pharmacies are essential for society, but may serve as breeding grounds for the virus. Perhaps it is time to send the minimum wage workers home, and have the military step in to run these services.
This is especially relevant as it is unreasonable to expect essential workers to miss out on the $2,000 benefit because they are working. In fact, many minimum wage part time workers will make considerably less money when risking their lives in essential services than those who will receive the unemployment benefit in quarantine.
That being said, if people still have to come in to work, we cannot tell them to isolate themselves only on their own time. If they want to go to a park, they are statistically not facing much additional risk. They have already taken the risk by being forced into work. Interacting with one or two extra people after a day filled to the brim with customer transactions is simply not relatively as dangerous as it would be for those in quarantine.
At the end of the day, there is little motivation for workers to isolate themselves. The thought process boils down to, “If I get sick, I’ll get sick because of work.”
If you are working in an “essential service” (and of course being paid a wage which says the opposite of ‘essential,’ as these jobs always do) and are already exposed to unnecessary danger. You should not be barked at by an out-of-touch government which can’t comprehend why some people can’t or don’t want to fully self-isolate.
This is not to say that we should not self-isolate—and even quarantine—ourselves. Doctors agree, scientists agree, and even the prime minister agrees on the importance of isolation right now.
But, Canadians need to demand more from our government at this time of crisis. Canadians pay taxes and submit to government authority, certainly not so they may be met with an, “If you die, you die” attitude in times of trouble which essential services workers are currently being given.
Simply said, if you are still going to work at this point, the government doesn’t care about your well being.
The fact that Trudeau’s benefits only target those out of work, and not those risking their lives everyday, only highlights suspicions that the government views essential services workers as expendable.
While current bailouts will likely do a lot to stop the economic freefall Canada has been experiencing, they are not sufficient to ensure the physical and economic safety of all Canadian workers.
Until all people at risk of contracting COVID-19, including essential services workers, have a realistic option to quarantine themselves, the government’s duty will not be complete.
File photo.
