David Staples: The brutal new normal of our economy alarms me, not a few rude comments

Article content

It doesn’t alarm me that a backbench UCP MLA from rural Alberta suggested that people are abusing the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) program.

What alarms me is how wretched our economy is, as witnessed by how many of us have been forced to go onto the CERB.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser.

David Staples: The brutal new normal of our economy alarms me, not a few rude comments Back to video

The latest federal reporting has it that about 450,000 Albertans are on CERB. That number speaks to both our excellent capacity to help those in need but also to the utter devastation of our economy. And that’s the crisis here, not comments from MLA Shane Getson at a town hall meeting where he explained why a local company could not hire workers for $15 an hour.

Said Getson: “They can’t hire people. And I’m going, ‘Well, why not?’ Because they make more on CERB, eating Cheezies and watching cartoons, I guess.'”

Getson also said some addicts were using CERB money to buy drugs.

NDP labor critic Christina Gray said Getson’s comments were “absolutely vile” and “baseless and harmful.”

Article content continued

Getson quickly clarified his overall position: “Clearly, the vast majority of recipients of government support truly need it. At the same time, some legitimate concerns have been raised about these programs that cannot be ignored.”

I can’t get worked up about Getson’s clumsy comments. They were a bit rude but it’s not like Gray’s denunciation was tempered. That’s how partisan politics is played, no big deal.

It’s also the case that Getson quickly clarified his position, making it clear he supports what’s been a God-send of a program for millions of Canadians. Getson also raises a reasonable concern about the $2,000 per month CERB payment being a disincentive for some individuals returning to work. It’s an issue that many business people have raised.

The main point is the alarming statistic that was reported during the fracas: more than one million Albertans have received CERB benefits, 1,062,640 to be exact.

That number speaks to a brutal new normal in our economy.

We used to boom. Jobs were plentiful and well-paid. Now we have a staggeringly high number of folks who either lost their jobs or are underemployed.

With 2.82 million Albertans in the prime working age of 18-64, that’s about 38 per cent who got the CERB.

David MacDonald, of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, estimates that as of mid-August about four million Canadians were still on the CERB, with 449,000 of them Albertans (most of whom will now transition on to new federal assistance programs).

Article content continued

That means roughly 16 per cent of working age Albertans are on CERB.

Other than making me sigh heavily and repeatedly, what are we to make of this program and this level of economic distress?

First, that the CERB succeeded at its main goals. As Carleton University professor Jennifer Robson points out in an interview, the CERB provided rapid relief to Canadians forced to stay home. It’s also helped folks whose businesses have been hammered hard.

“It has provided a really important cushion,” Robson says.

But CERB isn’t without major warts.

The program was meant to stabilize the economy by stabilizing household income, says Jason Clemens, executive vice-president of the Fraser Institute. You don’t want people making rash decisions because they’re suddenly desperate financially, as that could amplify the economic distress, he says.

But the CERB was poorly designed and often went to those who weren’t in need, Clemens says.

For example, the full $2000 CERB went to many youths who had been working part time and making as little as $450 each month and were still living at home.

Why should they make more due to the lockdown, Clemens asks?

Excellent question.

The government could have simply asked applicants how much money they made, so as not to pay them more than they were earning before, and also asked if they were a dependent living in a household with an income greater than $100,000, Clemens says.

Clemens estimates that one in four CERB dollars were paid to people whose need was questionable.

Article content continued

“At the same time as we’re potentially giving large amounts of money to young people at home that really don’t need CERB, we were not giving assistance to households that needed more help than they were getting,” Clemens says.

The federal government should have addressed this loophole months ago.

The CERB will cost us about $90 billion, Clemens says, and is a big part of the reason the Trudeau Liberals are now running up a bigger federal deficit each month than they used to do in a year.

Add it all up and we’re dealing with economic calamity. That’s what worries me, not harsh political commentary.

dstaples@postmedia.com

twitter.com/davidstaplesyeg