CDN/US Covid-related political discussion

[Altair]

Unless absolutely necessary, everyone who can be should be home with their families including MP's, Military etc.  A lot of MP's live in hotel rooms during the week and need to go out to get food etc which would obviously put them at risk. It's not like we're going to bring in cots and MRE's for them and all of the security and other support staff that would be required.

Also largely pointless.

The close confines of the house would all but guarantee transmission,  and once people started getting sick they would be stuck at home anyways. Given the average age of MPs,  fair to assume some of them wouldn't make it either.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The majority of work on a bill is done in committee and drafting rooms, Parliament is mostly political theatre.

 

[PuckChaser]

Also largely pointless.

Ack, the people who control the purse-strings of the entire country are non-essential, but the Cannabis Store employee is. We should give the PM dictator authority in a minority government situation just because.  :facepalm:

Stellar: The CAF is being held at home because we're the strategic reserve for Canada. If the Government calls and we can't go because we didn't protect our incredibly small force, there would be hell to pay. We also have many international missions on going with RIPs coming up and need to protect those deploying folks so we don't blow the schedules out of the water.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Ack, the people who control the purse-strings of the entire country are non-essential, but the Cannabis Store employee is. We should give the PM dictator authority in a minority government situation just because.  :facepalm:

If the Cannabis store worker could work from home then he'd be non-essential.....but, as far as I know, working that job from home is still illegal.

 

[Jarnhamar]

[quote author=PuckChaser] . How do we get the MP from Yukon back, or ones from Nfld who when they go back have to lock themselves in their houses again?
[/quote]

Is there any provision for MP's to vote over some type of remote conference or remote voting set up?

 

[Kat Stevens]

If only the technology existed for groups of people to communicate with each other over long distances. Someone should get on that, game changer.

 

[OceanBonfire]

Trump says reopen by Easter, Corporate America says not so fast

“I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter,” he said on Fox News Channel.

But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Retail Federation and National Restaurant Association pointed to less optimistic recommendations by public health officials.

Even so, the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce said it was following the advice of medical professionals.


https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-companies/trump-says-reopen-by-easter-corporate-america-says-not-so-fast-idUSKBN21C3KQ

 

[CBH99]

Hey everybody,

I just thought I would post this here, as it might be helpful to some of you.

Alberta emergency money became available today.  I applied right around 9am, and had the money in my account by about 2pm.



https://www.alberta.ca/emergency-isolation-support.aspx

 

[stellarpanther]

Stellar: The CAF is being held at home because we're the strategic reserve for Canada. If the Government calls and we can't go because we didn't protect our incredibly small force, there would be hell to pay. We also have many international missions on going with RIPs coming up and need to protect those deploying folks so we don't blow the schedules out of the water.

Sorry if my post wasn't clear but I agree with you.  I don't think any intelligent person would question the decision made to keep most of the military at home right now.  I was referring to a thought of MP's being kept in Ottawa.  Having them here staying in hotels or quarantining them in the Parliament building would be a bad idea IMO.

 

[Blackadder1916]

. . .  This is 2020, if they were able to run parliament during the Spanish Flu, they can certainly do so now with all the benefits modern technology brings us.

If a comparison was made then it would probably be with the 13th Parliament which ran from March 18, 1918 until October 4, 1921.  As to how hard hit parliamentarians were by the Spanish Flu, according to the Library of Parliament, twenty MPs and Senators died in office from 1918 to 1920.  As to cause of death, that becomes becomes a little more difficult to ascertain as the readily available reference material (primarily wikipedia) mentions cause for only two individuals - Sir Wilfred Laurier (stroke) and Samuel Simpson Sharpe (one of two sitting MPs who died while on active service with the Canadian military - suicide).

Whether that is a higher than normal rate of death in office for the time would require further research.

 

[PuckChaser]

Sorry if my post wasn't clear but I agree with you.  I don't think any intelligent person would question the decision made to keep most of the military at home right now.  I was referring to a thought of MP's being kept in Ottawa.  Having them here staying in hotels or quarantining them in the Parliament building would be a bad idea IMO.

I'd tend to agree with you if we had a clear majority government. However with the minority situation and how our Constitution is constructed, I think we should have at least some MPs quarantined in Ottawa to continue with the proper checks and balances in Parliament. That's even more true now that the Liberals tried to use a global pandemic to circumvent Parliament and use tax dollars as a slush fund until 31 Dec 2021.

At least our parties are able to make quick negotiations and get funding approved right away for the people that need it. Democrats in the US House are taking the opportunity to tack on legislation to their stimulus bill, holding up the funding for ordinary Americans. This is even after US Senate unanimously approved the bill already... I'll take our system (flaws and all) any day over the absolute political circus the US House/Senate has become over the last decade.

 

[brihard]

Democrats in the US House are taking the opportunity to tack on legislation to their stimulus bill, holding up the funding for ordinary Americans. This is even after US Senate unanimously approved the bill already... I'll take our system (flaws and all) any day over the absolute political circus the US House/Senate has become over the last decade.

That flips both ways. The Republicans' version in the Senate basically loads most of the benefits and subsidies on businesses, and does much less to help or protect individuals. It's a corporate bailout, not a fiscal support for the actual people. Neither party is being an honest broker; each controls a house of the legislature, and both are playing stupid partisan games with this.

 

[PuckChaser]

That flips both ways. The Republicans' version in the Senate basically loads most of the benefits and subsidies on businesses, and does much less to help or protect individuals. It's a corporate bailout, not a fiscal support for the actual people. Neither party is being an honest broker; each controls a house of the legislature, and both are playing stupid partisan games with this.

Considering the Senate required unanimous consent, obviously the Senate Democrats didn't feel it was that big of a partisan game because they put their names down to support it.

 

[Haggis]

The Trump administration is mulling putting US troops near the Canadian border to detect illegal crossers.  The PM and Deputy PM are 'strongly opposed" but they don't say why.  They, in fact have no say on what the US does to maintain it's internal security.

 

[medicineman]

The Trump administration is mulling putting US troops near the Canadian border to detect illegal crossers.  The PM and Deputy PM are 'strongly opposed" but they don't say why.  They, in fact have no say on what the US does to maintain it's internal security.

Is it to prevent ingress or egress - I'd be concerned about people running away currently.

MM

 

[Haggis]

Is it to prevent ingress or egress

The article says that it is to detect ingress - illegal immigrants entering the US.

 

[ModlrMike]

Hard to imagine people moving from a universal heath care model to an out-of-pocket model in the middle of a global health crisis.

 

[Brad Sallows]

The Senate bill is not short on support for individuals, and support for corporations is support for jobs, which is also support for individuals.

A summary at Politico

The Senate bill is not remotely close to Pelosi's bullshit.

 

[brihard]

My apologies; I'm not sure if there were amendments or if I was just wrong. Either way my reply was not based on a proper understanding of the current content. I'm glad they got it through.

 

[medicineman]

Hard to imagine people moving from a universal heath care model to an out-of-pocket model in the middle of a global health crisis.

This