Official Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[beanbag]

Yes. It's something everyone pays into and so everyone - if there is a genuine need - should have access. That's also why it needs to be a temporary bridge and not become a gateway to some sort of universal basic income, as some are calling for. I've heard first hand stories of households that now have more money coming in every month than they did before (family and friends included), which is something that also needs to be addressed if this continues for an extended period of time.

The way I see it, if an individual is now making $2000 a month and that is an INCREASE on what they were making before, the only issue is why we as a society allow some of our citizens to be compensated so poorly to begin with.

As a family, combined income.

Husband, wife, the 15 year old, and the 18 year old. 8 grand. How the 15 year old qualifies for the max is beyond me.

They will be coming back hard on people taking advantage of the system.

96,000 a year (before tax) for a family of four sounds almost fair to me.

[Westside Gunn]

The way I see it, if an individual is now making $2000 a month and that is an INCREASE on what they were making before, the only issue is why we as a society allow some of our citizens to be compensated so poorly to begin with.

As a family, combined income.

Husband, wife, the 15 year old, and the 18 year old. 8 grand. How the 15 year old qualifies for the max is beyond me.

They will be coming back hard on people taking advantage of the system.

96,000 a year (before tax) for a family of four sounds almost fair to me.

A 15 year old HSer receiving 2k is never justified.

[Courtside]

The way I see it, if an individual is now making $2000 a month and that is an INCREASE on what they were making before, the only issue is why we as a society allow some of our citizens to be compensated so poorly to begin with.

As a family, combined income.

Husband, wife, the 15 year old, and the 18 year old. 8 grand. How the 15 year old qualifies for the max is beyond me.

They will be coming back hard on people taking advantage of the system.

96,000 a year (before tax) for a family of four sounds almost fair to me.

Before tax, after tax, how many people, blah blah... I'm just saying that $2000 x 2 people cash in hand is an improvement over what was previously one FT income and one PT income after taxes were decuted. So at the moment, household monthly cash in hand is higher. In other cases, yes, a PT teenager or stay-at-home mom are now also getting $2000 each for the household, which is a bump over what was previously coming in.

I fully understand the need for haste on the government's part. Get the money out there to put an income floor under people, but it's going to be a MESS trying to sort out the details later.

[beanbag]

As a family, combined income.

Husband, wife, the 15 year old, and the 18 year old. 8 grand. How the 15 year old qualifies for the max is beyond me.

They will be coming back hard on people taking advantage of the system.

96,000 a year (before tax) for a family of four sounds almost fair to me.

Before tax, after tax, how many people, blah blah... I'm just saying that $2000 x 2 people cash in hand is an improvement over what was previously one FT income and one PT income after taxes were decuted. So at the moment, household monthly cash in hand is higher. In other cases, yes, a PT teenager or stay-at-home mom are now also getting $2000 each for the household, which is a bump over what was previously coming in.

I fully understand the need for haste on the government's part. Get the money out there to put an income floor under people, but it's going to be a MESS trying to sort out the details later.

I'm not interested in the government "sorting out the details later". It's bad enough this money is going to be taxed, to then commit time to decide so and so got too much money and needs to pay it back (when the government is the one paying people to begin with) kind of defeats the purpose of giving people the money now.

[Kevin Willis]

I know the government said the following:

- any one can apply and they will give money right now. If you get it and you don't need it they're going to get it back.
- some people don't pay taxes (shocking). In order to get this money they will have to file taxes, this is a means for the government to get non-taxpayers in the book
- people are people, some will have full-time jobs and claim it anyway. Don't worry about those people who are being greedy. They have a window to repay since some are doing it by mistake but as I said if you're trying to defraud they will find out and they can suspend benefits until they get their money
- government has factored in fraud but also determined the greater benefit is making sure families/people don't struggle. So this is factored in
- the CESB if graduated/graduating students. I have heard 15 year olds are collecting it. I don't know how because they can't work legally. So they must be lying which will bite them when they actually have to do taxes since their ages won't match.
- the Governor of the Bank of Canada stated that these programs being used might not be enough for some people but hopefully it can help the most people possible in terms of debt. HOWEVER, he said there will even be a small group of citizens that come out even further ahead than before. If you have a variable rate mortgage. If you have a child. If you have GST/HST rebate and a full time job you will get bonus money. Take that money and plow it back into Canada.

[beanbag]

As a family, combined income.

Husband, wife, the 15 year old, and the 18 year old. 8 grand. How the 15 year old qualifies for the max is beyond me.

They will be coming back hard on people taking advantage of the system.

96,000 a year (before tax) for a family of four sounds almost fair to me.

A 15 year old HSer receiving 2k is never justified.

A family of 4 receiving a living wage is easily justifiable.

[omar36]

96,000 a year (before tax) for a family of four sounds almost fair to me.

Before tax, after tax, how many people, blah blah... I'm just saying that $2000 x 2 people cash in hand is an improvement over what was previously one FT income and one PT income after taxes were decuted. So at the moment, household monthly cash in hand is higher. In other cases, yes, a PT teenager or stay-at-home mom are now also getting $2000 each for the household, which is a bump over what was previously coming in.

I fully understand the need for haste on the government's part. Get the money out there to put an income floor under people, but it's going to be a MESS trying to sort out the details later.

I'm not interested in the government "sorting out the details later". It's bad enough this money is going to be taxed, to then commit time to decide so and so got too much money and needs to pay it back (when the government is the one paying people to begin with) kind of defeats the purpose of giving people the money now.

i disagree, first isnt the highest bracket still under 50%, the vast majorityh of canadians arent going to pay more then 25% of it back, some might pay none back if they made like say 8k in total this year.

second, i dotn think ppl realzie how many canadians live paycheck to paycheck and how quikly their situation changed to the point of struggling just to have a roof over their heads/groceries. i commend them for getting it out as fast as they could, we should help now and worry bout it later. i dont see what was the other option? iirc all parties were in uniamnious agreement, hell scheer was only upset bout the fact it wasnt out fast enough.

also i disgree on the earlier comment of a 15 yr old should never be given 2k. theres a few atleast that i met that worked a ton of hours plus going to school to help thier parents. they deserve it just as much as any other kid 16-21 going to school.

[beanbag]

Before tax, after tax, how many people, blah blah... I'm just saying that $2000 x 2 people cash in hand is an improvement over what was previously one FT income and one PT income after taxes were decuted. So at the moment, household monthly cash in hand is higher. In other cases, yes, a PT teenager or stay-at-home mom are now also getting $2000 each for the household, which is a bump over what was previously coming in.

I fully understand the need for haste on the government's part. Get the money out there to put an income floor under people, but it's going to be a MESS trying to sort out the details later.

I'm not interested in the government "sorting out the details later". It's bad enough this money is going to be taxed, to then commit time to decide so and so got too much money and needs to pay it back (when the government is the one paying people to begin with) kind of defeats the purpose of giving people the money now.

i disagree, first isnt the highest bracket still under 50%, the vast majorityh of canadians arent going to pay more then 25% of it back, some might pay none back if they made like say 8k in total this year.

second, i dotn think ppl realzie how many canadians live paycheck to paycheck and how quikly their situation changed to the point of struggling just to have a roof over their heads/groceries. i commend them for getting it out as fast as they could, we should help now and worry bout it later. i dont see what was the other option? iirc all parties were in uniamnious agreement, hell scheer was only upset bout the fact it wasnt out fast enough.

To be clear, my position is the $2,000 should be tax free. I don't want the government taking ANY of it back. I'm perfectly fine with the speed at which they sent the money out.

[omar36]

I'm not interested in the government "sorting out the details later". It's bad enough this money is going to be taxed, to then commit time to decide so and so got too much money and needs to pay it back (when the government is the one paying people to begin with) kind of defeats the purpose of giving people the money now.

i disagree, first isnt the highest bracket still under 50%, the vast majorityh of canadians arent going to pay more then 25% of it back, some might pay none back if they made like say 8k in total this year.

second, i dotn think ppl realzie how many canadians live paycheck to paycheck and how quikly their situation changed to the point of struggling just to have a roof over their heads/groceries. i commend them for getting it out as fast as they could, we should help now and worry bout it later. i dont see what was the other option? iirc all parties were in uniamnious agreement, hell scheer was only upset bout the fact it wasnt out fast enough.

To be clear, my position is the $2,000 should be tax free. I don't want the government taking ANY of it back.

ah thats fair, the only issue then becomes how our we going to pay for it. you know a good chunk of canadians already upset bout it lol, crying its like giving handouts for ppl who dont deserve it.

tho i dont know how taxes work, i do know that those truly struggling for the most part wont haave to pay much of it back. I bleive if you make under 13k in reported income, you pay nothing back? and in ontario its 12k or something like that.

[KrazyP]

I disagree. The CERB is an extension of EI, which we all pay into. This is just people getting their money back.

Yes. It's something everyone pays into and so everyone - if there is a genuine need - should have access. That's also why it needs to be a temporary bridge and not become a gateway to some sort of universal basic income, as some are calling for. I've heard first hand stories of households that now have more money coming in every month than they did before (family and friends included), which is something that also needs to be addressed if this continues for an extended period of time.

The way I see it, if an individual is now making $2000 a month and that is an INCREASE on what they were making before, the only issue is why we as a society allow some of our citizens to be compensated so poorly to begin with.

That's not an easy question to answer.

After the industrial revolution, the developed world built their societies around the concept of Liberalism. The individual was valued because Labour was a valuable resource needed to fuel development. Well paying jobs were plentiful...life was good (for the most part).

Over the last few decades labour has become less and less valuable.

We are in the midst technological revolution now which is completely changing the dynamics of our society. Technology is completely eliminating the need for labour in a lot of areas and will continue to do so going forward. 25-30% of the people in our society will become utterly useless over the coming years/decades.

How is our government responding? Loose monetary policy. We spur growth by printing money, lowering interest rates and encouraging the use of debt to fuel spending. This is what Trudeau means by "building the economy through the heart". Go ahead son, take on massive amounts of debt to buy that house, car or whatever else you want. You deserve it. The strategy is working for the most part but it is short sighted and only makes the long term problem worse. There is only so much debt the government and consumers can take on before the convoluted pyramid type scheme starts to breakdown.

What should we do? There is no clearcut answer...that said, I do think both consumers and government alike need to change their spending habits to prepare for the civil unrest coming. Most of the focus should be on education and health care as these two things will be with us long term. Universal income is inevitable but we'll only be able to move forward with it if our books are balanced and we arent riddled with massive debts from the past.

[LoveMyRaps]

Cases increasing constantly over the last 6 days in Ontario. Since the first time since May 5th we're up over 400 new daily cases. SMH.
People see a little bit of a decline and start letting loose thinking its all over.

[mtcan]

Cases increasing constantly over the last 6 days in Ontario. Since the first time since May 5th we're up over 400 new daily cases. SMH.
People see a little bit of a decline and start letting loose thinking its all over.

Ya...not good.

Driving home from work today...I still see so many people walking around without masks.

This is the new normal folks.

I have little faith that numbers will get much better than this especially now that weather is better, businesses are looking to reopen and offices start repopulating with workers.

[LoveMyRaps]

Cases increasing constantly over the last 6 days in Ontario. Since the first time since May 5th we're up over 400 new daily cases. SMH.
People see a little bit of a decline and start letting loose thinking its all over.

Ya...not good.

Driving home from work today...I still see so many people walking around without masks.

This is the new normal folks.

I have little faith that numbers will get much better than this especially now that weather is better, businesses are looking to reopen and offices start repopulating with workers.

Oh god, I was hoping maybe it was just the idiots in my area. I went to do groceries yesterday and less than 50% of people I saw were wearing masks. A lot of them didn't even have any gloves, NOTHING! In comparison, just two weeks ago just about everyone had gloves and masks on.

[Lord_Zedd]

Cases increasing constantly over the last 6 days in Ontario. Since the first time since May 5th we're up over 400 new daily cases. SMH.
People see a little bit of a decline and start letting loose thinking its all over.

Ya...not good.

Driving home from work today...I still see so many people walking around without masks.

This is the new normal folks.

I have little faith that numbers will get much better than this especially now that weather is better, businesses are looking to reopen and offices start repopulating with workers.

Oh god, I was hoping maybe it was just the idiots in my area. I went to do groceries yesterday and less than 50% of people I saw were wearing masks. A lot of them didn't even have any gloves, NOTHING! In comparison, just two weeks ago just about everyone had gloves and masks on.

That's my experience lately too, on top of people not giving any **** on social distancing in lineups or getting items in the shelves/counter.

As for the higher case count, Ontario mentioned they eased up on testing requirements on people now that they're done with the long term care homes and medical staff. But still, that would be one amazing turnaround time considering they just announced this change earlier this week. AFAIK results can take 7 days.

The weather wasn't that great either this past week. Only things I can think of are people visiting and celebrating mother's day, and queen's park protesters.

[jaymeister15]

The May 12th report had 361 cases, May 13th report had 329 cases. Today had 413, yesterday 390, when you are looking at a 50-70 positive test difference in a province of 13 million, I think it’s tough to attribute too much to that. Particularly now that they are testing anyone that has any symptom, and starting to test more people that don’t have symptoms. I believe they announced late last week that they were expanding the testing criteria, and there doesn’t seem to be any backlog, so that would be affecting current numbers.

Imo, a more important number to keep any eye on as restrictions loosen would be the number of people in hospital or icu. Both of those numbers seem to be dropping. On May 12th, there were 1,025 people hospitalized and 192 in the icu. As of today, those two numbers are at 984 and 155....again talking relatively small differences, but there doesn’t seem to be anything to suggest hospitals are on the way to being overloaded as the province opens up.

[KrazyP]

I know the government said the following:

- any one can apply and they will give money right now. If you get it and you don't need it they're going to get it back.
- some people don't pay taxes (shocking). In order to get this money they will have to file taxes, this is a means for the government to get non-taxpayers in the book
- people are people, some will have full-time jobs and claim it anyway. Don't worry about those people who are being greedy. They have a window to repay since some are doing it by mistake but as I said if you're trying to defraud they will find out and they can suspend benefits until they get their money
- government has factored in fraud but also determined the greater benefit is making sure families/people don't struggle. So this is factored in
- the CESB if graduated/graduating students. I have heard 15 year olds are collecting it. I don't know how because they can't work legally. So they must be lying which will bite them when they actually have to do taxes since their ages won't match.
- the Governor of the Bank of Canada stated that these programs being used might not be enough for some people but hopefully it can help the most people possible in terms of debt. HOWEVER, he said there will even be a small group of citizens that come out even further ahead than before. If you have a variable rate mortgage. If you have a child. If you have GST/HST rebate and a full time job you will get bonus money. Take that money and plow it back into Canada.

I disagree. They may audit a few people here and there after the fact just to say they did something......there will be too much work involved in auditing everyone. Many people will get away with fraud. The implementation of this has been disorganized, short sighted and lazy. This is pretty typical from the current government in power.

[Pointgod]

Cases increasing constantly over the last 6 days in Ontario. Since the first time since May 5th we're up over 400 new daily cases. SMH.
People see a little bit of a decline and start letting loose thinking its all over.

Ya...not good.

Driving home from work today...I still see so many people walking around without masks.

This is the new normal folks.

I have little faith that numbers will get much better than this especially now that weather is better, businesses are looking to reopen and offices start repopulating with workers.

Oh god, I was hoping maybe it was just the idiots in my area. I went to do groceries yesterday and less than 50% of people I saw were wearing masks. A lot of them didn't even have any gloves, NOTHING! In comparison, just two weeks ago just about everyone had gloves and masks on.

Similar story where I’m at. Probably 50-50 wearing masks but a lot of people outside exercising and in crowds. I heard on the news that we should be able to get away with not wearing masks outside but definitely in confined spaces. Good thing my grocery store was giving away masks as people were coming in. I feel like it should be a mandatory thing if certain businesses are going to reopen.

[Kevin Willis]

I know the government said the following:

- any one can apply and they will give money right now. If you get it and you don't need it they're going to get it back.
- some people don't pay taxes (shocking). In order to get this money they will have to file taxes, this is a means for the government to get non-taxpayers in the book
- people are people, some will have full-time jobs and claim it anyway. Don't worry about those people who are being greedy. They have a window to repay since some are doing it by mistake but as I said if you're trying to defraud they will find out and they can suspend benefits until they get their money
- government has factored in fraud but also determined the greater benefit is making sure families/people don't struggle. So this is factored in
- the CESB if graduated/graduating students. I have heard 15 year olds are collecting it. I don't know how because they can't work legally. So they must be lying which will bite them when they actually have to do taxes since their ages won't match.
- the Governor of the Bank of Canada stated that these programs being used might not be enough for some people but hopefully it can help the most people possible in terms of debt. HOWEVER, he said there will even be a small group of citizens that come out even further ahead than before. If you have a variable rate mortgage. If you have a child. If you have GST/HST rebate and a full time job you will get bonus money. Take that money and plow it back into Canada.

I disagree. They may audit a few people here and there after the fact just to say they did something......there will be too much work involved in auditing everyone. Many people will get away with fraud. The implementation of this has been disorganized, short sighted and lazy. This is pretty typical from the current government in power.

That is possible. The question is, is it worth the risk? They can easily hire a bunch of people and have them audit everyone that took the CESB. They hired a bunch of people when weed became legal for pardons and administration.

In terms of government, most are lazy. It's not like the Harper government was a study in being organized, far sighted and busy,

[Courtside]

96,000 a year (before tax) for a family of four sounds almost fair to me.

A 15 year old HSer receiving 2k is never justified.

A family of 4 receiving a living wage is easily justifiable.

You do realize that the median household income in Canada is $59,800, right? $96K is waaay past living wage territory.

[TD2FutureStar]

Ya...not good.

Driving home from work today...I still see so many people walking around without masks.

This is the new normal folks.

I have little faith that numbers will get much better than this especially now that weather is better, businesses are looking to reopen and offices start repopulating with workers.

Oh god, I was hoping maybe it was just the idiots in my area. I went to do groceries yesterday and less than 50% of people I saw were wearing masks. A lot of them didn't even have any gloves, NOTHING! In comparison, just two weeks ago just about everyone had gloves and masks on.

Similar story where I’m at. Probably 50-50 wearing masks but a lot of people outside exercising and in crowds. I heard on the news that we should be able to get away with not wearing masks outside but definitely in confined spaces. Good thing my grocery store was giving away masks as people were coming in. I feel like it should be a mandatory thing if certain businesses are going to reopen.

I think it also depends where you live. I live in a rural town and can go for a walk outside and easily keep 6ft from pedestrians 99% of the time. Literally no reason to where a mask in this situation. Same with grocery stores when they arent busy.

The only time I agree with masking up with gloves is if your literally bumper to bumper with someone in a crowded store. That could be quite dangerous.

Now on the flip side there are issues with wearing a mask which include reduced oxygen levels and breathing in excess co2. Then you have the reduced immunity you will have from filtering everything you breathe. So the obvious solution seems to be to wear a mask when it is absolutely necessary and do so for short periods of time.