Article from Globe and Mail
Tiff Macklem was the No. 2 at the Bank of Canada during the Great Recession. A decade later, he’s been tapped to be No. 1 in the midst of an even bigger economic crisis.
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The federal government announced today that Mr. Macklem, senior deputy governor at the Bank of Canada from 2010 to 2014, will be the new governor when Stephen Poloz retires in June. Mr. Macklem has spent the last six years as the dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.
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Mr. Macklem takes the reins during a precarious time for the Canadian economy. The C.D. Howe Institute’s Business Cycle Council declared today that Canada is officially in a recession. The council’s experts made the decision based on the sudden and steep drop in economic activity and employment that began in March because of efforts to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says assault-style guns are not to be used or sold in Canada, as of today. There will be a two-year amnesty period for current owners of the firearms and the government will eventually announce a buyback program.
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More provinces are starting to rev up their economic engines by letting some businesses resume operations. Next week, Alberta will allow medical services, such as dentists, to reopen, as well as outdoor activities. More businesses will be allowed to operate again in the weeks ahead, depending on the spread of infections in the province. Also starting next week, Ontario is opening the door for garden centres and for auto dealerships, golf courses and construction sites to resume with some restrictions.
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As the coronavirus began to spread in Canada, federal stockpiles of medical equipment were woefully inadequate. On Feb. 12, officials told The Globe, the federal stockpile had fewer masks than what the province of Ontario used in just one week in April battling COVID-19. The officials say the federal government’s had enough gear to deal with a small, time-limited incident, such as a natural disaster, and not a national struggle such as the one the coronavirus has presented.
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MPs have issued a rare summons to compel testimony from World Health Organization doctor Bruce Aylward, who is Canadian. Dr. Aylward had been scheduled to testify at a committee but had cancelled and declined to reschedule an appearance. A lawyer for WHO said he was not allowed to testify about the health agency’s handling of the pandemic.
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And Joe Biden, the Democrats’ nominee for president this year, is defending himself against an allegation of sexual assault from nearly 30 years ago. In the era of #MeToo, Mr. Biden is trying to walk a tight rope in which he dismisses the accusation but says he is not questioning the former staffer who is making it. “Women are to be believed, given the benefit of the doubt,” Mr. Biden said. "If they come forward … they should start off with the presumption they are telling the truth. Then you have to look at the circumstances and the facts. And the facts of this case do not exist.”
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Robyn Urback (The Globe and Mail) on Canada declining to be critical of China: “So no, a Canadian minister should not be defending ‘praise’ for this regime, despite how clever a spin her communications team thinks it has found. Indeed, to do so is to insult the intelligence of Canadians who clearly know better, and to disregard the plight of Chinese citizens suffering under the foot of an oppressive regime.”
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Shachi Kurl (Ottawa Citizen) on support among Canadians for gun control: “For the Trudeau government, a ban on specific models of assault rifles via an order in council is relatively low-hanging fruit. One wonders why it’s taken so long for this measure to be announced, given that the Liberal party campaigned on tightening access to firearms as far back as 2015. One reflects on the lives that might have been saved.”
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Konrad Yakabuski (The Globe and Mail) on governing in a time of crisis: “Now, our Prime Minister displays a new-found sense of purpose. And why shouldn’t he? He is, after all, presiding over the greatest one-time expansion of government Canada has known. History has decided to make him a transformational prime minister in ways no one could have imagined a few months ago.”
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Campbell Clark (The Globe and Mail) on the fringe and the Conservative leadership race: “This not a question of whether [Conservative MP Derek] Sloan had the right to say what he did, however misguided. There isn’t a libel suit before the courts. And Mr. Sloan is a democratically elected representative who has a right to sit in Parliament. It is a question of what Conservatives decide is within the realm of acceptable discourse for their party.”
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Andrew Coyne (The Globe and Mail) on the future of the Conservative Party: “A short race with a few candidates would have left it largely to the new leader to determine the party’s course. A long race with a larger field might have offered a clash of ideas for the membership at large to choose between. But the race that actually emerged – lengthy enough, even on the original schedule, to leave the party in limbo for months, but with a field, due to some overrestrictive entry requirements, of just four candidates, none compelling – promises only to compound the sense of drift and irrelevance.”
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