Originally Posted by
Zhariak
Exactly...
Everywhere else in the world, COVID-19 relief has been focused on their economy (and as a result, their people). In Canada the focus has been strictly on direct support to the people and not the economy. It's been a political move to keep support for the current government with everything that's been going on.
I know you can't really compare the US to Canada as far as COVID-19 goes, but a recent report I saw ~15 days ago reported that household wealth in the US is at an all time high, while house hold wealth in Canada was at an all time low. The reason, the US government has focused on economic stimulus (to keep businesses going, keep employees working, keep people earning paychecks and spending), while Canada has directly been cutting cheque's to Canadians, skipping the economy. Canadian's have used the money to pay bills, pay off debt, and haven't re-injected the funds in to the economy.
The example above re: airlines, we have some of the highest taxes in the world (we can thank voters for allowing this). It costs a fortune to fly anywhere in Canada, mostly because of taxation. There's the existing taxation structure and fees that have been in place forever, along with new taxes that are being implemented every year, such as the carbon tax. The cost to fly is HUGE mostly due to taxes. This makes less people fly for leisure, less for business, less in general. As mentioned above the airlines constantly need handouts because of this, also to serve areas that are expensive to serve. If we didn't have these taxes there would be inexpensive flights, resulting in more travel, more planes, more national business (people travelling for business).
Almost all of my business this year has been 80% US customers, 10% UK, and 10% AUS/NZ. The companies in those places are growing, spending money on technology to adapt to COVID-19 and the new ways business is done, they are hiring staff, etc... Meanwhile, Canada is in panic mode and every business is still cutting costs, laying off, etc.
I don't know if the current government thinks things will change on their own or if they are waiting until support is necessary so they can take steak in the companies that have survived up to this point (nationalize)...
It's just so night/day different, and everyone I talk to locally thinks the rest of the world is experiencing the same economic downfall as us, but they aren't... It's only us (and maybe a couple other countries).