It doesn’t take careful analysis to determine that the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) was structured in a way that not only fails to protect the most vulnerable Canadians, but continues to sow the deep divisions among working people that have allowed capitalist interests to dictate Canadian policy and maintain power for more than a century.

As the coronavirus hit Québec in mid-March, detainees at Laval IHC held a hunger strike to appeal to the public and authorities to take action on their living conditions. The hunger strike ultimately brought attention not only to the conditions during the COVID-19 outbreak, but it has shown that the present crisis has exacerbated the unfair conditions that have long been the reality for many.

Despite claiming to take the climate crisis seriously, the Trudeau government has failed to put Canada on track to meet even dangerously insufficient targets for reducing GHG emissions. The profits from oil and natural gas flow to their producers and distributors—as well as the banks that finance them—and other investors whose portfolios include these stocks. These are the people who, under the current economic system, hold the most sway in determining government policy.

These exceptional circumstances found all Canadians and the governments they elected woefully unprepared for its management and control. Hopefully, we will learn lessons from the many tragedies visited upon the elderly by this pandemic which will permit us to prepare for a very uncertain future. We do not want that perennial philosopher of our generation, Pogo the Possum, to prove prophetic: “We have met the enemy and he is us”.

With a UBI, Canadians out of work due to the pandemic would not be nervous about their prospects, knowing that their basic needs would be met. Life would go on–certainly with some trepidation and uncertainty, but Canadians would never fear losing their homes, being unable to feed their families, or terrified of needing to put themselves in vulnerable working conditions in the midst of a crisis.

In addition to highlighting a lack of political will to provide renters and homeless populations with sufficient aid at their time of greatest need, this crisis exposes the deeper problem with relying on private markets to provide housing. Simply put: modest financial supplements will not fix this problem. Alex Cosh explains.

In a society plagued by the logic of neoliberalism, which encourages a turn towards individual interests and an “every person for themselves” mentality, acts of empathy and collective action may seem rare. But mutual aid also demonstrates how collective interests and a capacity for empathy have not entirely disappeared, and we may still have an opportunity to build upon these promising actions.

Just as the success of the climate youth movement has been attributed to the clarity and consistency of messaging, we need this same strategy with COVID-19. We also need that clarity as we move beyond the current pandemic and address ongoing societal challenges, using it as a transformative force to move forward as a global community.

The government’s inaction reflects a deeply rooted attachment to risk-based, reactive paradigms when proactive initiatives that are precautionary and based on harm-avoidance are needed. The Liberal government is ignoring the reality that the virus does not discriminate, that prisons are porous to it, and that protecting the right to live is what defines us as human beings.

Multiple and concurrent disasters are unfolding in pockets all across North America connected to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. We understand this particularly in medical settings or in geographic contexts such as the hot spots in Seattle and New York City. But we will also witness disaster in institutional contexts, where a human tragedy is unfolding.