Wednesday March 25, 2020 ~ COWICHAN-MALAHAT-LANGFORD
by Mary Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News
Alistair MacGregor, MP (Cowichan-Malahat-Langford) has been social-distancing at his home with his family in the Cowichan Valley since arriving back from Ottawa on March 13.
On March 16 his two constituency offices (one in Duncan and one in Langford) were closed; constituency staff is working remotely from home where constituents can reach them by phone at 1-866-609-9998 and by email. Alistair’s two Ottawa staffers are helping with constituency contact, also working remotely from home in the nation’s capital. Parliament Hill is closed except for a skeleton crew right now.
Today MacGregor was keen about the rollout of the NDP’s ideas about what the federal government should be doing to help Canadians during COVID-19.
“There is uncertainty and anxiety,” MacGregor told West Shore Voice News yesterday by phone.
“It’s unprecedented … there’s not ever been an occurrence like this during peace time. They have effectively given orders for businesses to shutter their operations and people to stay home. The social distancing required during this pandemic has brought many features of our economy to a grinding halt,” said the Member of Parliament who lives in the Cowichan Valley but whose riding also includes Duncan and Langford.
The NDP is asking the government to move immediately on eight measures that they feel will make the difference between making it through or not for most Canadians. The list includes attention to detail about the everyday lives of individual Canadians and small businesses:
- Send immediate and direct assistance to all Canadians with a cheque for $2,000 per adult with an additional $250 per child.
- Increase the wage subsidy going to small and medium-sized businesses to above 75%.
- Fix EI by waiving the waiting period, decreasing the threshold of working hours to qualify and removing the requirement to be “willing and able to work”.
- Help our healthcare system with the resources it needs by using federal powers to spur the production of medical supplies and equipment and recognizing the credentials of health care workers trained outside of Canada, so they can help.
- Work with all levels of government to put a moratorium on rent, mortgage and utility payments.
- Make banks waive interest fees and charges on credit cards, bank loans, lines of credit and mortgages for at least the next two payments cycles.
- Provide a clear plan for delivering the necessary supplies and equipment to Indigenous communities.
- Tie any help given to corporations to job and wage protection – the help must not go to CEO bonuses, stock buy-backs, etc.
“It will be at least five weeks to be self-isolated and social-distancing during the pandemic,” says MacGregor. He hopes all the appropriate measures are in place to help people weather the storm. “By the end of April we’ll have a better idea of how social isolation and physical distancing has worked — if the infection rate has significantly plateaued.”
“The other concern is that if we start relaxing the self isolation and social distancing, the disease could make a comeback. I trust our medical health officials to make the call. It’s a rapidly evolving situation, from week to week different information comes out,” says MacGregor.
Other than the emergency session held March 24 (spilling into March 25), Parliament has been officially suspended to April 20. “It remains to be seen if we can honour that (as a date to return to Ottawa).
“MPs are vectors – we travel to every region in Canada and then come back to Ottawa. The last thing we want as elected officials is to be responsible for spreading the disease even farther than it has already gone,” said MacGregor. “We will listen to our public health officials and go with best advice we have at that time.”
MacGregor has noticed some significant things in his riding in this South Vancouver Island area since the COVID-19 pandemic has really dug in:
- The effects on small businesses and workers in precarious and part time work. That’s a definite change over the past week – the level of uncertainty and anxiety among the people in that sector is high.
- There is far less aircraft and fewer cars on the road. People are taking self-isolation and social-distancing to heart.
- People are really trying to make use of social media and other powerful communication tools to maintain that sense of community while social-distancing, to stay in touch with each other.