The World and Canada in 2021.

 

The World and Canada in 2021.

by Maj (ret'd) CORNELIU E. CHISU, CD, PMSC,
FEC, CET, P. Eng.
Former Member of Parliament Pickering-Scarborough East

After enduring the trials of a gruelling year blighted by the Corona virus and our political leaders' bumbling attempts to handle the pandemic, can we expect to glimpse the light at the end of the tunnel in 2021? This is the question.

The World, including Canada finished 2020 by gasping for some kind of relief. Squeezed between the worst pandemic in a century and the potential administration of various vaccines, there is hope that we will succeed in getting out of this nightmare.

The year 2021 will be decisive in giving us the highly desired optimism for finding the road that will get us back to a new palatable normal. By now most countries' economies are in shatters. Such an insecure global outlook hardly makes for a secure context for economies to make a quick recovery.

However, let us hope that the strongest economies, including Canada's, will continue to show a resilience in the midst of the pandemic as government relief programs continue to offer support. How long this support will be in place is hard to predict.  On the positive side, financial markets have done better than expected despite the earlier doom and gloom pronouncements prophesied nine months previous.

Certainly, some things in the present world have clearly changed, and perhaps permanently.  The global job market has been ravaged by COVID, especially in the service and tourism sectors, where typically low wages left millions vulnerable and highly dependent on government stimulus measures to survive.  The prospects in this area are not very optimistic at present, with the pandemic entering a new and more dangerous phase.  The chances of small to medium sized businesses having to close their operations for good are strong and worrisome, as this eventuality will create unprecedented hardship for many people and their families.

The future doesn't look good, as the World Bank contends that Covid-19's wide-ranging effects will result in an increase of the poorest by up to 150 million people. The success of the past 30 years, where the numbers of the world's poorest declined from 36% of the 1990 global population to 8% just prior to the pandemic, has now been devastated.  This is a tragedy of significant proportions.  
But we are still optimistic that the Western economies including Canada's are capable of rebounding despite a new wave of the pandemic devastating much of their productivity, just as we looked for recovery to commence. Unlike the Great Recession of 2008-2009, when economists felt they understood the ground and how to rebuild, our current predicament has left these same financial experts scratching their heads.  They are aware the unemployment numbers will remain stagnant for perhaps decades.

Our present economic challenges are now on a global scale and the reverberating effects will remain unknown for years to come.  In order to contain the virus, actions needed to be taken that actually hurt global economies, rather than invigorating them.  Health concerns paralyzed us and have transcended everything as civilization seeks to survive something it can't even see.

Our recovery will take much more than we actually think. Just when trust and cohesion are required at the societal level to wade through this calamity, increasing numbers of citizens and businesses are deeply concerned at the COVID restrictions designed to save lives, that are, ironically, killing their livelihood.  The wobbling decisions made by governments both provincially and federally add ferment to a badly deteriorating situation. The societal unease and fragmentation arising from this uncertainty could become an element for endless partisan divisions in upcoming provincial and federal elections.

There will also be positive outcomes arising from the pandemic, such as an increased respect for our healthcare providers, even though the healthcare system is badly in need of modernization. Health science and the research accompanying it will be more respected.

There will certainly be positive global changes on the societal scene and new trade opportunities with Canada's traditional allies in America and Europe. Hopefully we will have a new vision on the ability to focus on Main Street, not only on Wall Street. Canadians will look forward to effective and fair societal changes in line with their values and traditions and a more collaborative form of politics at all levels of government.

This will be our life in 2021 - more uncertainty, slow economic recovery, the rising divisions within the temporary hegemony caused by COVID, increased tensions with Russia and China, and the ever-present politically motivated climate change challenge.

Will Canada remain a reasonable and reasoning country?  The answer to that question is within our control, although much of our fate in 2021 will be determined elsewhere, and how it will unfold and how these external forces will influence us remains to be seen.

Welcome to 2021! Happy New Year!