Canadian Government Executive - Volume 26 - Issue 03

12 / Canadian Government Executive // May/June 2020 GOVERNMENT By Grant Duckworth During a National Crisis Canada continues to struggle with the devastating consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak that caused economic activity to drop by nine per cent in March 2020 and which destroyed more than 1 million jobs. The country is probably in a deep economic recession and forecasts for the coming months are dire. T he COVID-19 epidemiologi- cal threat has revealed large gaps in Canada’s pandemic preparedness and exposed the vulnerability of our ur- ban population centres. In stark contrast to the proactive measures of countries like Taiwan, South Korea, and Vietnam, Can- ada does not appear to have built on the lessons learned from previous pandemic outbreaks. Additionally, it seems this crisis was aggravated by poor decision-making among senior decision-makers who may have overlooked domestic threat intelli- gence. Every aspect of Canadian city life has been negatively affected by the belated response measures introduced to contain the domestic spread of the coronavirus. In several respects, this tragedy will be re- membered as an historic policy failure. While Canada’s virus suppression mea- sures have thus far managed to avoid a worst-case scenario, there are many unanswered questions. One of the most perplexing policy questions is why cities have not figured more prominently in the nation’s emergency response plans given that more than 80 per cent of Canada’s population is urban. A public inquiry is inevitable given the magnitude of the CO- VID-19 pandemic and the massive scale of the all-government response required. Right now, the principal challenge for pol- icymakers is figuring out how to mitigate the risk of a future pandemic outbreak without precipitating a prolonged eco- nomic recovery process. Adapting to the New Normal The COVID-19 pandemic threat compels a critical examination of the complex dynamics set in motion in recent weeks. Adapting to these fluid dynamics and making sense of the lasting policy impli- cations will stretch the capabilities and ingenuity of Canada’s public institutions. Many of our legacy institutions and risk management protocols were designed for a more predictable era when the negative impact of strategic surprise (apart from a nuclear weapons attack) was less con- sequential. Today, global security threats (ie., oil price shocks, cyberattacks, money laundering, irregular migration flows) can emerge and converge with little or no advanced warning. The imperative of in- terdisciplinary knowledge sharing and ef- fective policy coordination will intensify as the international threat environment grows more unpredictable in the coming months and years. Many large cities both within Canada and around the world are having to play a greater leadership role in managing a diverse range of complex policy issues, City-Level Adaptation including those not traditionally defined as “urban.” The COVID-19 epidemiologi- cal threat has blurred those jurisdictional boundaries even further. An intensification of human insecurity (ie., opioid addiction, mental health issues, structural poverty) will be particularly challenging for fiscally- challenged mayors in Canada who may also be struggling with the second and third-order effects of environmental disas- ters like flooding, droughts, heatwaves, and air pollution caused by forest fires. While urban leaders generally sup- port the pandemic response measures (ie., strict physical distancing, population mobility restrictions, border controls, and non-essential business closures), many have been forced to declare a state of emergency. In recent weeks, some Cana- dian municipalities have experienced fi- nancial difficulty while ensuring essential service delivery to frontline workers and vulnerable population groups. To manage the unanticipated costs of managing the COVID-19 emergency measures, the Fed- eration of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) is seeking $10-15 billion in federal assis- tance to cities over the next six months. Targeted funding for municipalities may also be crucial for leading Canada through various stages of the recovery process. Across the country, governments (ie., BC Economic Recovery Task Force, Calgary Scaling-up