September is shaping up to prove T.S. Eliot wrong: April won’t emerge as the cruelest month after all.
These past six months here in Canada have seemed a bit like the phoney war of late 1939, as the world waited for the inevitable blitzkrieg to be unleashed.
Yes, of course we’ve endured the ravages of COVID-19, though if you were fortunate to be under the age of 60 and not have any serious medical condition, then this virus likely proved much less than fatal, even if you were unlucky enough to actually catch the darn thing.
Still, it has hardly been all fun and giggles here in Alberta, with much of the province shutdown during the early throes of this pandemic and what was left of the economy barely surviving on bucketfuls of borrowed money.
But at least we were spared the true cost of this unprecedented fight against nature itself, thanks to all of that government cash, sprayed down upon us with all the might and abandon of hailstones courtesy of those violent prairie thunderstorms.
Most of this governmental largesse came courtesy of our ethically challenged prime minister, who must imagine we’re all fourth cousins twice removed, given the cash he’s been splashing our way. Hey, he does enjoy looking after family members.
Anyhow, those $2,000 a month federal checks have kept many wolves from many doors in an economy that’s been temporarily all but obliterated.
And that was just one program: heck there was free money for everyone and everything it seemed; at least back in early May when Trudeau would emerge, each morning, with his increasingly shaggy mane, suitably not combed for the assembled cameras, to act like a True North Santa Claus on steroids.
Meanwhile our own province decided to kick in big bucks as well, merrily deep-sixing that old campaign promise to balance the budget. Heck, it wasn’t going to be balanced during this current UCP mandate anyhow, given the energy patch’s woes even prior to the COVID shutdown. So why not toss another $20-billion into that big borrowed pot?
On top of that we had a host of payment deferral programs, involving everything from federal taxes to mortgages to civic rates. Hey, nobody wanted your money back in March.
But they do in September. Yes, that six months of grace rapidly draws to its close at the same time even the federal Grits discover there’s a limit to how many billions the Bank of Canada can back by buying government bonds - at least without cratering the loonie and letting the inflation genie out of its bottle.
The phoney war is on life support and the real cost of those measures imposed to fight this virus will begin to be felt.
Yes, we are starting to recall those days long ago, when that final week of summer holidays arrived with a seeming thud. Yep: school on Monday, our mother would announce, with a hint of relief and comeuppance in her otherwise loving voice.
Seriously, we are soon to discover just how brutal this pandemic and the measures taken to curtail it have been.
Of course there’ll be other effects apart from the financial. The mental health of our province is under siege, for heavens sake. Hey, does anyone feel jolly?
That ledger will be tallied in years to come. It will likely be ugly. But today we face a simpler and urgent threat: to our very livelihoods. The phoney war was proven to be just that. Just as wearing a mask will soon prove the least of our collective concerns.
Band-Aids, by design, aren’t permanent. Cruel September comes.
Chris Nelson is a syndicated columnist.
