As the son of a mom who works in lib government, let me weigh in. Cerb doesn’t go far enough. It only covers people who got laid off or had job issues due to covid. I remember early in the pandemic I was visiting, sitting at her table doing some studying and she had a constituent call. He was low income and had chronic pain in his mouth to the point where he couldn't eat. He couldn’t get cerb because he was on disability or something, he hadn’t lost his job due to covid, he was unemployed before that for a different reason. No dentist could do the surgery at that point cause everything was closed. The only ones that could do it cost far too much, but the guy couldn’t pick up on enough benefits to cover it. It was kind of haunting hearing my mom going through the numbers on what programs there were that he had already tried but couldn’t do. We absolutely need a stronger system than this and a more inclusive medical system. Yes, it’s better than the US, but it still isn’t enough.
Like the article mentioned, I hope the CERB response will lead to an actual implementation of a universal income. Or maybe more likely it'll get pointed at as a justification for more bullshit austerity for the next decade
If the canadian body politic learns from this and also take some radical action to unfuck housing in toronto and vancouver I might actually move back