The most essential workers
are the most underpaid.That's why we need to re-open the schools.
Canada can be best described as a largely post-industrial society. Most manufacturing of goods consumed by Canadians is done off-shore, where wages are low, and worker safety and environmental laws are lax or unenforced. Hence major interruptions in the supply chain, even of PPEs, when the COVID 19 pandemic hit. Some Canadians are still employed in the resource extraction sector –hewers of wood and drawers of water-- but these jobs too, especially in the oil industry, are becoming scarcer. Falling oil prices had already taken a huge toll even before the pandemic struck, and things went from bad to worse when the pandemic caused a huge global drop in demand. There's still some farming going on, but, as in the meat-packing industry, much of this work is done by low-wage, poorly housed, imported labour. These, along with the elderly, prisoners, and homeless are the most vulnerable populations in Canadian to COVID 19 infections.
Most Canadians –70 % or so--are employed in the service sector: stores, restaurants, fast-food outlets, care-givers, cashiers in stores, hair salons, etc. These are usually the lowest paid, but essential workers, and they too are quite vulnerable because of their constant proximity to and interaction with the general public. They are Canadians in the service of other Canadians, selling them imported consumer goods, changing the sheets in hotels, cutting their fingernails, etc. Most of them are women. They may earn enough to purchase a few consumer goods and pay the rent, but things like paying for daycare –especially for single parents-- is totally out of the question. Yet the economy cannot possibly function without the contributions of this huge sector of the economy. Hence the push to re-open schools, despite inadequate measures to keep them safe.
Providing adequate safe-guards to make schools safe –smaller class sizes, more school buses and drivers, more teachers and classrooms, more testing, etc.-- would cost even more than publicly funded child care, so that's not going to happen. But economic recovery depends on these parents returning to work, and the only way that's going to happen is if the schools re-open, safe or not.
Oh! And children need an education, so who could possibly argue with that?
