Think twice, act once

My late father-in-law, an architect, frequently used the aphorism "measure twice, cut once". It's certainly good advice if you are a carpenter or a builder, but it has much broader applicability. It's advice that seems to have been lost on politicians as they struggle to come up with policy responses to the COVID pandemic. Here are a couple of local examples. 

The Premier of the Province of Ontario, Doug Ford, was initially judged by the media and public to be doing a good job of handling the pandemic. He was empathetic -- which not even his closest friends would have predicted -- and seemed willing to listen to experts.  No longer: as the second wave of the pandemic has unfolded, Ford has been unable to strike the right balance between keeping people safe and keeping as much of the economy open as possible. Given that he is a businessman, it is perhaps not surprising that the interests of the business community have seemed  to be top of mind for him.

Ford, flanked by a rotating cast of members of his Cabinet, holds a news conference just about every day. And just about every day, he has a new announcement to make -- tighter restrictions here, looser restrictions there, seemingly driven by the news cycle of the past 24-hours rather than by any overriding strategy. The latest set of Province-wide rules, establishing five colour-coded regimens based on the severity of the outbreak in each location, was introduced barely two weeks ago, yet already the Province has tabled fresh guidelines for household gatherings during the Christmas season.  It's no wonder people are confused, no wonder that willingness to comply with the restrictions is waning.  

Now we hear that Ford is looking to micro-manage the food delivery business, which has seen booming business in the past few months.  Responding to complaints from restaurants, he wants to limit delivery fees to 15 percent of the value of the food order. Now I hold no brief whatsoever for Uber Eats and the like, but I can do the math. Most of the restaurants in my small town are about five miles from my front door. If I order a couple of burgers and some fries for say $20, the delivery service will be allowed to charge me just $3 for a delivery run that is likely to take them at least twenty minutes. For comparison, the minimum wage in the Province is currently $14.25. If Ford's idea is put into practice, it will be a whole lot harder to get food delivered during the winter months. 

There's folly at the local level too. The region of Peel, west of Toronto, is currently under strict lockdown rules because of the high incidence of COVID.  Bonnie Crombie is the Mayor of Mississauga, the largest city in Peel. The lockdown rules there mean that small non-food businesses can only offer curbside delivery, whereas big box stores like Costco or Walmart are allowed to offer in-store shopping for food and non-food items alike.

Small business owners are upset and Ms Crombie wants to help. Her proposal is to ban the big box stores from selling non-food items for as long as the lockdown remains in place. That may or may not help the little guys -- we don't know how much appetite there will be for curbside pickup when the curb is covered by a foot of snow -- but there is one very predictable consequence. A whole lot of minimum wage workers at Costco and Walmart will find themselves out of a job just before Christmas. That's not what Ms Crombie wants, but it's what her city may well get if she doesn't take time to think again.