Years ago, I can't remember how many, I sat in a women's leadership conference listening to Sherry Cooper, then Chief Economist and Executive VP of BMO Financial warn of an impending pandemic. At BMO, Dr. Cooper was responsible for global and economic forecasting and country and industry risk analysis. I thought at the time, how odd for a person not connected to the medical community to take on such a topic with such passion. I remember rolling my eyes more than once at what I thought was hyperbole. I have since changed my tune. As COVID-19 spreads across the world, governments are responding by closing borders, imposing restrictions on travel and quarantining the sick. Talk has turned away from issues of health and disease and more toward how to survive the economic devastation that is sure to follow.

I've decided to self-isolate myself as much as possible. For a homebody like me, that's not too hard. I'm in the older age category, a risk, and I'm not a gambler. Several years ago, I had a bout of pneumonia. I'm not afraid to die, it's the lead up that worries me. Death is deliverance when you're that sick. I don't want to get that sick again, if I can help it. That was the lesson of my life. I can stay home because I'm retired and there's nowhere I have to be. If anyone wants to see me, it can wait. My pension is a form of guaranteed income. It's not enough to party on or travel the world, but it allows me to stay home when I don't want to go out. That's priceless. I have long supported a guaranteed basic income for everyone. This is one reason why. I bet we all wish we had one right now.

The Italian government came out with a bold and brave policy in response to the wave of devastation that is crashing over their country. The government negotiated with the banks to put a moratorium on mortgage and debt payments. It's not as good as a guaranteed income, but it helps. It'll just shift the debt burden to later, the debt doesn't go away, but at least interest won't pile up and people can focus on their health rather than their economics. I would like to think our banks, with their multibillion-dollar profits, would show some humanity in dealing with their customers when the time comes. It doesn't have to be the economic devastation it could be if the goal is co-operation rather than competition.

Justin Trudeau announced a $1-billion package of spending to help address the COVID-19 challenge. Important to this discussion are the changes to EI that removes the one-week waiting period. If anything is a signal that EI needs revamping it's this pandemic. We need a more robust EI that manages to cover sick days for people who don't have that benefit. We should know by now that going to work when someone is sick is the worst thing they can do for the health of those around them, as well as for productivity of the company. EI needs to cover all sick days for workers. The decision should never be to die at our jobs. That's hyperbole, but you catch my drift. We need to get over our antiquated thinking that workers are lazy and dishonest when they're ill and can't come to work. Currently left out of the equation are those people who don't pay into EI for their benefits, such as self-employed people or those who work on contract, the "gig" economy. Again, see guaranteed income as an economic solution for these people too.

As part of their ideological purification of provincial policy, the Progressive Conservative government eliminated sick days in 2018, a regressive move that served no useful purpose except to push ideology. Currently, Ontario workers can take off three days of unpaid leave which is wholly inadequate to the COVID-19 situation. The Ontario Federation of Labour and the Decent Work and Health Network are fighting for seven days of paid sick leave and 10 days of paid emergency leave. That would do the trick keeping people quarantined with COVID-19.

I've been watching this disease catch hold in China since early January. My first question of the quarantine process in China was: how are people going to buy food? How do they pay their rent if they don't work? People need income security in order to be good community citizens. We need policies in place to help them. This is the lesson we need to take away from our early days of COVID-19.