Are things becoming normal?

• Eid Mubarak to anyone celebrating who is reading this 🙂 (why are you reading this and not celebrating).
• Looking ahead on Wednesday – SpaceX will be launching people into space for the first time.
• The Canadian Economic Association AGM/Conference would have been this weekend but was obviously cancelled but they doled out their awards for some of the best research in the past year, a keynote presentation and other info. This twitter thread by Stephen Tapp summarizes.
  • Interesting research included a study on equalization payments and the carbon tax; examining expenditures of cash based child benefits.
• Abacus Polling did some interesting research on “What Kind of Recovery?” do Canadians want from COVID-19. The polling was commissioned by the Broadbent Institute and has some telling insights.

• This question for me is very interesting as the type of recovery is very important. Digging into these numbers
  • 75% of Canadians strong support or support a wealth tax on the rich to pay for recovery.
    • 69% of conservative voters support it
    • 83% over the age of 60 support it.
• Speaking of polling, I received a call from a pollster this week asking about my federal voting intentions and handling of COVID-19… In a minority parliament an election is never far away.
• An interesting piece on re-starting the economy.

• Good news is that deaths from COVID locally have plateaued. The bad news is that case counts (much like the province) seems to increase this past week.
  • What we could be seeing is impacts of Mothers Day weekend just beginning to creep into the data.
  • It will be interesting to see how the health unit reports the “Random Testing” that will be begin on Monday. Given testing lags, adding a large N to the testing pools may create additional delays in getting results back.
    • The other consideration is will the broader public testing create false confidence in individuals resulting in less adherence to social distancing – Testing negative at X point in time does not predict your future.
  • The biggest barrier to Windsor-Essex in my opinion is the lack of a local testing lab. I have no idea what it would take to get one up and running, but it is certainly something to explore.
• Man’s war vs Squirrels
• We are beginning to see the impacts of a health crisis that evolved into an economic crisis, morph into a potential broader credit crisis.

• I have found myself enjoying the History Matters Youtube Channel which provide fun videos on history questions like “Why Does Belgium Exist?” and “How did elections in the Soviet Union Work?”.
• City Council meeting on Monday at 1pm has a number of interesting items:
  • Item 8.21 – Quicken Loans and Rock Tech are entering a parking agreement with the City of Windsor to use the Goyeau and Pelissier St. parking garages for a total of 65 spots.
  • Item 8.26 – Bike and Scooter share for the City of Windsor is going to RFP.
    • Requesting at least 450 bikes for year around operations and daily re-balancing of the system. To me that seems like a steep threshold but I have no idea.
    • At least 450 Scooters
    • It is interesting that the following data will need to be shared: The City of Windsor will be given access to the fleet management portal and have access to real-time data feeds (GBFS). Monthly reports of number of devices, km travelled, breakdown by age/gender. Also, month trip records for each trip should be provided (including route) including GIS data.
  • Item 8.27 – City wide temporary traffic calming means are referred to 2021 budget…. Where they can be quietly put down.
  • Other items include PWC Audit presentations, finalizing the tax rate, setting of BIA Budgets, a number of pot store applications and social distancing lane closures on Wyandotte Street.
• This article was shared by Janice Kaffer on social media on what CEO could be/should be thinking about during the startup of their organizations in a new world.
• The Past that We Can Never Return To was an interesting and poignant