As anticipated, the government unveiled their reforms to the wage subsidy programme yesterday, which included more of a sliding scale for revenue drops and how much support businesses could get before the subsidy phases out, which helps ensure that businesses don’t reach a “cliff” in terms of restart growth only to have that support ripped away at an arbitrary level. This has the business community both applauding the government for responding to concerns, while also moaning that it’s so complicated now, which has some economists rolling their eyes. It also looks like the government that insisted they don’t like abusive omnibus bills is rolling the legislation for these changes in with the new-and-improved disability payments, as well as the justice timelines legislation, so that’s something to look forward to when the House comes back next week for a single day.

A short thread on the modifications CEWS reforms.

Yes, it's more complicated than, and that's a good thing. The 30% cliff was simple, so any replacement is going to be more complicated.

The people who run small business are smart enough to figure it out. 1/

— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) July 17, 2020

Similarly, if things go pear-shaped, then more firms will automatically qualify and the subsidies will increase automatically, without having to recall Parliament and pass yet another set of changes. 3/3

— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) July 17, 2020

Meanwhile, the Ethics committee met yesterday to start their own look into the WE Imbroglio (conveniently with many of the same faces who subbed in at the Finance Committee during its hearing), to which the Liberals on the committee, knowing that they don’t have sufficient votes, decided instead to filibuster things, which is not a good look. Their arguments that this undermines the work of the Ethics Commissioner ignores that his role is supposed to support them, not the other way around; the fact that they were blocking a motion to demand the receipts from Margaret and Alexandre Trudeau’s public speaking events from their Speaker’s Bureau going back to 2008 is a little more suspect, and I haven’t heard a reasonable rationale for it or how it relates to the proposed study on how well the conflict-of-interest regime is working. Suffice to say, this isn’t a good look for the Liberals, and there are better ways of beating the Conservatives at their own game than playing into their hands. It’s too bad that they can’t seem to grasp that.

Good reads:

• Here’s an interview with Chrystia Freeland on the WE Imbroglio and the Safe Restart Plan agreement with the provinces.
• The government is reviewing the decision by Global Affairs to award a Chinese state-owned company with the contract to provide X-ray machines for embassies.
• CBC delves into the state of COVID-19 in the correctional system, and how prevalent it has been among inmates.
• This week’s Federal Court decision on CSIS’ breaching its duties has the chair of the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency looking at doing a review of CSIS.
• Statistics Canada says they are planning for a “contactless” census in May if the pandemic is still a concern (which it very well may be).
• The Supreme Court agreed that the murder charges against a Sri Lankan man (who has since been deported) should have been dropped after unreasonable trial delays.
• MPs on the Conflict of Interest, Ethics and Privacy Committee say that they need more evidence of misused personal information before TikTok would be banned.
• Heather Scoffield explores the recent survey data on how minority-run businesses are dealing with the pandemic and the accompanying economic shock.
• My weekend column wonders if the PMO needs a Compliance Officer or “Red Team” in order to avoid the blind spots they keep stumbling on.

Odds and ends:

Colby Cosh suggests that we boycott the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, because of China’s human rights abuses, and because they can use “health concerns” to rig the games.

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