Montreal Retail Setback Shows Canada’s Rocky Path to Reopening

(Bloomberg) -- Quebec has been forced to dial back plans for reopening its economy, just six days after the premier announced them.

The high number of Covid-19 cases in Montreal hospitals caused Premier Francois Legault to postpone store openings by a week in the province's largest city. Last week he said the city's retail outlets would be allowed to open May 11; the new date is May 18.

Next door in Ontario, Premier Doug Ford indicated he would continue to take a slow approach to restarting Canada's biggest provincial economy. Ford said the province is getting close to allowing more retail stores to open for curbside pickup -- as long as virus cases continue to decline. He didn't give a date.

Getting back to business is proving to be no easy task, even as the Canadian economy continues to buckle under the strain of shutdowns. The two neighboring provinces account for more than 55% of the country's GDP but have been the epicenter of its virus cases, with 93% of Canada's deaths as of Monday.

Hospitals ‘Very Tight'

The next dilemma for Quebec is whether to stick to a planned May 19 reopening of primary schools and daycares in Montreal. “It's out of the question to open and then add to the number of people who could end up in our hospitals, while we have very little room for maneuver in Montreal,” Legault told reporters in Quebec City.

Most of Quebec's 1,772 hospitalized Covid-19 patients are in the Montreal region, which has enough beds for now but where the situation is “very tight,” he said.

Quebec's death tally rose to 2,280 Monday, with 32,623 confirmed cases. Deaths now register 267 per million people, higher than the U.S. at 208 and more than double Canada at 101, according to Quebec's public health institute. The problem for both Quebec and Ontario has been severe outbreaks at long-term care facilities, which account for about 80% of fatalities.

Meanwhile, fresh evidence arrived Monday that the economic strain continues to build. Figures showed companies took out loans at the fastest pace since 1981 in March. Employment data due on Friday may show the economy lost more than 4 million jobs in April, a fifth of the labor force and by far the largest decline on record, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists.

Still, stores outside of Montreal were allowed to reopen today with manufacturing and construction still planned to restart everywhere in Quebec on May 11.

In Ontario, only a handful of businesses were allowed to get back to business on Monday, including garden centers offering curbside pickup, automatic car washes and a few more essential construction projects. Ontario has 17,923 cases and 1,300 deaths.

However, the province is getting close to relaxing restrictions on retail if infection numbers continue to improve, Ford said.

“It's inevitable. The numbers keep going down. We're going to get the economy going based on health and science,” he said at a news conference in Toronto. “Just because we open up these stores it doesn't mean it's a free-for-all.”