[someone123]

We'll probably be worse off than we otherwise would have been but it's still so early to make predictions. The debt racked up so far is not large enough to have a material impact on long-term budgeting in Canada.

I think the best-case plausible scenario is that the economy comes roaring back. Maybe there's even some good reallocation of labour and capital that shakes things up and leads to a better equilibrium for a while (e.g. more businesses adopt working from home and it's good for people, more people shop online and it's more productive).

Then there's a worst-case that's some kind of long depression bleeds into some other economic calamity (covid round 2 starts killing a lot more people, debt crisis from governments defaulting) and drags on for years.

As of right now if I were forced to bet I'd bet on the best case scenario. While it's tragic that there has been death and illness, we haven't truly faced large scale destruction in Canada, and the risks imposed by covid (particularly for the most productive working-age people) are not large enough to justify mothballing the economy indefinitely. Some very prominent businesses (e.g. cruise industry) may die but they make up a comparatively small part of the economy while a bunch of boring behind-the-scenes companies carry on.