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The Liberal governmentreached a tentative agreementwith the NDP and the Bloc Qubcois about the conditions under which Parliament could reconvene this week but the Conservatives' rejection of thatdeal could lead to MPsreturning to the Commons on Monday.

"One sitting each week is unacceptable, even if it is eventually supplemented by a virtual sitting for a handful of additional MPs," Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said during a news conference on Sunday. "Physical distancing means staying two metres apart, not staying away from Parliament."

The Official Opposition's insistence on meeting in the House of Commons three times a weekmeans negotiations between federal parties remain up in the air on the eve ofApril 20 thedateMPs were intendedto reconvene when Parliament adjourned five weeks ago.

The Liberal Party told its staff Sunday that if no deal is reached between all four parties before late Monday morning, the party will attend theHouse sittingin reduced numbersand with minimal staff present.

That would scenario would see the NDP and the Bloc each sending three MPs to the House. B.C. MP Paul Manly would attend on behalf of the Greens.

Scheer said the Conservatives are sending the same number of MPs as the last emergency sitting. The Liberals told CBC News they would do the same.

Scheer is scheduled to speak about Parliament's returnat 10:15 a.m. ET on Monday.

Earlier Sunday, Liberal House Leader Pablo Rodriguez shared on Twitter details of theagreement struck with the NDP and the Bloc, which includes a combination of in-person and virtual sittings each week.

"Under the agreement, the House of Commons will hold one day of in-person meetings per week, with a small group of MPsin the chamber. As well, there will be additional virtual sessions with a small number of MPs from across the country," the statement reads.

Rodriguez said the proposal will give MPs the same amount of time toquestion ministers and the prime minister as they would normally have under regular parliamentary circumstances.

During his Sunday COVID-19 briefing earlier in the day, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau criticizedthe Conservatives for their repeated calls to convene in the Commons' chamber.

"I'm looking forward to taking questions from opposition parties, but it has to be done in a responsible way and right now, the Conservatives are not taking a responsible approach," Trudeau said.

Late Saturday, CBC News learned that the Trudeau government had offered to compress five days of question period into two days a week.

The arrangement would have involvedvirtual sittings every Tuesday, with MPs across the country taking part in the equivalent of two question periods. On Wednesdays, a smaller number of MPs and the prime minister would sit in the House of Commons and face the equivalent of three question periods.

In contrast, the tentative deal between the Liberals, NDP and Blocstarts with a proposal for asingle in-person sitting beginning this Wednesday.

By next week, one session would be held virtually on Tuesday, followed by a sitting in the chamber on Wednesday.

The following week and all subsequent weeks would see MPs meeting virtually on Tuesdays and Thursdays and in-person on Wednesdays, for a total of three sessions per week.

The arrangement is similar to the NDP's initial recommendation, which called for the House to meet in-person once a week on top of two virtual sessions that would involve hearing from a larger contingent of MPs.

"I think the reality is the more we are meeting in person, the more that increasesthe risk. That's why the NDP proposal, I think, makes a lot of sense," said NDP House Leader Peter Julian.

Trudeau said during his morning remarksthat convening all 338 MPsand their staff in the House of Commons would amount to an "irresponsible" move due to public health guidance urging Canadians to practisephysical distancing.

Scheer fired back at the prime minister for suggesting that any parties were advocating for afull roster of MPs to return to the Commons on Monday.

"That is completely false, and it's disingenuous to try to put that forward before Canadians as if that was a real scenario," Scheer said.

The outgoing leader also said that his proposal which includes two hours per session to question ministers is in line with theprotocols legislators followed during the government's last two emergency sittings.

"Thirty-twoMPs attended representing all parties," Scheer said. "This allowed us to follow public health advice and still carry out our duties."

While the Green Party of Canada does not hold recognized party status, former leader Elizabeth May saidshesupports sitting in the Commons only if there is a compelling reason to do so, such as passing legislation.

Commenting on Scheer's insistence thatvirtual sittings do not allow for proper parliamentary scrutiny and oversight, May said she believes remote platforms do just fine when it comes to holding politicians to account.

"We've already seen standing committees meet by Zoom," May said in an interview with CBC News. "I've seen [Conservative MP] Pierre Poilievre go at Bill Morneau. It wasn't any different in quality than question period. His opportunities were exactly the same."

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Conservatives reject Liberals' tentative agreement with NDP, Bloc on Parliament's return - CBC.ca

The media are outraged that President Trump is talking about re-opening the country, following their previous position that he sure was taking his sweet time at opening up the country.

Fortunately, the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions death forecasts from the Wuhan coronavirus have shrunk from 1.7 million Americans in mid-March; to 100,000 to 200,000 two weeks ago, provided there were massive suppression efforts; to most recently 60,000.

Every week, it seems, were another two weeks away from the apex.

According to a model recently published in The New York Times, if Trump had issued social distancing guidelines just two weeks earlier on March 2, rather than March 16 instead of 60,000 Americans dying from the Chinese coronavirus (projected!), only 6,000 would have died.

If thats what a two-week quarantine would have done, then how about a four-week quarantine?

By the end of the month, 90% of the country will have been shut down, quarantined and socially distancing for FOUR WEEKS. A majority of Americans have already been under these self-isolation rules for three weeks. (And most of the rest live in rural communities 16 miles from one another.)

Two weeks is the magic number. Test positive for the Wuhan: self-quarantine for two weeks. Come into contact with someone who has it: self-quarantine for two weeks. Traveling from New York, New Jersey or Connecticut: self-quarantine for two weeks.

With cold and flu viruses, people develop symptoms after just five days. But to be extra safe, were assuming the Wuhan virus can be transmitted for a full two weeks after contact.

After two weeks, youre either sick or the infection has passed through you with no symptoms.

Again: Its been three. Does social distancing work or doesnt it?

After four weeks of self-isolation, wont 90% of the country be Wuhan-free? Or are we in a sci-fi movie with a virus that can live forever without a host?

For the tiny percentage of the country not in self-isolation for the past three weeks, either because they are essential workers or because they are screw-offs, lets add them to the vulnerable list. Everyone take special precautions around doctors, nurses, grocery store employees and people who dont follow orders just as we do around the elderly and immunocompromised.

By May 1, even most of the slackers will have worked through the Wuhan. There havent been any large gatherings for them to attend, and almost everyone else has been staying 6 feet away from them. Theyve had a month to infect one another and either live or die.

In any event, unless all the claims about social distancing are nonsense, then a ONE-MONTH nationwide quarantine should have killed off the Wuhan in 90% of us, allowing a return to mostly normal life. (It goes without saying that Trumps travel bans will have to remain in place.)

I notice that the same people telling Americans they must remain at home indefinitely were indignant about closing bathhouses in response to the AIDS epidemic. Back then, the media and all gays except Randy Shilts said: How dare you ask us to shut down the bathhouses! Theyre part of gay culture. It would be like asking Catholics to stop visiting the Sistine Chapel!

But putting the entire country under stay-at-home orders? No problem.

Another liberal about-face since the AIDS era gives me an idea for how to re-open the country.

Liberals are furious with Trump for expressing optimism about the experimental drug hydroxychloroquine. When it came to AIDS, the gay communitys successful campaign to compel the FDA to allow compassionate use of unapproved drugs was a civil rights milestone on the order of Selma.

In a 1990 editorial, for example, The New York Times praised the educated and articulate gay spokesmen for bringing about changes in the traditional methods of testing drugs, adding that the new procedures were a compassionate response to AIDS sufferers.

By contrast, today the media are absolutely ghoulish in their hope for hydroxychloroquine to fail. The drug is approved for malaria patients, so its safe; its simply not approved specifically to treat the Chinese virus.

The reason for the medias hostility to hydroxychloroquine is obvious: Trump expressed enthusiasm for the treatment, so liberals are required to take the opposite position.

Its just like the Democrats recent infatuation with open borders. Until Trump, nearly every Democrat was for or claimed to be for border security, deporting criminal aliens and ending the anchor baby scam.

But as the Times Frank Bruni said, Democrats are defining themselves as antonyms to Trump. Why else, he wondered, would Democrats push policies like open borders, which wont go down well with many of the voters the party needs?

Perhaps we could use this liberal neurosis to our advantage. To re-open the country, we need Trump to come out against it.

Ann Coulter is the writer of 12 best-selling books, including In Trump We Trust.

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ANN COULTER: Liberalism, like the Wuhan virus, will never die - MDJOnline.com

Seasonal workers who have exhausted their regular EI benefits and whose seasonal work has been disrupted by the outbreak will also qualify.

The changes will be retroactive to March 15.

For those doing jobs deemed essential and making less than $2,500 a month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the federal government will top up their pay to encourage them to keep going into work during the health and economic crisis.

The payment will come through a transfer to the provinces to boost pay for front-line workers in hospitals, long-term care facilities and food services, a government backgrounder said.

Quebec and B.C. already implemented wage support for low-income essential workers.

He says the government is still weeks away from seriously considering loosening public health restrictions to reopen the domestic economy, something that will be done in phases with some regions and industries starting sooner than others.

The changes begin to address key concerns about who qualifies for the $2,000-a-month benefit, which was quickly put in place earlier this month to deal with the pandemics economic fallout.

In the last month, the national economy has contracted sharply as businesses have been ordered closed and Canadians told to stay home.

Preliminary data from Statistics Canada on Wednesday showed economic activity collapsed in March, suggesting the drop could be a record 9%.

Some six million people have applied for the help since the middle of March when businesses were ordered closed and workers to stay at home as a public health precaution.

Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough said it was too early to say how many people will apply for the help, or how much it will add to the cost of the $24-billion program.

She said much will rest on how many companies use an upcoming $73 billion wage subsidy program, which will cover up to 75% of employee salaries. The government is expecting companies to take advantage of the program to keep workers tied to an employer, meaning fewer of them would be in receipt of the CERB.

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Liberals ease access to emergency benefit, plan to top up wages - Investment Executive

What did Dr. Ambedkar want? The title of his most famous book makes it quite clear. TheAnnihilation of Caste. He was not a man who would mince his words.

Today as the nation remembers Dr. Ambedkar on his 129th birth anniversary, let us go beyond the token tributes and ask the really important questions. Who in contemporary India really stands against casteism? And who stands to gain the most when Hindus are divided on caste lines?

The answer is fairly obvious. In 2019, the opposition to Modi had no clear leader and no coherent agenda.The opposition had only one backup plan: casteism.

In Uttar Pradesh, the BSP and the SP had been poles apart for decades. But the arch rivals decided to fight the 2019 election in a Gathbandhan. Not only the two parties themselves, there was also intense pressure from within the liberal ecosystem for the two parties to come together. Nobody wanted to ask what two regional parties, with a total footprint of around 80 seats, had to offer in terms of a national agenda. Instead they added up the share in population of Yadavs and Dalits and decided that, along with Muslims, this was a winning formula.

In other words, Uttar Pradesh was presented with a clear choice. Modi vs caste.

Incidentally, the Congress stayed out of the alliance, seemingly for strategic reasons. It was expected that the Congress would put up upper caste candidates, thereby cutting into the BJPs votes. That way, the Congress could be more useful outside the alliance than inside it.

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Caste, caste, caste they had nothing else to offer.

Read: Why are Muslims, including the Tablighi Jamaat indulging in violence and defying lockdown: The answer lies in what Babasaheb Ambedkar said

In Maharashtra, Indias second most populous state, the strategy was quite similar. All through the 2014 to 2019 period, there were a number of attempts to provoke the Marathas against so called Brahmin rule, a direct reference to the caste of then Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. When that didnt work, the ultra left set up flash points like Koregaon-Bhima. Memories of a 200 year old war with Maratha soldiers on one side and Dalit soldiers on the other were used to provoke violence in January 2018.

In the caste conflict planned by the left, the winners would neither have been Marathas nor Dalits. The winners would have been Lutyens liberals who had been writhing in pain since losing the 2014 election. Just like the Battle of Koregaon in 1818, where the real winner was the British East India Company.

Like the British, the secular opposition bats on the side of a different caste group in each state. In Haryana, they are all about consolidating the Jats against a Chief Minister who happens to be a Khatri from Punjab. But doesnt the Congress also have huge stakes in Punjab? Who cares? Different states, different demographic combinations, but the same policy of Divide and Rule.

Read:10 things Ambedkar said that Indian secularists wouldnt bear to hear

It gets better. Sometimes, the caste strategy of the secular opposition can reverse itself between two successive elections in the same state. In PM Modis home state of Gujarat, the strategy was to stop the BJP using Hardik Patel. Incidentally, there are two subgroups among Patels : Kadva Patels and Leuva Patels. Now, Hardik happens to be a Kadva Patel. This means that the Congress 2017 Assembly election strategy was built around courting Kadva Patels, projecting Modi as pro-Leuva Patels. This is ironic, because the 2012 Assembly election strategy of Congress was all about courting Leuva Patels using the newly formed Gujarat Parivartan Party (GPP) and projecting Modi as pro-Kadva Patels.

This may seem funny, but it really isnt. Because this is the kind of pathetic politics that has kept India from becoming a superpower.

The creativity of casteist politics does not end here. In Karnataka, the Congress is up against B S Yediyurappa, who happens to be a Lingayat. So in 2014, the ruling Congress in Karnataka decided to bring a bill that would allow them to take over religious mutts, the obvious targets being the Lingayat mutts all across the state. But the bill was met with fierce protests and it fell through.

With Plan A failing, the Congress did a perfect U-turn on caste politics in Karnataka. Plan B was to stop fighting the Lingayats and instead project the party as their savior. Just before the 2018 Assembly elections, the party announced hastily that Lingayats were now a separate religion and thus entitled to benefits of being a minority!

When Plan B didnt deliver good enough results, the Congress came up with Plan C. Ally with the JDS and secure the votes of the Vokkaliga caste!

If only all this creativity had gone into nation building instead of playing one caste against another.

Read: Babasaheb Ambedkar: A scholar, a Nationalist and a visionary wrongly appropriated by the Left

I could go on and on about other states, how the secular opposition plays caste politics in Bihar, in Andhra Pradesh and so on. But you get the point.

Caste is a system of hereditary privilege. When we examine any system of privilege, we have to ask : who benefits?

With all its talk of social justice, the Congress got away with over six decades of submission to a single upper caste family from the Hindi heartland. Incidentally, the Congress did have a Dalit President for a while in Sitaram Kesri. Reportedly, he was locked in the toilet to make way for you know who. By the way, dont miss the symbolism of the toilet here.

Today, even the most loyal Congress supporter in the world would not bet on Rahul Gandhi, except perhaps to show off his janeudhari status. No! The politics of Indias secular opposition runs on casteism.

In 2019, India rejected the politics of caste. That was one step towards fulfilling Dr. Ambedkars dream.

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Ambedkar Jayanti: In 2019, casteism was the only hope of liberals to stop Modi - OpIndia

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These are tough times for liberal India. More so if you are cursed with a sense of aesthetics. The Narendra Modi government asked people to bang thalis in appreciation of the doctors and others fighting the coronavirus pandemic after ensuring in February that crucial medical equipment was not reserved for medical personnel and patients.

The Indian liberal edifice is falling to pieces. Instead of a free press, we now have a free-for-all press. The former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi accepted the Modi governments nomination to the Rajya Sabha soon after his retirement, when the memory of his judicial views in favour of the government in several critical matters was still fresh in peoples mind. The constitutional value of the separation of powers has seldom looked shakier.

The Indian economy lies in tatters. Communal riots last in Delhi for days but no heads roll. There is no opposition and no respite from the Modi governments overbearing manner. In this mix drops a virus, and it soon acquires a communal colour. Liberalism has hardly had it so bad in independent India.

In hiscolumnNational Interest in ThePrint, journalist Shekhar Gupta lists the reasons for people rushing to bang thethalis, and concludes by saying: Modi is winning. Why should he be complaining? Or bothering with usual suspects accusing him of infantilising his voters when they are happy being just that: Obedient infants?

I guess Shekhar Gupta is merely expressing his angst at the spectacle of people following instructions to bang thalis. However, over the past six years, this complaint has become common and more frequent among Indian liberals. Earlier, we were told that the ordinary voter was wise and took correct decisions at crucial moments of history such as in 1977, 1984 and 1991. Why this about-turn?

Is it an escape from further analysis? Nothing more needs to be said once the voter has been declared an infant? Or is it based on the liberal/capitalist assumption that responsible adults have free will, which is used to make rational choices, and so they would not have banged the thalis or even elected Modi?

Also read:Poke fun at taali, thaali, diya and mombatti all you want. Modi couldnt care less

Liberal democracy is premised on individual free will to make a choice. Philosophers have long contested the idea of free will and rational choice. Traditional Western philosophy had the contesting idea of determinism which meant, contrary to free will, events were guided by pre-existing causes. Indian philosophy had a similar theory of Prarabhda. However, the political advance of liberalism/humanism was so powerful in the last century that these contesting ideas were eclipsed by the idea of free will.

Liberal democracies across the world have been bleeding in the past decade. The liberal order is turning upside down, institutions are being torn apart. But even before the likes of Modi, Trump and Erdogan appeared on the political stage, modern philosophers like John Gray had challenged the idea of free will. It is also being challenged by psychologists and neuroscientists. Even if there is free will, its direction can be manipulated, especially by big data, TV channels etc.

Therefore, the voters inability or reluctance to exercise rational choice based on the contested idea of free will is a very tenuous link to reach an even more unsustainable conclusion of the infancy of the voter.

We need other tools to understand voters/citizens behaviour. One way to examine this behaviour, especially in the era of populist leaders, is the Indian concept of Maya, or illusion, which can be magnified manifold by the information technology revolution. We can understand electoral politics as a battle of images, perception and theatre.

Also read:No soft Hindutva, no Left Revolution, Kejriwal establishing a new centre in Indian politics

Electoral politics always had a strong element of theatre. But new technological tools such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter are allowing Modi to give the voters a lot of new messages, images, sensations on a regular basis and generate favourable responses. We need to closely scrutinise the connection between WhatsApp revolution engendered by cheap Jio data and the 2019 Lok Sabha election victory or banging of thalis. Facebook, internet and compliant news channels have made electoral politics in India overwhelmingly theatrical.

And there is no viable alternative story. The Congress party, a network of patronage and power, in the absence of those, is simply withering away. Other parties modelled on the Congress system are following suit. Arvind Kejriwal has been able to stand up to Modi possibly because he can match Modi in theatrics and in the use of new technology.

Further, new technology has disturbed the traditional way of life of the voter at an unprecedented pace. The voter might be clinging to Modi simply because he presents an image rather the illusion that the commonly held notions about the Indian tradition will be preserved. Thats what banging of thalis and lighting of diyas do.

Also read:Indias elite Socialism, Scindias non-AC Range Rover & the low income country trap

The rapid technological disruption was preceded by six decades of reconstruction of all major identities by the liberal method: caste, religion, family and gender. This reconstruction changed power relations in a short span of time. The debate over the merits of these changes is a separate matter. But these changes have produced anxieties in the certain sections of society, which Modi could be tapping into (Hindutva) even while benefiting from those changes (OBC-Mandal).

The liberals enjoyed immense authority to produce these changes with support from the Congress system structures. They drew their power from the control over all institutions of production of knowledge such as universities, research institutions and the courts. These were controlled through the English language, which was the preserve of a tiny liberal elite to a large extent. This language was alien to the large swathes of masses whose allegiance Modi, a native Gujarati, commands in Hindi.

The English language, in the hands of English-speaking liberal elite, became a powerful source of discrimination against Indians who could not speak English and led to deprivation of opportunities for them. At its best, the English-speaking liberal elite was a benign alien force for them; at its worst, a hostile coloniser of thought and mind.

After the collapse of the Congress power network, this English-speaking liberal elite has no emotional and cultural connection with the social milieu where Modi is worshiped, even though he has hardly done anything to change those power relations. Modi has simply changed the packaging. Goods come from the same factories. Modi has just changed the labels to Hindi and has swayed the people just like how he borrowed talis from Italy, added his thali and crowd-sourced a blockbuster.

The liberal story was a good story and is still worth pursuing. But let us not have illusions of the universality or truth of its values. It is one more story competing in the arena with many others. It is hard work ahead, especially for the liberal elite who may have to give up their privileges (or get co-opted), shed the baggage of English language. A good start can be made by making a resolve: Thou shall never declare the ordinary mass of people infants, howsoever uncomfortable they may be for you. Because if we look deeper, then we will find many reasons for the way they behave, opening new ways of engagement.

The author is an advocate in the Supreme Court of India. Views are personal.

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The road ahead for liberals is tough. Modis thalis were a loud message - ThePrint