[Tiktaalik]

The Ontario government did something like this during the recession in the 80s. There were "Rae Days" a dozen forced unpaid days off for the public service to both save money and jobs, named after the premier of the time, Bob Rae.

Rae Days were reviled and helped end the viability of Rae's party the Ontario NDP.

The thing is... I don't get it? Would people have rather had mass layoffs? Rae 100% did the right thing here IMO.

[ckdarby]

Yes. There are always those taking advantage of any system and those being cheated by those taking advantage.

In the above those being cheated are actually hit twice vs if you layoff those trying to take advantage of the system the cheated get double benefits.

[andromeduck]

He was a good interim leader - would have done better than Trudeau IMO.