Tag Archives: Public Health

Roundup: Jason Kenney is out of moves

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It was day two of Jason Kenney’s very public temper tantrum over the cancellation of the Keystone XL permits, with renewed demands that the federal government impose trade sanctions or invoke other reprisals under the New NAFTA agreement, which were going to be a tough sell regardless. And if the federal government doesn’t, Kenney is threatening to start talking about more of his “Fair Deal” nonsense, riling up the swivel-eyed loons in the province’s “separatists” as a way of creating more pressure – and to try and protect his own right flank, given that he’s already bleeding support.

But here’s the thing – this isn’t working for him. And Jen Gerson lays it out perfectly in this utterly devastating piece – that Kenney was the “emotional support pet” who said things people wanted to hear, who replaced a premier who was getting stuff done, and as a result, he has had nothing but losses. Not a single thing he can claim to be a win, but he’s going to keep doubling down on his failed policies and tactics, undeterred, because reasons. Kenney’s tactic of making people angry and pretending that he’s going to save them was never going to work – eventually, that anger has to go somewhere, and as we’ve seen over the anger of all of the hypocrites in his caucus buggering off to Hawaii or Mexico for the holidays, well, it comes back at you when you least expect it. Kenney has long deluded himself into thinking he’s both the gods’ gift to Alberta, and that he’s clever enough to set fires and then put them out once he has people’s attention so that he can look like a hero. Clearly, he is neither of those things, and the province is paying for that. Kenney has burned all of their bridges, and they have nothing left and nowhere to go.

https://twitter.com/jengerson/status/1352286840842199041

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Roundup: The politics of throwing tantrums

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The word of the day was tantrums. It started off with Ontario premier Doug Ford throwing one at the CEO of Pfizer when he called him up to demand answers on new vaccines. It seems, however, that it didn’t last long, because when Ford put out a press release – sans staged photo of him on the call – he didn’t say what he had been told. After his bluster about firecrackers the day before, it would certainly appear that he was chastened by said CEO that he couldn’t make magic happen, but Ford had to look tough for his audience.

Shortly thereafter, Erin O’Toole put out a press release demanding that Justin Trudeau also phone up the CEO to throw a tantrum about the temporary vaccine shortage, and then hours later, when it became confirmed that President Biden rescinded the Keystone XL permit by executive order, O’Toole put out a separate release that said that Trudeau hadn’t done enough to stand up for their energy sector, as though Trudeau needs to scream, cry, threaten, and hold his breath until he turns blue. And more to the point, I find it fascinating that the Conservatives keep insisting that Trudeau is all style and no substance, and yet the one thing they keep demanding of him is more political performance art. Then again, when you look back at their legacy in government, it was far more about optics over substance, whether that was over their unconstitutional tough-on-crime measures, or the GST cut – which went against all good economic sense. Signalling to their base seemed to be what they were really all about, to the detriment of sound governance.

And to top off the day of tantrums, Jason Kenney’s reaction to the Keystone XL cancellation was beyond precious, as he demanded that the federal government start imposing trade sanctions against the US for the move, which is utterly bonkers. It’s also pretty telling as to the state of delusion Kenney seems to occupy when it comes just what cards he has in his hand. Trying to start a trade war with the US would have far more devastating consequences for Canada, and Kenney should know that, but apparently the politics of throwing tantrums in public is too good to avoid. And this is the state of the discourse, apparently. I would very much like leaders who behave like adults to be in the room, but this is where we are.

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Roundup: Zero doses mean new histrionics

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News hit yesterday morning that some of those Pfizer shipments will be a little less than anticipated – namely zero doses, which had a bunch of people in a panic. Making things worse is the fact that some European countries will still get some doses while Canada isn’t getting any, which has even more people in a tizzy (never mind that most of those countries are far behind Canada in terms of their own vaccinations, while our provinces can keep on rolling out second doses). Ontario premier Doug Ford went on television to say some boneheaded things, including a public appeal to Joe Biden to send Ontario a million doses out of the goodness of his heart, and the media cycle went into full distraction mode.

Never mind the assurances from Justin Trudeau, Anita Anand, or Major-General Dany Fortin that with their retooled production lines, Pfizer would be able to deliver more doses faster in February to catch up with the missed shipments and keep the contracted doses for the end of the first quarter, no, the opposition parties all demanded serious accountings and timelines, as though this government could provide them – especially in light of just how fluid this situation has proved to be, and the fact that the zero-doses notice came that morning.

Something else I found a bit off-putting throughout this was media personalities trying to demand that the prime minister personally get on the phone with the CEO of Pfizer to demand that something must be done. I fail to see what this could possibly accomplish other than the theatrics of hysterically demanding, nay, weeping into the phone in desperation as though that were the key to making Pfizer’s retooling happen faster, or more doses appearing by magic, because apparently, we deserve them more than countries who are further behind in their vaccinations than we are – but that seems to be what everyone is demanding. We have become so inundated with pandemic theatre, with demands that won’t meaningfully have any impact, or dramatically introduced half-measures that aren’t doing enough while infections continue to climb. To demand more theatre seems to me to be an indication of the state of debasement we find ourselves in, but when all you worry about is optics over substance, then I suppose it makes a certain amount of twisted logic.

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Roundup: Kenney would like his social licence

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Things are frantic on the energy file, as the Biden administration threatens to kill the Keystone XL pipeline project, and Jason Kenney is floundering. In one breath, he has been demanding that federal government do something – never mind that Justin Trudeau has been championing this project to his American contacts since he was first made Liberal leader, and brought it up on his first phone call with Biden after the election – and he’s insisting that this would damage Canada-US relations – as though it could be much worse than the last four years of inscrutable and random policy changes. But perhaps the most fitting of all is that everything that Kenney is now reaping what he has been sowing over the past number of years in terms of his insulting those close to Biden, and all of the environmental policies he has been denigrating and fighting in court are precisely the kinds of social licence that he needs to try and convince a Biden administration to keep the permit alive. Funny that.

https://twitter.com/maxfawcett/status/1351220724921475074

Kenney has also threatened legal action if the permit is rescinded, but his chances of success on that venue look mighty slim.

The NDP and Greens, meanwhile, are cheering the planned cancellation, and insist that Canada should be focusing on creating green jobs instead – as though you can flip a switch and make it happen.

https://twitter.com/maxfawcett/status/1351354379853467649

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Roundup: Delays for new doses

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The pandemic continues to trend poorly, and new modelling suggests there could be as many as two thousand deaths in the next ten days, and if the current restrictions don’t curb people’s interactions, spread could triple as our hospitals are already out of space. It’s grim. And to compound it, news came down yesterday that Pfizer’s plans to retool part of their vaccine production facility in Europe means that for the next few weeks, shipments could be reduced by as much as fifty percent – shortfalls that will likely be made up once production is up and running because they’ll be able to increase their output capacity, but it’s still disappointing. It’s also funny (in a black humour sort of way) to watch premiers struggling to deliver this message without taking shots at the federal government because they know that it’s beyond their ability to do anything about.

Part of why this is a problem that needs to be communicated is because there seems to have been a brewing sense that vaccines are here, so we’ll be able to start lifting restrictions soon, and that’s not actually the case. Even once everyone gets vaccinated, we’ll probably still have restrictions and mask-wearing for the time being because we don’t yet know if people can transmit the virus once they’re vaccinated, and it will take time for everyone’s immune response to sufficiently build even after they’ve had their second dose. And then we don’t know how long the immunity will last either, while the virus is starting to mutate. So seeing this delay to vaccinations (and it’s mostly a delay on the early phases and less likely to be so for the general public, who will still likely get their shots at the same time as was planned) as a delay for returning to the old normal is just not something that anyone should be counting on, and we should be communicating that effectively.

As for international travel, prime minister Justin Trudeau hinted that they are looking at tighter restrictions, but this comes with a host of other problems, not the least of which is the fact that mobility rights are Charter rights, and trying to define what travel is deemed “essential” is going to require some actual definition (unlike what Ontario has done with its current stay-at-home order). But with unchecked community spread already happening, and variants identified in the UK and South Africa also having been identified here, it may already be too late. The better tactic may be better enforcement of quarantine orders, but that may also be a question of resources. Nevertheless, there are no easy solutions to the problem.

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Roundup: The rot in Alberta’s witch hunt

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The Alberta government’s $3.5 million special committee into Un-Albertan Activities “foreign-funded special interest groups” opposed to the energy sector has posted their list of commissioned studies, and they are a collection of climate deniers, and foreign-funded special interest groups – oil companies – who write boosterism for the sector. Oh, and there’s also a bunch of conspiracy theory nonsense in there as well. And yes, they paid thousands of dollars for those reports.

This is what the government spent $3.5 million on, at a time when they are complaining that they are so broke (because they relied too much on a high price of oil) that they are looking to slash and burn public services in the province. The fact that they are funnelling money to hucksters and charlatans, and that they accepted the work of a conspiracy theorist to launch the whole committee in the first place, is par for the course in the province, unfortunately. This whole exercise is a kind of distillation of the absolute rot in Alberta politics that its potency would be fatal if you ingested it. One wonders what the straw that breaks the camel’s back will wind up being (and it may yet be those MLAs’ pandemic vacations), but this particular farce is absolutely galling.

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Roundup: Essential incoherence

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The provincial stay-at-home order is now in effect in Ontario, and it’s already a gong show because the province refuses to define what is “essential” for travel or items, leaving it up to police to interpret for themselves – and we all know that that’ll never end badly, or disproportionately targeting marginalised communities, right? Yeah, and it’s so typical of Ford’s government, where they lack the basic self-awareness that they are the ones in charge and have to make the rules.

https://twitter.com/moebius_strip/status/1349390384938450944

So what is the Ford government doing instead of their gods damned jobs? Why, they’re picking even more fights with the federal government over vaccines, insisting that their capacity to administer outstrips supply (not so far, it hasn’t), and I fail to see how a number of premiers think that if they’ll bellyache loud enough that they can magically make Pfizer produce millions of more doses in the blink of an eye, at a time when they are dealing with global supply chain issues. But we all know that this is performative, and attempts to distract from their failures to control the spread of this pandemic. To add to that, their constant focus on the vaccines and the fact that it takes time for deliveries to ramp up is an attempt to shift the blame on the ongoing uncontrolled spread to the federal government – that they would have been able to control it if only the feds had acted faster (when Canada was pretty much the third country in the world to approve it and accept deliveries). That was never going to happen – vaccines don’t work like that in the middle of an outbreak. But these premiers need to wash their hands of culpability, so that’s where we are.

https://twitter.com/SusanDelacourt/status/1349483284707868673

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Roundup: More pandemic theatre

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The horror show of COVID infections continues apace in Ontario, and premier Doug Ford has decided to get really serious and issue a “stay-at-home” order, which amounts to little more than the mockdown that is currently in place already. In spite of his promises of an “iron ring” around long-term care facility, there are now outbreaks at forty percent of facilities. Ford won’t do anything about the sick days that are necessary for people to stop spreading infections at workplaces, and he won’t do anything about evictions from commercial landlords. So he’s totally handling this with aplomb.

So really, what Ford is offering is more pandemic theatre – the close cousin of security theatre. And most of the restrictions and exemptions don’t actually make sense. They’re not going to do enough to curb transmission – especially as newer variants start making their way into the community – because he won’t do the hard work of closing the large workplaces where spread is happening, because that would be harming the economy – as though rising infections and deaths won’t do worse economic damage. Ford continues to shirk his responsibilities and let this pandemic get worse, and more deaths to pile up, as he tries to shift blame and try and to get people to blame one another than acknowledge his own culpability. The “Uncle Doug” schtick isn’t working, and he keeps hoping it will, and here we are, waiting for things to get worse before he institutes more half-measures. Welcome to Ontario – yours to discover.

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Roundup: O’Toole’s Rebel problem

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Tongues were wagging over the Twitter Machine yesterday as the Rebel boasted that they had an “exclusive interview” with Conservative leader Erin O’Toole, in which they discussed why the China People’s Daily was a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, while the Rebel and other similar outlets were not. Of course, even that premise was false, as the People’s Daily is not a member of the Gallery. Oops. It quickly surfaced that O’Toole didn’t actually give an interview – questions were emailed to his communications team, who responded with answers that could be attributed to O’Toole, but it wasn’t an interview per se.

Nevertheless, there are troubling questions to be raised, such as why they thought to respond to the Rebel in the first place – though afterward they said that they wouldn’t in the future. But that aside, something that O’Toole stated in the piece is also deeply problematic, because he is rooting for the so-called “Independent Press Gallery,” which is a start-up organization founded by True North Initiative’s Candice Malcolm, which is essentially Rebel Lite™, and said organization includes True North and the Rebel. So O’Toole is cheering for the Rebel to get accreditation (which, it needs to be made clear, party leaders have no say over. Accreditation is about access to the building for the purposes of reporting, and while the Press Gallery is self-governing, it goes through the Speaker and Sergeant-at-Arms to gain that accreditation).

What this stance O’Toole is making demonstrates is what I talked about in my weekend column – that his party is still happy to turn a blind eye to racists and white supremacists when they think they can use them to score goals against Trudeau. It also brings to mind Andrew Scheer’s farewell speech as leader, when he told party followers to trust outlets like True North and the Post Millennial for their news rather than mainstream sources, which is alarming because of the fact that much of their “reporting” is not actually that, and has been a driver of misinformation. Also of note is that the Post Millennial is in part controlled by the professional shitposters on O’Toole’s payroll – so that gives you an idea about what they are actually looking to promote and gain accreditation for. That O’Toole says they won’t respond to Rebel inquiries in the future is not comforting, because this demonstrates that they still considered this an audience worth engaging with until they got caught.

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Roundup: Expired election-rigging accusations

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Over the past few days, there has been a bit of uproar over a Conservative Party webpage that decries attempts by the Liberals to “rig the next election in his favour,” in light of everything that we are seeing in the US. The page has since been taken down, but most people have forgotten that this pre-dated the last election in 2019, when the Conservatives objected to the last round of Elections Act changes, because of the pre-writ limits that imposed, while claiming the government could keep spending and advertising and that only the opposition was hobbled. That’s not actually correct because governments can’t be doing partisan activities (such as wearing a Conservative Party t-shirt to a government announcement, like Pierre Poilievre would do when he was briefly a minister of the Crown), and using government or even House of Commons resources for partisan activities is prohibited.

Nevertheless, it is a reminder that we are not immune to these kinds of accusations in this country, even if they are in a slightly different form or context from the Gong show that is the US post-election, and the utter mendacity of those who claim that it was “stolen.” Meanwhile, here’s CTV reporter Glen McGregor on what election law breaches have been like in Canada over the past decade, and lo, they have been from the Conservatives.

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