Vaccine passports are coming to Alberta.
Not just yet, but they’ll be along soon enough.
Not because they make sense. Opposition Leader Rachel Notley laid out that case pretty clearly yesterday: during a pandemic like the fourth wave of COVID-19 now battering our province, they can protect people, hospitals and the provincial economy.
“By providing Albertans with easy and secure access to their immunization records while establishing a verification standard for public settings, Albertans who are vaccinated can protect their neighbours and continue to do the things they love to do,” Ms. Notley explained.
Obviously, though, Jason Kenney’s government is pretty much impervious to that kind of reasoning. Even if they weren’t, the fact the NDP said it would make it pretty hard for them to adopt.
By now so many members of cabinet and the United Conservative Party Caucus have said so many times that Alberta will never adopt vaccine passports – because freedom! – that it would be pretty painful for them to walk it back.
Freedom, in this case, means freedom for anti-vaxxers, COVID deniers and great big grown-up men who are afraid of little tiny needles – and are willing to make their neighbours sick, and kill some of them, to have their way now that they’ve made defying common sense public health measures into a new front in the culture wars.
But certainly not freedom for the vast majority of Albertans who would actually like to get this pandemic behind us without killing a whole bunch of our friends, relatives and neighbours.
And not, as Ms. Notley argued, because other provinces are all going to adopt it, meaning Albertans would be the only fully vaccinated Canadians to have difficulty travelling to other parts of Canada, let alone abroad. In fact, one suspects the UCP would rather like the idea of making the rest of us stay at home with their anti-vaxx, anti-mask, anti-science base.
None of that. The reason is because if the Kenney Government can’t put the pandemic behind us, it represents an existential threat. Not to Alberta, of course – although certainly to some Albertans. But to the United Conservative Party – as a government, and quite possibly as an entity.
Whether they like it or not, vaccine certification and the discipline it imposes on a vaccine-skeptical population is a key tool in suppressing this difficult and highly infectious disease. Ontario said yesterday that vaccination appointments doubled as soon as it announced it would be bringing in vaccine passports later this month for restaurants, theatres and gyms.
If Mr. Kenney and his cabinet cohorts stick to their guns and ensure we never are allowed to have access to one of the tools that will make our lives easier while it helps reduce the threat of COVID-19, it is going to end in tears, for them.
Here’s why:
Dr. Lynora Saxinger, an infectious diseases specialist in the Medicine Faculty at the University of Alberta, did some back-of-the-envelope calculations on Twitter about the rate at which the virus is now spreading in Alberta and the implications of that.
Now, I’m not an infectious disease expert, but I am going to assume she knows what she’s talking about, even if her forecasts are imperfect in the event the UCP sticks to the plan described by Caucus Chair Nathan Neudorf the other day. To wit, allow basically everyone who still isn’t vaccinated to be infected and thereby achieve herd immunity.
Here’s the money quote from Dr. Saxinger: “How long before COVID ‘runs out’ of victims here? Quick n very dirty math perhaps 2 years 8 months at our current ball park 1000 cases daily. (During which the health care system would be incapacitated and little non COVID care would be viable.)”
Meanwhile, despite the pandemic, the political clock continues to run in Alberta.
Technically, an election needs to take place between March 1 and May 31, 2023 – although Premier Kenney could call it sooner, if he saw an opportunity to defeat the Opposition, which now leads in the polls. The latest an election can be held under the rules of the Canadian Constitution is April 2024.
Since according to Dr. Saxinger’s quick-and-dirty arithmetic, the pandemic could still be continuing in this province until the spring of 2024, that leaves the UCP no time between now and then it can declare the pandemic over and then call an election.
If the pandemic is still in progress when the election is called, most observers would agree the UCP is done for, and Mr. Kenney will probably go down in history as the worst Canadian premier ever.
Dr. Saxinger and others like her could be wrong about the timing, they could be wrong about the future infectiousness of COVID-19, or they could be wrong about everything. But can the UCP afford to take the chance?
Even Rick Bell, the premier’s favourite political columnist, basically agrees with this analysis.
“A lockdown would finish off the Kenney government,” the Postmedia political commentator wrote yesterday. “They know that and they say they aren’t going there. They’ve also (said) no to a provincial government vaccine passport, where the fully vaccinated would be allowed in places where those not fully vaccinated would not be allowed. But who knows?”
It must have pained Mr. Bell to write that. And upset Mr. Kenney. I admire Mr. Bell’s fortitude. But he’s basically right.
Which is why the UCP will bring in a vaccine passport eventually – although they won’t call it that.
They’ll also have to bring back tougher measures – more masking, more restrictions. So much for “open for good.” Mr. Kenney will insist it’s not a lockdown, and he’ll likely be right. When it comes to public health, the man’s the master of half measures.
Either that or he won’t. If they bet that experts like Dr. Saxinger are wrong, and it turns out they’re not, history will say the UCP burned up on re-entry.
There were 1,399 new COVID-19 cases reported in Alberta yesterday, bringing the active case total to 12,868 – the highest number in both categories in Canada. The positivity rate was 10.8 per cent.
The UCP are basically letting Albertans down on every front. When all you have is pretend conservatives and Reformers running things, you can’t expect good things to happen, can you? You can’t. Postmedia columnists who carry the torch for these pretend conservatives and Reformers will have to one day realize that they can’t be complacent and continue to prop them up. The damage that is being done is far too great to constantly be ignored. The UCP will have to face the electorate, but will the electorate be smart enough to remove these pretend conservatives, and Reformers that we have with the UCP, who are also Ralph Klein clones, and get back the government that was closest to what Peter Lougheed had?
Cunning Kenney had just scored a winner. Bribing his base with $100 will assure him a majority. And still no vaccine passport, per se. I didn’t realise how much I missed him these last few weeks.
Rick Bell is starting to look like my great Aunt Janet.
Funny you should mention that, Tom. The day I took those pictures, a nickname for Mr. Bell sprang unbidden into my head: Rick “Granny” Bell. DJC
Don’t abuse the good name (Granny) that my grandkids call me, just as I called my grandmothers in my youth!
I have some choice words that refer to JK, but will spare myself getting banned by using them here.
Duly noted, ema. Profanity won’t necessarily get you banned here, although it might get you edited. Profane comments are usually only deleted when they don’t make a relevant point, or are off topic. Otherwise, I try to find a way to let the commenter make their point. DJC
Do you think he wears “sensible shoes”?
Doug Ford intro’d v. passports – can Kenney use that experience to make his passport pitch stick with the faithful? He is the flip/flop master after all.
A little o/t…
With O’Toole’s numbers surging, should we expect Kenney to be trying to ride those coattails to the top of Alberta’s provincial polls?
Just wrap it in an attack on Trudeau and the faithful won’t even notice:
“After months of personally resisting the creation of an Ontariowide COVID-19 vaccine passport system, Premier Doug Ford took aim at Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and his government for not imposing a singular program for all of Canada.”
Reality prevails.
Sometimes it sucks but reality prevails.
On that note, of sucking, it doesn’t always; most of the things and events we all really love and enjoy happen in reality.
So it’s the best space to be in.
kkkenney, the nutjob anti-everything-ers and the rest of the UCP are not very much in touch with reality. As many others have commented they pretend, they are play-acting. As I’ve said previously, they believe and they act out their beliefs. Nowhere in there is there room for reality.
This is fine on the playground. At recess.
Not so much for adults in a real-world economy. Not so much for the people sick and dying of an unstoppable deadly epidemic.
Many here seem to think of this as just more politics. Just another political ideology at play. Some are better than others.
I don’t think so; kkkenney and the UCP have designed and insisted on plans to kill people. Those that they don’t kill outright they maim and injure. This is criminal. They are criminally minded, at the least, criminally insane possibly.
This is not politics.
There is no way that this group of antisocial monsters should be walking free.
What was all that earlier this summer about no longer having to wear masks, no restrictions and talk about no testing, tracing or isolating by our health officials? What did they expect would come of all of this, in particular the heath officials who should have known better and so have been negligent in their duties?
Is it really any surprise the delusion peddled by Kenney, the UCP and other enablers of “greatest summer ever” came crashing down shortly after Kenney skeedattled out of town for his vacation, personal time or whatever the heck it was?
It was as if the captain of the Titanic abandoned his post just as the ship was headed for the iceberg. No, it turned out the ship was not unsinkable. Greatest summer ever – another great delusion and great abdication of responsibility.
So, yes we will get vaccine passports in some form or another and Kenney will struggle to pretend they are not, probably by playing with semantics, like he often does. However, despite Kenney’s efforts, I expect the reality denying crowd that may have been his base of support at one time, will figure out just who the restrictions are aimed at.
It is too bad Kenney did not use his extended break to look for other work then only come back to announce his resignation. It might have saved us some of the great deal of grief we are about to endure over the next while. Of course, he has no other work experience or skills except politics, so he will hang on until even the UCP realizes what a total liability he has become and that he is dragging them down too.
None of what you posted is a surprise to me or, I believe, most of Albertans that can still think and are not caught in the UCP cult propaganda machine.
This is what we have to put up with everyday for the next 2 years unless somehow the UCP implodes, which would be the best that could happen for all of us and Canada as a whole.
What surprised me in this post is that you have any respect for whatever is that Rick Bell writes. Rick Bell has been the torch carrier, along with Gunter, for the right wing propaganda all along. I have read many articles by Gunter that were obvious support of lies.
Of course this is none of my business and you can respect whatever you like but I am surprised.
It’s a guarantee the day vaccination passports are announced in Alberta, that will be the end of the CPC and Erin O’Toole’s vision of a whatever kind of Canada.
Sure, O’Toole can keep arguing for freeDUMB of choice, but it seems that gets him into trouble with his base.
When it comes to the CPC base, it’s all about the freeDUMBs to be an antiVaxx crazoid and the freeDUMB for middle aged men to tell women what they can do with their bodies. (Again if men could get pregnant abortions would be on demand and free) It’s a tightrope to walk and O’Toole is certain to get knocked off by some bluer than blue candidates.
I suspect Kenney has shifted into I-Don’t-Give-A-Shite mode and will just stall for the eighteen months filling his fat face with shawarmas and cough syrup.
It’s important that he doesn’t burn out now. Those bad ideas have to keep coming.
Unfortunately for the man who would be king, the rest of Canada has not entirely lost its marbles yet.
The protest marchers earlier this week in B.C. only proved how dangerous, cult-like and devoid of reason the anti-vax right is: no vaccines, no masks, no restrictions, no hospitals for Covid patients, no hospitals for anyone, not even cancer patients? The very vocal and sometimes outright violent minority managed to activate the silent majority. The tide has turned. Talk at the local Walmart grocery aisle yesterday turned to how angry people are at the anti-vaxxers. After 18 months of sacrifice by staying home, giving up holidays and family celebrations, getting vaccinated, wearing masks to this day and doing the right thing as citizens, the actions by the selfish, lunatic fringe were a step too far. Kenney has no choice now. Intervene in the public health disaster he has cultivated and curated, or walk the plank. How was an absentee, privileged member of the Sky Palace elite to know what dwells in the hearts of ordinary, common-sense Albertans? Turns out it is the ordinary people who have burned out on the contempt of our UCP government.
I would love to see a forensic audit of our provincial war room at the end of Kenney’s reign. All those expletive-laden, professionally-made banners and flags denouncing the PM don’t make themselves, you know. Isn’t the timing of these fringe protests just a little curious, during the federal election campaign and all? It didn’t end well, did it?
Typically, when a substantial portion of your voting base is composed of whack jobs and assorted garden variety morons, one would think that the brave thing to do would be double-down on the gaslighting. Kenney could call DR. LYNORA SAXINGER a willing tool of the globalists, an Alberta-hater, and “categorically and completely reject” her assertions and claims as not being based on the “proper” science. Throw the obfuscation to the winds and hope it drives his base into the streets in a foaming at the mouth frenzy.
But then there’s that whole federal election thing, as well as the CPC’s hopes and dreams tied to every idiotic thing Kenney may do. I think I’m beginning to see why PMJT called the election when he did. Wait a year and Kenney will be gone from Alberta, leaving no foil to associated with Erin O’Toole to play off of. Or, strike now, while Kenney is in full on freeDUMB mode, leave Erin O’Toole to deny he has ever met Kenney, and make the CPC the highly-questionable choice for Canada.
Now, that Pallister’s Manitoba and Doug Ford’s Ontario have moved into the vaccine passport column, leaving O’Toole to his “I support the provinces” mantra, what’s left for Kenney to do? The “Resistance” is gone. Put down that shawarma and act like an adult for a change?
Kenney’s disappearing act has done considerable self-inflicted damage to his rep in Alberta and with his very cranky caucus. If there are new restrictions, including a vaccine passport, they will occur under caucus protest, leaving Kenney open to a vote of non-confidence from everyone. If Kenney falls before the federal election day, it could solve a problem for O’Toole. (Kenney being out of the sight and mind…for now.) But it would break the coalition with the freeDUMB-loving SoCONs and the Red Tories they so love to hate.
Trudeau must love it when a plan comes together.
They have rights. Soon they will be dead right.
Here we go. I am beside myself in awe of their insignificance! These mooks are predictably late, along with a growing list of empaneled reports! Never prepared, always incompetent. Is this the definition of; not just small, but maybe governance according to the constitution of Grand Fenwick?
So if I am fully vaxxed and my booster shots are up to date I can still contract the virus, spread the virus, get seriously ill from the virus, and potentially cause others to get seriously ill from the virus? Remember those crazy doctors and medical professionals that said you can’t vaccinate your way out of a pandemic because the virus changes rapidly? Maybe just maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to silence them, the virus is doing exactly what they said more contagious and less deadly.
Yet we need vaccine passports to stop people from getting the virus, spreading the virus, getting seriously ill from the virus, and from getting others seriously ill from the virus? Oh yeah and lets start injecting children because although they have a close to zero percent chance of becoming seriously ill from covid they need to stay healthy. What better way to keep them healthy than an experimental shot every six months with no long term safety studies. We also need to silence anyone who talks about natural immunity, that’s witchcraft and anti-science. Therapeutics well that is for livestock, just ignore the inventor receiving the Nobel prize he must have saved a lot of horses.
Clear as mud and I can’t imagine a digital ID system being misused by future governments of whatever stripe. Anyone who questions the need for a vaccine passport is an anti-vaxxer regardless of their personal vaccine status. As we see where this is all heading it becomes difficult to believe this is just about a virus.
As hard as it is to agree with Kenney and his ilk on even the smallest thing it is even harder to see Notley go down this path, such high hopes for her what a disappointment. Kenney’s war on doctors and nurses is having a serious effect on our public healthcare system, lets see what requiring an injection every six months does.
Jim – while we wait for enough proof that meets your criteria, how many will die or develop long covid?
We already have ID systems in place and yes they have been infrequently misused by various government agencies and private companies, but their intended use benefits seems to have outweighed any misuse.
I’ll leave you to your own witchcraft thoughts on all the rest.
“I’m not one for conspiracy theories but you have to wonder if critics of the government are on to something when they argue Kenney wants the delta variant to burn itself out by ripping through the unvaccinated…..” Graham Thomson in CBC opinion piece
But that would be Kenney’s base, the anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers, the yellow westers, the rural communities where the vaccination rates are the lowest. What would be the logic in that?
Over the years I’ve been embarrassed many times to be associated with our one (Until recently) party state, but now things are just getting bizarre. When every 2nd article includes the words “You can’t make this stuff up!”, there’s something wrong. I normally don’t have the attention span for conspiracy theories, but what else could explain the sheer ineptitude. Is Kenney a sheep in wolves clothing?………….an NDP plant? Is he an Alien perhaps? What is going on?!
You must be kidding me? I don’t want to be right in the face of cruel dunces! It’s not right. It’s the obviation of right! I’m going to be sick to my stomach! Ok then! I am fine now! What in all god’s holy creation was that? In less constrained societies? There would be…
The above post was a reaction to a complete barf fest, provided by people who are dumber then even I thought they were! https://youtu.be/STB4s7Qhf40?t=3
I had coffee this morning with a group of our senior conservative friends and they all admitted that they aren’t fans of Trudeau but know if he wasn’t in power our young families would have been in a far worse mess. He has been a hero at helping them through this pandemic.
We all agreed that these reformers wouldn’t have helped them. Looking after their own well-being and that of their rich friends is all they care about. When you look at what these fools have cost Albertans in lost royalties and taxes the debt we are running up could have been paid in a very short time. Some of us think Albertans have lost close to $800 billion in royalties and taxes, and that doesn’t include Klein’s orphan well mess.
Well, as much as Premier Crying & Screaming Midget doesn’t want to talk about the moral implications of paying the Antivaxxers to get their jabs, it seems that he has managed to bumble his way into another mess of his own making.
The “there’s no turning back” battle-cry from “Alberta FreeDUMB Day” has been replaced with Jason Kenney, pretending to be in command of Alberta’s perilous situation, declaring that the UCP government response to the pandemic has always required flexible measures, as he turns tail and runs from the public health disaster of his own making.
Doug Ford, pleading for understanding from his Ford Nation, says that the dreaded vaccine passports are needed to drive up the vaccination rates. And…the appointments for vaccinations suddenly doubled. WTF?! It was that easy? No way!
Kenney, caught flatfooted again, stopped short of that step. Maybe a few C-notes will drive up the numbers the same way? Or maybe … a brand new blue Dodge Ram pick up truck?! It’s Alberta, so the bar for bribery is set pretty high, don’t you know? He swears there will be no vaccine passports, come Hell or bodies in the hospital parking lots. Anything to save what’s left of his political career, it seems.
As for the French debate last night, PMJT caught O’Toole in his sights on the usual SoCON crazy that always gets the CPC in trouble in Quebec. Andrew Scheer was destroyed in Quebec on the pro-life issue and guns. O’Toole maybe headed down that same road again. Now that it can be confirmed that the BQ’s Blanchette is bleeding support, thanks to Trudeau’s bromance with LeGault, maybe LPC support in Quebec is strengthening. And where ever Quebec goes, the GTA pretty much follows.
I suspect Trudeau will bring up Jason Kenney’s stellar performance, for bringing the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to Alberta, in the upcoming English language debates. O’Toole was caught stammering in French, last night. Maybe we’ll get to see it in English, too.
“O’Toole was caught stammering in French, last night.”
Not so fast, Just Me. My Postmedia morning paper states the following, “For his part, O’Toole managed to meet his most important challenges: he looked prime ministerial, spoke great French, and kept his cool.”
After reading this, I checked my pet cat. Although he purrs rather than speaks French, he always keeps his cool. Best of all, if I focus my camera just right, he too looks prime ministerial.
“By providing Albertans with easy and secure access to their immunization records while establishing a verification standard for public settings, Albertans who are vaccinated can protect their neighbours and continue to do the things they love to do,”
However, she is totally wrong. Vaccine passports dont anything of the sort. People walking around with a piece of paper doesnt help anything.
What she really means is using the force of law to make people get vaccinated. Police stopping you in the streets checking your papers. Interrupting your hockey game to try top tackle you play shinny?
And what are the repercussions if you’re caught with fake papers. Is it the gulags, or maybe they just bring you home and weld you into your house.
Maybe the police check your records and show up at your house to escort you to a clinic?
And why do we need the totalitarian play book?
“to continue to do the things they love to do” Ms Notley
But only if that means get vaccinated. She really is a gem.
https://unherd.com/2021/08/how-not-to-talk-to-a-science-denier/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=2b77d2c813&mc_eid=0971084916
At Bret Larson With your blind support of these phoney conservatives , Reformers, while the vast majority of Albertans are saying they want them gone and Notley back doesn’t make you look very smart, does it? The Medicine Hat News conducted a survey. “ If there was an election next week who would you vote for”. Notley got 67% and your phoney conservative friend Kenney got only 17% and there were over 1,500 people who took part.
Can you explain why lawyers, accountants , oilmen, bankers and former MLAs were saying she was on the right track. We know we have to get our corporate taxes and royalties raised back up to the Lougheed levels if we are ever going to get us out of the financial mess these Reformers created, and Notley was doing it. Could you prove she wasn’t ?How would you do it? Cutting taxes for your rich friends by $9.4 billion , like Kenney did is just plain stupid. To make up for this revenue cutting stupidity he is promising to 11,000 health care jobs, and force doctors, nurses, and teachers take wage cuts, and has increased my grandson’s university tuition fees by 40% after cutting his minimum wages by 3% . Where is the intelligence in that?
It isn’t hard to understand why true Alberta conservatives are calling guys like traitors, is it? Going against the wishes of the majority is what traitors do. We know the difference between a true conservative and a reformer, we have seen what they have done to this province. Even Ralph Klein’s own father Phil and daughter Angie tried to help us vote Ralph out to put a stop to this insanity so why didn’t you help us?
Apparently you are just another one of these ignorant seniors people are talking about, easy to fool and easy to trick.What upsets my senior conservatives and I is that fact that not only do we have to fight Kenney we have to fight ignorant Albertans like you.
I hope I have been sarcastic enough I intended to be. I can assure you that the true conservatives in my world have no respect for guys like you. Maybe you should keep your sarcastic comments to yourself they aren’t impressing anyone I know.
If you think I offer blind allegiance to anything, you haven’t been listening very well.
As to your bogus claims about what “people” wanting to vote dipper. I will agree with you people are weak and they tend to want to grasp at any option to “get back to normal”. And the full power of the government unions are compelling them. “We need this” “We need this” yes their complaints are legion.
Will society comply and resolve to be the slaves of the government unions? The rallies at hospitals seem to say no.
I do agree however, something is coming.
So, if I get a shot before Oct 14, I get $100. Jason didn’t say what it would be worth after that date. Hmmm, should I get the shot now, or hold out for a better price ($500?) in late October? What if I wait until November?
One thing is for damn sure – next public health crisis, I’m not getting vaccinated until there is a cash offer on the table.
Of course vaccine passports are coming to Alberta. Business is going to insist on them. Albertans want them.
We will have them, They will be called some other name but we will have them.
The narrative around Vaccine Passports and even the vaccines themselves has just reached a hysterical point. Everyone needs to calm down and look at what makes logical sense, regardless of your political views. One side is accusing the other of believing that Bill Gates wants to microchip everybody and the other side is accusing them of being murdering communists intent on taking over everything. I think the truth is a lot simpler and can be agreed upon by both sides. This virus is real, it is a threat to some people, but by and large, it isn’t severe enough to warrant shutting down our society, and people ought to really think twice about giving government the amount of power that they’d need to enact vaccine mandates, regardless of where we stand on the shots themselves. Plenty of people I know got both shots and still think the passports aren;t needed.
The main problem everyone has, is that the entirety of the data hasn’t been properly acknowledged and the initial wave of fear has been continually driven by the sensationalist media. If our media was more responsible and balanced, I don’t think society would be anywhere near this divided. That’s on them.
When COVID first started in January and February 2020, I was following it closely, I got my whole family to take Zinc in small amounts right away once that became known that doctors were having luck treating patients with Zinc and HCQ (My line of thinking was, this is a deadly and unknown virus, and according to these doctors, the Zinc seems to be the active ingredient, and the HCQ basically forces it into cells, but if you take the Zinc previous to infection, you may not need the HCQ).
I got my hands on N95 masks from an Insurance job I had done previously and gave them to family and friends. I was ready to pull our kids out of school. Then in June or July, I believe it was, the first studies on the death rate came through. Instead of 100s of x the flu death rate, as was initially believed, and which drove most of the initial fear, we thought we were looking at a 10x the flu death rate. Then a month or so later, I believe it was, the landmark study showing a 0.27 percent IFR in non istitutional settings (what applies to us) came through. It was clear: we were looking at maybe 2.7 times the death rate of the Flu, and that was a high estimate according to the study. So, certainly not trivial, but certainly not Ebola or “lung-AIDS”.
To my astonishment, as you’d think that’d be good news, the media and governments scrambled to shut down this optimistic take. “Flawed!” they said, but now, quite some time later the study has yet to be retracted.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7947934/ Here is the study I am referring to.
Instead, the super-draconian, over the top, dystopian reaction to covid we witnessed in China and then in lesser form in Europe and the West, was continued! No corresponding lessening of the reaction after we learned that COVID wasn’t the super-killer we initially feared. That’s a problem. When we point this out, we’re accused of “denying COVID” (as in, denying it even exists, which I’ve never even heard the most fervent skeptic say) and believing in on-their-face-absurd theories about Bill Gates’s microchips. Again, that’s certainly not what I nor any others hesitant to take the shot that I know are worried about. My worries are just that this whole conversation seems to be driven by fear, not science or reason. That changes, and people like me will be much more willing to take the shots.
Anyone who asks me why I don’t want the vaccine passport, fair question, but most people do so while accusing me of being “anti vaxer”… those are not one and the same. I got my childhood vaccines back then, as did my children (4 and 12) in recent years. They’ve got a pretty good track record of safety. However, this is a completely new technology, at least most of them, and I feel that they were developed quickly and I am also concerned whether the long term effects are worse than those of COVID, and that is something that we cannot possibly know, as these MRNA vaccines haven’t ever been used in the general population for anything else before COVID. I will get the vaccine when I trust it and feel that it’s safe. Trying to tell me that I “must” take it , or my KIDS must take it, is insanity and that’s a line no one will be allowed to cross! If I cannot decide what goes into my body, am I free? I’d say no.
The logic for the vaccine passport also doesn’t make sense. Vaccine uptake is already around 75% if im not mistaken. And if you think this vaccine is effective then you should be relatively protected. After all, it was designed to protect you upon possible exposure to COVID-19. If you fear that it’s not effective enough if one party isn’t vaccinated, then why should both of us being vaccinated be so much better? And if it’s not that effective, how can anyone honestly expect us to take that risk of this new vaccine? The logic of masking children in elementary schools is also on its face backwards. The science shows us that kids don’t spread it much, and that they’re barely effected by covid. Long covid is also questionable, it may be just chronic fatigue brought on by the virus and stresses from the pandemic and over the top government response. If I wanted to be a prick instead of try to get people thinking, I’d say, “Time to stop with the “science denial” “.
The types of people who want to trust the government with this kind of power really haven’t thought that through and probably aren’t fans of reading about history. I’ll just point out one interesting statistic, Governments in the twentieth century killed more of their OWN people than all of the wars in that century combined several times over. That’s democide, a government killing their own people. And for all you who say “It could never happen here”, well, why is that, in your opinion? Because of our freedoms, right? The same ones you’re so eager to give up for protection?
“Those who would give up a little essential liberty for a little temporary protection will receive neither.” – Benjamin Franklin
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction” – Ronald Reagan
Remember, the Governments right here in our country thought they knew what was best for the Indigenous children they rounded up and snatched out of families and starved, raped and murdered in the Residential Schools. They thought they knew best when they interned and enslaved Ukrainians and worked them to death in the mountains, building Jasper National Park. They thoght they knew best when they interned Japanese and treated them horribly during WWII. They Cannot Be Trusted With That Amount Of Power. Anymore than we ought to believe the narrative that the Taliban suddenly respects human rights.
If we learn anything from the residential schools “finds” (I, a white man, knew those bodies were there as early as 2010, as did every Native person I ever spoke to on the subject – again, more media misinformation and intentional protection of the government in that story as well)
Here are some mainstream sources for some of the things I’ve mentioned. Debate is essential to effective decision making on a government scale, not enough of it is happening.
https://www.jccf.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Covid-Statistics-Alberta-aug-23-2021.png According to Alberta government numbers, Just 25 people between the ages of 20 and 39 have died of COVID-19. ZERO children (under 19) have died of COVID since the beginning of the pandemic.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/just-open-schools-already/617849/ COVID isn’t transmitted very much within schools.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/school-mask-mandates-downside/619952/ Masks might harm school kids more than they help them.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-dubious-origins-of-long-covid-11616452583 Long Covid is vaguely defined and subjective.
https://fee.org/articles/3-studies-that-show-lockdowns-are-ineffective-at-slowing-covid-19/ Lockdowns don’t work.
Oh, and regarding Kenney, his goose is cooked. I won’t vote NDP ever again, but I also won’t vote Kenney. He promised multiple times to respect our rights to movement, association, and to make a living and to worship as we please (I’m not even religious), and then he went back on his word.
In the process, he infuriated both the pro-restriction crowd “Why didn’t he act sooner!” and the anti-restriction crowd “Damn liar promised us and went back on his word, so much for following the science and respecting our rights!”
I’d throw my vote away to some obscure Separatist party before I’d ever vote Kenney OR Nutley, and I don’t even want to separate.
You refer to a “landmark” paper (who decided it was that?) by one person who has been criticized for downplaying the risk of Covid-29. Not a good idea to rely entirely on one scientist’s opinion when it is not supported by other work.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-the-heck-happened-to-john-ioannidis/
That’s all ya got?
I thought surely someone would have something logical to say to my lengthy rant but no? Ok. Cool.
And Gorski? Ha, he banned me for asking questions he couldn’t answer, like “Why does my kid need a covid vaccine even though zero kids under 19 have died in AB” and then pointing out that “long covid” is just as much of an unknown as the side effects long term of the vaccines, and that “slowing the spread” doesnt make sense when HE HIMSELF ADMITTED IT DOESN’T DO THAT!
Gorski is transparently cocky and arrogant, which doesn’t convince anyone of anything, and he never met a big pharma drug he didn’t like. He’s such a gaslighter he calls any accusations of such the “pharma shill gambit”. Pull the word Gambit out and get how many scrabble points, Gorski?
Maybe what you’re doing is the Conspiracy Theorist Gambit? After all, is it a conspiracy theory when all I’m opposed to are publicly stated plans?
Also, rely on one scientists work? I just put a big list of studies there, and what do you mean it’s not supported by other work?
Show me the studies…
He’s a scientist, instead of him downplaying, maybe you’re exaggerating the risk of covid-19.
A+ DILE – well thought out !! Long term effects not known … sorry but ppl driven by fear are not lab rats….. but they wanted to be okay … no problem with those who want it but forcing everyone into it???? Are we living in a free country? After all it MUST BE FREE DECISION of everyone … what next ? Pills of happiness ? Sterilization ? After all – WHAT DIFFERENCE in fascist, communist, or medical DICTATORSHIP?? I hardly see any… people so afraid that they give away ALL and ANY freedoms or civil rights for ILLUSION of safety…. Really what’s next ? I am really pissed off about where the MAJORITY of sheep is running to ….
I know you guys are abit behind. Vaccine passports are already here. You go to my health and text your record to your phone. You know, for people who want to “politically correct emote” to do what they want. It doesn’t mean anything except they don’t mind bring a slave. But knock yourself out if that’s you.
Dile for Premier…maybe.
Alberta might be the biggest disappointment in Canada…closely followed by the big baffling buffoon in Ontario. At least in Quebec he has been Hitler like since Day 1.
Here is the bottom line.. how is it that “cases” are out of control with 80 % plus vaccinations…compared to a year ago with none? This vaccination program must be a tremendous success since you can still transmit it, still get infected from it and still die from it. And that is the fault of people who aren’t vaccinated, the huge majority of those who don’t have Covid?
Look at Israel…the majority of their cases got the double dose.. and now #3..and the dreaded Covid is still knocking them off. Their own scientists determined that natural immunity was up to 26 times more effective than the jab.
They also have full on passports…very effective.
This is what you sheep have to look forward to.