There were exactly zero policy surprises at Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s afternoon COVID-19 news conference yesterday.
As predicted by everyone everywhere, Mr. Kenney pulled the plug immediately on the province’s vaccine passport – which was euphemistically known as the “Restrictions Exemption Program,” so he could deny ever having implemented such a thing.
By the time you read this, it will be gone – although the smartphone app will be kept up to date for a spell so Albertans can ride on federally regulated airplanes and enjoy winter holidays in warm places.
What impact this will have on the province’s hard-pressed hospitality industry is less certain than the premier would like you to think, as it’s likely to drive away as many cautious customers as unvaccinated ones it attracts.
Capacity limits for indoor venues mostly also disappeared at midnight, and mask mandates for children under 12, including in schools, will be gone by Monday morning.
This infuriated teachers, already fearful about the impact of Education Minister Adriana LaGrange’s letter yesterday telling school authorities they “cannot deny their students access to in person education due to their personal decision to wear or not to wear a mask in schools.”
And it frightened parents, particularly of kids under five who can’t yet be vaccinated. The government did not consult parents, teachers or school boards.
This is all part of what the government called “a careful and prudent plan to phase out public health measures” and many government opponents dismissed as a craven surrender to the to the outlaw convoy blockade disrupting the main border crossing to the United States at Coutts, supposedly because of their opposition to vaccine mandates.
Neither of these interpretations is quite right, in your blogger’s opinion.
Certainly Mr. Kenney was being economical with the truth when he forcefully denied the “shift to a balanced approach where we are able to live with COVID-19 and return to normal” had anything to do with his determination to survive his United Conservative Party leadership review in Red Deer on April 9.
Everything this man does is political. But if he was caving in to anyone, it was the members of his own influential anti-vaccine rural caucus, some of whom he’ll need to help him keep his job, not the actual blockaders.
As for getting the border open again, it’s unlikely he cares much about that when it’s so easy in southern Alberta to toss that hot potato into Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s lap.
Either way, it’s telling that after a pusillanimous press release from acting Justice Minister Sonya Savage earlier in the day suggesting the blockaders at Coutts really ought to respect the rule of law and abide by the wishes of local residents, the truckers shut down the highway again completely.
If the RCMP and the government really want to end the blockade and open the highway, they’re going to have to do something they haven’t yet tried – enforcing the law.
So if it wasn’t the actual policy announcement, what was it about the premier’s press conference yesterday that made many Albertans want to prematurely give up on their Dry February pledge?
Could it have been the sheer gaslighting of Mr. Kenney’s effort to plead for Albertans to heal their differences over COVID-19 mitigation measures?
“Unvaccinated people are being treated like people with AIDS in the 1980s,” Mr. Kenney said, oozing earnestness, as crockery dropped and profanities exploded all across the province.
Large numbers of Albertans remember Mr. Kenney bragging as a young MP about how at the height of the AIDS crisis in the late 1980s while attending university in San Francisco he helped overturn “the first gay spousal law in North America” – cruelly preventing survivors from visiting their dying partners in hospital.
Or perhaps it was the cognitive dissonance of hearing the premier who promised in July 2020 to let municipalities make their own mask mandate decisions explain why that would now be a terrible idea.
When rural municipalities wanted out of the province’s reluctantly imposed mask mandates, Mr. Kenney had this to say: “We’ve said we’ll respect a decision of municipalities in that regard. We think these decisions are better taken locally. This is a huge and diverse province. The challenges that a very dense city might face on crowded buses couldn’t be more different than a remote rural municipality where there are no active cases. So we think a one-size-fits-all approach for a huge vast, diverse, province like this doesn’t make sense.”
Now that big-city mayors are worried about the impact of dropping mask mandates while the Omicon variant continues to surge, this is what the premier said yesterday: “I’d like to know if it is their intention to create an entirely separate municipal public health policy that is different and apart from that of the province. I would think that would be a serious problem. … I think turning public health policy like this into some kind of a local political football is not helpful, it’s not conducive to public confidence in the public health parameters, or in the clarity of what the rules are from one part of the province to another.”
Or maybe it was just the way he turned up for the newser 20 minutes late, like he so often does, without uttering a word of apology.
There was only one thing on Kenney’s mind: saving his own hide.
Now that his base wants to hunt him down and run him back to Ottawa on a rail, Kenney had no choice but to say, “Pandemic? What pandemic?” when he decided to pull every single “damaging” public health measure, and render any measures still in place completely moot. At this point, it’s another roll of the dice…Best. Valentine’s Day. Ever.
Of course, there maybe no holding back the tide at this point. The FreeDUMB Convoys and their respective blockades and occupations are breaking out everywhere. Politicians are befuddled over what to do. PMJT is watching and waiting…for what? Not sure at this point, but given how good his luck is at this point, it’s all a matter of seeing where the next thing falls.
Liberal MP Joël Lightbound’s appearance calling for moderation on the mandates and leniency for the Antivaxx’d was something of a surprise. Considering the way party leaders are falling these days, I can’t help but think that this could be another case of the other shoe dropping. There’s no doubt that Trudeau, regardless of his luck, is living on the edge of his own abyss. It remains to be seen how this will play out, but one thing was certain about today’s Question Period: Chrystia Freeland seemed to more interested in going through her own briefing materials that nodding approval for everything Trudeau said. That task was happily taken up by Mélanie Joly, who has done very well of late, regardless of his disasters in the early part of her political career. And being foreign minister while Vladimir Putin holds court with a clearly desperate Emmanuel Macron puts Joly on the side of the better angels … well, we’ll see.
Meanwhile, Ottawa police appear to be hapless in their dealings with the FreeDUMB Convoy. There is going to be a climatic moment at some point, but the question is will Ottawa’s police chief even be in charge at that time? Once there’s a change at the top, you know the gig will be up.
I know it’s Kenney just being Kenney, twisting himself into a political pretzel yet again contradicting what he has said and done in the past, but this is especially cringe worthy.
I suppose to give Kenney some credit, he speaks from personal experience when he talks about people with AIDS being treated badly, he knows all about that. Of course he conveniently leaves out his bad role in this. If he wants to bring it this up, it might have been a good idea to also take responsibility for his past actions, reflect on them and perhaps even apologize. Of course Kenney is all about avoiding responsibility or apologizing, as much as possible.
Also, there is the “that was then, this is now” approach to municipal autonomy. Kenney is all for it in principle when it is politically expedient for him, but the principle is dropped or forgotten when not.
Unfortunately, we may be burdened with the most opportunistic politician in Canada, perhaps in an almost sociopathic way. Who cares if more people die from COVID in Alberta than necessary over the next few months? Kenney has more important things to worry about right now like his upcoming leadership review and he calculates easing COVID restrictions now might help with that.
“Unfortunately, we may be burdened with the most opportunistic politician in Canada, perhaps in an almost sociopathic way.”
And then there is Pierre Poilievre…..
My body; my choice. What if I don’t want to congregate with a bunch of anti-vax, anti-mask mandate know-nothings? Where is my ability to choose because of this farrago? A true conservative would let the marketplace decide. They would keep the vaccine passports in place and let businesses and municipalities decide whether to enforce mandates or not. I am sure that there are lots of businesses that worry they will lose business if they are not allowed to enforce mandates, as many customers such as myself will be wary and anxious about patronizing them and placing ourselves in situations where we are at higher risk of infection. Businesses and individuals should be allowed to choose, but I saw nothing in the announcement that said they would be allowed this latitude.
The mandates were about trying to get us to a place where restrictions could be eased and lifted. The only upside to this sad story is that, if there is another serious outbreak or hospital capacity is once again overwhelmed, we will have yet more evidence that this government does not take the health and welfare of its citizens as seriously as it ought to.
In any event, this is about as bad as it gets. Even if Bumbles were pushed to these bad health policy decisions by a calculation about the leadership review and not by the protests at Coutts and elsewhere, the insurrectionists will take comfort in the belief that their actions caused the mandates to disappear. This will inspire more copy-cat, illegal demonstrations elsewhere, both nationally and internationally, causing more disruption and misery for everyone. Right-wring groups, including white supremacist groups, are turning up the volume on this tactic and promoting it heavily.
Much has been handled very badly, including the government responses to and communications around Covid, and the police and government responses to the illegal protests, the so-called “Freedom Convoy”.
Sadly, there’s not much difference between a restaurant filled with a “bunch of anti-vax, anti-mask mandate know-nothings” and one filled with vaxxed, passport carrying diners. You chances of catching the virus is about the same.
What is your evidence for this assertion? While it is true that vaccinations do not prevent breakthrough infections, especially with regard to Omicron and that peak viral loads are similar for those infected by Covid regardless of vaccination status, there is evidence that the viral load has a shorter duration in vaccinated people. Unfortunately, the data are still ambiguous and not up to date (at least the sources that I can find) to conclusively show that vaccinations lead to lower transmission rates.
But, let’s use some common sense here. Among the triple vaxed, there will be a lower rate of infection and the viral load (it is assumed) will have a shorter duration. So, I am not sure your assertion makes any sense. If I had a choice between going to a restaurant filled with people who are triple-vaxxed versus attending a church service led by some goofy over-the-top Christian pastor who thinks vaccines are the work of the devil, which event do you think will be a super spreader? True, I could get Covid at either event, but my chances are much higher at the church event I would think.
Anyway, here are some references for some bedtime reading:
https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/ncov/phm/2021/06/covid-19-transmission-vaccinated-cases.pdf?sc_lang=en
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00690-3/fulltext
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/01/covid-vaccine-markedly-cuts-household-transmission-studies-show
My evidence? One word: Israel. Already gone thru a 4th dose and what did they get? A record setting case count world ride. The Pfizer CEO has admitted two doses provide “little protection, if any” against omicron. A booster will be necessary but that only lasts three months.
Common sense? Any vaccine that requires you to continue wearing masks after injection is a vaccine that leaves much to be desired. If you are worried about a church filled with vaccine haters then don’t go into that church. Seek out restaurants that have vaccine mandates. You can mask up and continue to get booster shots, nobody is stopping you. You can live your life, just let others live there.
Kenney regularly shows up late to news conferences? That’s his way of reminding the newsies that Kenney is important.
So, let me get this straight, Kenney won’t be running on his record as Premier in the next election?
The man who said women weren’t good at political “tactics” before the last election is proving to be not very good at strategy. It will be interesting to see if he survives as leader until then. Early reports from Coutts seem to indicates the occupation force is unimpressed by the Premier’s concessions and the siege is not lifting. I wonder how the UCP caucus feels?
While all this duplicitous stupidity comes from the mouth of a very glib politician, one has to wonder how all of this bullying and crying will emerge again when more of the SHTF from continued human “overshoot” and its concomitant climate change. As a consequence of this cow-towing to the crying bullies, we shall no longer have to wear seatbelts, drive only 20 kmph over the speed limit, or obey a police officer without a lengthy conversation about our ‘right’ to break any ‘laws’ we deem to be against our individual ‘best interests’ and needs and desires.
Have to thank you, Dave, for covering this crap for us as I cannot but use the ‘mute’ button every time that silly premier gets on the airwaves to go on his interminable ramblings. Your ability to listen to this political blathering is obviously better than mine!
Bruce: I’m considering purchasing transcription software to limit the pain of listening to than man bloviate at the glacial pace required to get his word salad into text. DJC
I may consider donating to you so you can afford said software. Having to listen to that man is truly cruel and unusual punishment.
Well chief? I have a simple solution! Set your secret communist decoder ring to “Wing nut dog whistle”! All will be revealed! As for your concerns in our constant sorrow? I will try my best to compile a sound track worthy of your efforts! Yours in anger, this day; Pogo https://youtu.be/TW2H6eT_KnQ?t=241
Make sure you get the AlbertaNewSpeak edition. I’m a born and raised rural Albertan and I’m having a hell of a time understanding any of the UPC.
I agree totally, Bruce. I am afraid that if anyone saw me listening to Kenney, they would think I was gullible enough to believe him, and I honestly don’t believe anything he says.
“where we are able to live with COVID-19 and return to normal”
It is especially ironic that Jason Kenney should invoke the AIDS epidemic in his spiel, considering ‘we need to learn to live with Covid’ is a rallying cry among right wing commentators.
I lived through the AIDS epidemic during my misspent youth, and we learned to live with the new reality. In a matter of months condoms became the norm for a casual sexual encounter, whereas prior to AIDS they were only used for birth control. I expect most readers of this blog of my vintage remember the phrase ‘No glove, no love’.
Part of learning to live with a virus is accepting the fact that there is a new normal, and behaviour has to change to recognize the new reality, rather than trying to make it go away by blowing your truck horn. Apparently Deena Hinshaw told a press conference a few days ago that she has not eaten in a restaurant for some time, and has no plans to do so any time soon. In that light, we really need to consider if formerly safe activities like singing in church or drunkenness in a bar, where you are suddenly old friends with someone, is even safe.
We always said, “Wrap that rascal!”
The provincial ship of state once more approaches the Great Barrington Reef, powered by Hopes and Prayers.
Ayyymmmeen
Kudos to Calgary police:
Calgary police lay 80 charges in connection with convoy protest
https://globalnews.ca/news/8601724/80-charges-laid-calgary-convoy-protest/
Thirty summons were issued to drivers in the convoy that backed up parts of Deerfoot Trail and downtown Calgary.
“Approximately 50 additional summonses will be mailed to the registered owners of vehicles identified as participating and committing an offence,” Calgary police wrote on social media.
“The tickets include impeding traffic, failing to stop for a peace officer, having an unregistered vehicle, failing to produce insurance, and displaying an obscured licence plate, among others.”
KEITH MCCLARY: Good for the police for taking action on this in Calgary. Look at how people still try to support this nonsense.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-dominos-begin-to-fall-most-canadian-pandemic-strictures-should-be-gone-by-spring
Hey Alberta, have you suffered enough? I guess not. Only a general strike will rid us of Kenney. Until then, keep on suffering for another year and half I guess.
When Kenney’s sociopathic lifting of restrictions and masks in schools kills all your kids, remember you voted for this.
We had a perfectly ethical and competent premier in Notley, and people chose Kenney instead. Karma is a bitch!
Jason Kenney has managed to surpass Steven Harper’s record for public hatred and contempt. This means that he is ready for his next role: leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. We should encourage him to make haste and launch his campaign before the Ides of March.
Alberta’s blow-up doll premier is moving toward his goals, though, so we’re probably out of luck. He’s making fools of the hapless RCMP, who are so busy falling all over themselves to ensure the proper nutrition and vehicle maintenance of the block-a-deers at Coutts that they won’t notice when he replaces them with a provincial police force before they can write up their findings on that Kenney election fraud investigation.
Let’s not forget the expansion of hospital capacity that he slipped into his speech yesterday, which is code for “healthcare privatization”.
And please note that the words “racist” and “misogynist,” are extremely offensive to Premier Blow-up Doll and must never again be used in this province. Who does he think he is: Madonna (who once we tried to copyright a common word in the English language)? Fine: racist misogynist. Misogynistic rascist — oops, I almost slipped fascist in there by mistake. Perhaps we can all trek down to the border at Coutts and chant these words until a collaborator from the village feeds us chicken wings, chili, pulled pork and sandwiches.
I doubt that Airplane! Alberta 2022 will ever be deemed the second-greatest comedy of all time, but I can’t wait for the part of the movie where “Otto” takes off.
The block-a-deers at the border are now offering to do odd jobs for seniors in Coutts. After reports last week of seniors not having access to home care, I guess they figure this will turn the tide. They’ve posted a phone number on the Facebook page of one of the village collaborators.
It’s good to know that the people who prevented home care workers from entering the village have free run of the village themselves. Freedom for the invaders, none for the villagers. You’ve got to wonder how the collaborators in Coutts think their businesses will survive in a town where they’ve been the opposite of neighborly to their neighbors. How can creating a situation for seniors like what we saw in nursing homes out east be spun in a favorable light? And would any senior allow an anti-vaxxer, anti-masker, who has held them and their village hostage, into their home in the Omicron wave of this pandemic? Let’s not forget that seniors remember past pandemics. The question remains if changing Depends is among the services offered.
It is my understanding that the coutts seditionists closed the border at 8 p.m. after receiving the following tweet from kenney:
“If the Canada-USA trucker vaccine mandate wasn’t bad enough, now Justin Trudeau wants to bring in a mandate for truckers going between provinces.
Alberta will fight this every step of the way – including in court, if we have to.”
— Jason Kenney (@jkenney) February 8, 2022
I guess this was kenney’s way of trying to score extra points with his base. Or he just couldn’t pass on another opportunity to waste MORE of Albertans tax money and slag the federal government while encouraging his base to continue the blockade.
In the middle of another helping of Jason Kenney’s world-famous word salad, he blurted out something that was supposed to defend the Antivaxxed. Kenney said something about society should not attack them the way those with AIDS were attacked years ago.
This was certainly a double-take moment and gave me pause to wonder what the He-Men Convoy FreeDUMB truckers will think of that?
It may come down to something also the lines of …
Is Kenney comparing our righteous cause for FreeDUMB and body autonomy to men having sex with each other and getting that disease that *only* men who have sex with other men can get? I mean I am all for FreeDUMB and all, and no one should worry about what two (or more) men do together because … it’s not like there’s anything wrong with that. But I mean…that’s pretty weird. My pastor said, “Kenney is an honorable and moral man who thinks that stuff is evil and the Bible says the wages of men have sex with other men is death…blah, blah, blah.”
I doubt we’ll see that outcome since the anti-vaxxers have no truck with logic.
Remember at the start of the pandemic when the Truckers’ were being lauded as the Saints of the roadways. There were interview images of stoic truckers climbing back into their cabs humbly clutching the free bag of donuts and coffee offered to them as a sign of appreciation. The unsung heroes of the motorways keeping the supply of toilet paper and other necessities on supermarket shelves. What a difference a year makes.
I think these MAGA Truckers are emboldened by the power of social media. Their handlers’ want a confontation in order to record the images on multiple cell phones to saturate the Twittersphere. This maybe just the beginning. After the total capitulation of Jason Kenney, prostrating himself to these right wing Malcontent Truckers and they respond by closing the border again what can you say. If you want to kill the snake you have to cut off the head.
Since when do Alberta farmers and truckers behave like this? I’ve lived here my entire life and this kind of minset is not even close to the Western values that real Albertan’s aspire to. Who are the puppet masters?
When I watched the comments on comparing AIDS to vaccinations paranoia ,I had my jaw fall to the floor initially. Now, I am certain Premier Stumble Bum has truly flipped his lid. I couldn’t even swear; I was so gobsmacked. Outrageous.
Anyway, Albertans now can face Best Summer Ever II. It also looks like this policy flip flop has got the dim wit nothing, excepting a cool half billion dollars in lost trade revenue. So much for growing the economy stumble bum.
Can anyone find that quote from last night’s debacle, where Premier BUD said we should all be happy to go out to restaurants and sit beside sick people, breathing in their exhaled airborne virus particles, because it is our civic duty? It was during the part when he (gaslit) that HIV/AIDs is exactly the same as Omicron. That was the whole speech? Okay. Thanks.
Just to clear about it, what Mr. Kenny might refer to as ‘overturn “the first gay spousal law in North America”’ was no such thing. It was his mean fight to prevent dying AIDS sufferers from seeing their loved ones in hospice. While dying. In. Pain.
My teenager had it right a few years ago. Jason Kenny looks like he enjoys pastries and stealing wheelchairs.
I keep going back to these articles about Kenney’s early activism:
https://www.sprawlcalgary.com/the-young-zealot-part-1
https://www.sprawlcalgary.com/the-young-zealot-part-2
His character was starting to show: “…like a bunch of Nazis to everyone else who doesn’t agree,” said one person who stood up to him.
A professor also took issue with him:
A proposal to impeach the Student Senate, advanced by a professor in the theology department, accused Kenney of leading “a Pearl Harbor-type coup d’etat by a fundamentalist junta” that sought to “superimpose a closed-shop, fundamentalist and authoritarian model of Catholicism.”
And here we are.
Yoohoo, Premier BUD! I hear Stephen Carter is available for your CPC leadership campaign. Carpe diem. Tempus Fugit. Literally translated, that means seize the fish before it slips your mind.
With the UCP at the helm, don’t expect things to get better. They will, when the UCP are gone, but the damage will take a long time to fix up. It’s a shame.
Covid makes people die alone. In the eighties kenney made people die alone from his judgments in the name of Jesus. Therefore covid is like kenney in the eighties. I’m surprised his ego didn’t make him claim that covid’s been copying him this whole time.
The proud Alberta farmers and other lunatics who were terrorizing Edmontonians on Feb 5th were too chicken to do what they wanted, which is what one of thier criminal BC brothers did. The Alberta conservative podunks on the John Deeres tried their best to intimidate me and cause an accident. As I thought, this whole anti-vaxxer brigade is as worhtless as the poltiicans who wupport them.
https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-company-fires-trucker-after-cyclist-jostled-during-saturday-s-convoy-1.5773387
To: Ayeamaye , but more so to “Brett”(who seems to have a penchant for dissing farmers), I was raised on a farm just outside of Edmonton, and due to circumstances my father moved to BC, we stayed with our grandparents. One of the things I learned from him was the importance of education. I also remember how proud he was when I got to shake hands with Mr Diefenbaker who came to our school.(he was a staunch conservative who is turning in his grave right now with what has become of this party) .But he taught us to use our heads,because common sense doesn’t come from a book. Most of the ” farmers who you see on TV ,are not real farmers nowadays, they are agricultural industrialists that have quotas to live up to from the big corporations , they are for lack of a better analogy -hog tied – to performance output ,”company men” who have become part of the conglomeration . NO self respecting cattle man would “let” some rabble-rousing truckers ,get in the way of getting feed to his cattle. And no self respecting Alberta cattleman would be running out of feed because its it’s coming from the US .
The same as here in BC with the flooding, (and I still can’t figure out how Global finds these people,hmm), that said “they felt abandoned by the government, we took the dog out for a walk and saw the water rising, so we came home and I had to put a towel at the base of the door”…
Now that is a dumber than a doorknob, but most definitely not a farmer.The real farmers were too busy trying to save their livestock.
We always used to laugh at our “dumb” city slicker cousins, because they had no common sense, and I vividly remember the day we got a ” stern” talking to,when the eldest who was above us,got kicked by the cow ,that we told him you had to pump the tail to get the milk out.( it still can make me laugh.
As I said my grandfather was a wise man, and another thing he taught us ,that when you were taking produce to market, you can always pick out if the turnip truck had been by.
Life lessons learned, and if there was a 22,000 (approx from what I could find) position shortage of truckers, all we heard on the news,was not enough truckers, So for these ” so called truckers” could get a job, if they actually wanted to work, and if you’re worried about losing your house you don’t go traipsing off to Ottawa with plans to stay indefinitely, with your children, unless someone has given you a paid vacation, or better yet, “”Have we got an offer for you, come join the party bring the y’ung ‘uns, we’ll provide fun activities for them, bouncy castles etc. etc””.
I wonder if they also cover the costs of hearing aids, counselling for PTSD, , whoops , I forgot , they don’t believe in the health care system, , heck ain’t nothing that a lil bit of castor oil won’t fix, I always have a few spare quarts in back of the ol’ truck.
In the meantime the poor REAL TRUCKERS ,who are out there doing there jobs and wondering if they are going to be able to get out from under the brush, because some radicals have jumped into or onto the crazy train.
PS : TO COOL ..if you want to mess with the algorithms, spend about 20 min a week, just looking up the most bizarre opposite, off the cuff things you can think of, my page came back the other day BC Capital of Canada , …gotcha
With Covid, as with everything, timing is everything. Transmission goes up and down with the seasons and typically peaks during the month or so after New Year—like right now. The empirical third year of Covid confirms epidemiological theory and common sense: one can set a watch by it.
Thus, it’s no mere happenstance that politicians compromise strict epidemiological modelling (which, ideally, would end the pandemic within weeks of a cooperative global quarantine) by gradually lifting wintertime stricture when it’s opportune to do so as summer approaches and social intercourse takes place outdoors at safe distance. Neither is it mere coincidence that protesters avail general winter Covid weariness to gain sympathy for increasingly apparent ulterior intentions—that is, to time action so it coincides with the annual peak of Covid infections when protocols are most restrictive and citizens are most weary and easily incited to do intemperate things; to wit: the January 6 insurrection in the US Capital last winter and the “freedom convoy” in the Canadian Capital this winter.
Two camps contend for people’s sympathy: one is for keeping Covid protocols— broad vaccination, annual boosting, seasonal strengthening and weakening of social restrictions as needed to keep hospitals from being swamped with Covid patients; the other camp demands and end to all mandatory restrictions. Right now!
Both ask of us the same thing: to “learn to live with Covid.” The irony is that the stunted rationale of an occupation characterized by long periods of solitary confinement and relative pandemic safety (compared to, say, an ICU nurse, teacher, or waitperson) cannot grasp much of social graces beyond the world looking back through a windshield, nor that the vast majority of more gregariously occupied citizens cannot truck with truckers’ proposed new world that truckers have relatively little intercourse with. But we have, in fact, a growing genre of Covid confessional: deathbed conversions summed up as, “I just didn’t know…” —provided, naturally, the supplicant is afforded the brinksmanship of Constantine’s last-minute Christianization. That is, a whole lot of luck and absolutely exquisite timing: the Roman Emperor had a chi-rho vision—the initials of “Christ is King” in Greek orthography (‘XP’=‘CK’ in Roman orthography) which his soldiers were compelled to adorn their shields prior to the Battle of Malvinas Bridge, Rome, in 312, which Constantine won. Good fortune blessed Constantine, but he waited to formally convert until he was laying in his deathbed in 337.
Lest we’re drawn and quartered in the trap of equivocation, appreciate a subtext which has been bobbing along the whole time like an genuine ice cube in a spring-breakup floe of disingenuousness: “learning to live with Covid” by abandoning all safety protocols, tout suite, is not merely inconsiderate of those whom the currently hale would cull as weaklings—popularly known as the sick and the old—but also a fallacious understanding of time in the absolute (never mind timeliness which, as we’ve seen during wintertime Covid rebellions, is all about opportune ulterior motive). Such a heartless opinion is granted only if the ‘when’ of newly mutated variants is mistakenly presumed an ‘if’.
Statistical hucksterism depends on typical teenager enthusiasm for risky behaviour: ‘only 50% of smokers will die of a lung disease?—sounds like good odds to me, dude!’ warbles the pimply-faced gambler. As far as timing goes, 43,200:1 looks like a pretty safe bet when nothing is a sure bet. Such are the odds that a busted clock is correct, to the second, twice a day. Yet, with millions of confirmed human cases of Covid in the world, unknown millions—tens?—hundreds?—of undiagnosed cases, and hundreds of trillions of viruses inhabiting each infected person, each virus being a possible candidate to mutate into another variant if allowed to replicate inside any number of mammalian hosts, the odds are astronomically high that new variants will present and spread, perhaps as fast as Omicron and/or as deadly as Delta. Perhaps both.
It’s certain, then, that even if all mandated Covid protocols were ended now, even if we were to accept that millions of Canadians would be much more likely to die from the virus, it’s still not time to declare an all-clear because new, possibly more virulent variants will appear and protocols be needed again—barring a two-week, worldwide lockdown which we’ve shown, in spades, we haven’t the patience for —even though it would stem both present and future variants (the timing was always good for that).
The clock is allegorical for political Covid (following peaks and valleys in months and stalled-convoys in days or weeks—in short, calendrical) and completely fantastic for wheel 18-realers, 6- 4- and 2-wheelers (in winter, BC only) wanting to elect themselves our government: they can’t count to four, let alone five (respectively the statutory and constitutional term limits of government), and rapturously write themselves free passes to a world beyond time and reality.
But for Jason Kenney it’s apropos: rather late to the bitumen boom and rather early to the Keystone pipeline bust, as Alberta premier, his timing was never that good. His watch seems too fast or too slow; ill-timed surprises sneak up on him—like the Sasquatch Report (it didn’t find any Big Foots, but the timing of its release couldn’t have been worse). Of course his opening up for the best summer ever was a ridiculous mashup of tRumpublican Covid denial and what other, more cautious politicians were doing more successfully, with uncanny prescience of the phantasmagorical truckers’ soviet which would arrive in Alberta several months later (that is, it would have been laughable had it not resulted in a summer of many more Covid deaths than if he’d prudently atoned for his late start earlier—or at all—while other Canadians were enjoying at least a bit of sunny respite). Seeming to ignore the calendrical scale of Covid politics, K-Boy’s been preoccupied with his own political fate and often seen frowning as he shakes his wristwatch to his ear, only to hear his rookie UCP term ticking away—tick, tick, tick, tick. It’s not right twice a day but all wrong every day.
And all year—make that two-plus years since Covid and nearly three for his first term of government. His defiant uncooperativeness with the federation might have felt well-timed to him but of course got out of sync to the point of dancing all over everybody’s toes. Truckers don’t give two Coutts that K-Boy stumbled down the rabbit hole a day late ( than Saskatchewan’s capitulation to post-Covid dystopia) and a billion dollars short, top hat akimbo, shaking his pocket watch to his ear and muttering something about the time: in New Truckers Twelve CB-lingo, they told him to 12-37 (“You’re jiving me”), 12-72 (“You have me confused with someone who cares”), 12-78 (“OMG, now he thinks he’s a cop”), 12-86 (“I think you have problems, stupid!”), and 12-96 (CB Maniacs of America, unite.”) —Dictionary of CB Lingo, Davis Publications, NY, NY, © 1976.
If Covid does another bumper-run to overflowing ICUs in Alberta again—it seems inevitable—K-Boy might show up at his pwn retirement party early, depending on the odds his political chronometer is working right—on the timing and everything.
Truck ‘em easy, my friends. 10-7
Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick…….
OMG, just had dinner& a nap, for some reason haven’t slept this week, to see , I had to wipe my eyes and try and focus on the headline — Jason Kenny apologizing for…. yada yada …NICE CALL , DJC, well that sure didn’t take long, and kudos to who so ever saved the tape of that fresh faced ,smug , look what I did face…..Saw- where!!♡♡
(Whom?)
The Lions Senior Centre in Edmonton is ignoring Kenney’s order to do away with the Covid passport.
“Please be advised that our seniors association has taken the position that all COVID health and safety restrictions remain in effect until further notice.
This means masks and proof of vaccination are required to enter the building during our association hours from 8:30 to 4:30 weekdays. The safety and security of our members, instructors, volunteers and staff remain of the utmost importance to us”.
One small step for mankind.
To : Scotty on Denman…BRAVO !!
What
a wonderful lullaby, Thank you!!
Though I did go slightly off the rail thinking about making JK read it at a news conference , and being able to watch the reporters faces….okay..back on track ,if I remember English 101/ poetry , I’m taking the cadences as a sedative .and off to Layla land, with a smile for a change ..
DJC ,I read a CBC news article from yesterday —How organizers with police and military expertise may be helping Ottawa convoy protest dig in.—–
Can you, would you, comment on this or give a link .
I wish I hadn’t seen this before going to bed, it completely undid Scotty’s eloquence….
Literally the opposite of what any sensible person working in the hospitality industry wanted.
Here’s the nicest I can be towards our current situation. Dearest: “anybody but these guys” help is needed! https://youtu.be/DXHiHElr-ss
Looks like the socialist government in Edmonton agrees with Kenny, the UCP and the Freedom Convoy:
Last Week In Edmonton:
• Councillors voted 9-4 against implementing a citywide vaccine passport. When the Provincial Government cancelled the Restrictions Exemption Program, Edmonton City Council decided to take matters into their own hands, voting unanimously in favour of a motion to direct City Administration to research options for implementing a municipal system. Ultimately, however, at a Special Meeting of Council on Friday, common sense prevailed. City Manager Andre Corbould reported that a vaccine mandate would not be an effective tool for enhancing public safety. Rather, it would offer “more of a perception of safety”.