What leaves me completely gobsmacked is how Ford is being crucified for his performance, while our smarmy, useless prime minister is getting away with all the bad and non-decisions he’s made. At least Ford has looked sincere throughout this mess. Trudeau seems bent on using it as an excuse to reshape our country based on his ideological whims.
The failure to learn from experience must be a Canadian characteristic. In the first wave we failed to learn from our SARS experience, in the second wave we failed to learn from the first, and in the the third wave we failed to learn from any of the previous waves. I am sure the fourth wave will be no different.
The partisan bickering doesnt make it any easier to try to analyze what went wrong. If you criticize Trudeau it means you love Trump. If you criticize Ford or Kenney it means you love Trudeau.
I'd love to live in a country with boring competent leadership, but that country isn't Canada.
Really well done piece on this - though I think Mr. Gurney is far too easy on government as a whole but here we are. When the dust finally settles on this pandemic, governments across the country are going to have a reckoning of their performance and let me tell you, it isn't just Ford who is going to get a big fat F. Kenney is right there with him (as is the rest of the UCP just so we are clear). The biggest problem has been not only that they seem to be continuously messing up, it is that they are continuing to try and govern by ideology when the virus clearly doesn't care about anyone's ideology. This pandering to anti-science has gotten us into so much trouble that I honestly can't see a way to the end of the tunnel. These governments have earned our contempt and our loathing.
Great article! I've been left shaking my head the past few months as various actors and parties try to blame each other for our mess. Sadly, our abysmal pandemic response has been non partisan.
Thanks Matt for your continued thoughtful coverage here and elsewhere. From my first “who threw out our PPE” moment over a year ago I had hoped our leadership would step up. Sincerely hoping strong and compassionate leaders will emerge before next year’s June election in Ontario.
13 months into this crisis I will dare to evaluate the players to whom we, the inconsequential masses, have given our lives over. We who have had to endure, at times, the utter incompetence of the players. We who have been confused by the outright contradictory messaging from the players ("please please please take the first vaccine you are offered, but we will give you a choice, but if you delay you are prolonging the third wave, but you may get a super rare blood clot, but if you are hesitant you may end up getting COVID and increase your risk of blood clot by orders of magnitude, but if the vaccine gives you that blood clot we know how to treat it, but wait until we get instruction to your family physicians on how to call on the experts who can diagnose the rare blood clot because getting the wrong meds can make the clotting worse").
Worst place goes to the media. They have done as they always have, which in normal times can be a public service. But in a crisis such as this, they have shown, mostly through their addiction to disaster porn, that they are part of the communications problem. And their reporting has to some extent enabled enough of the inconsequential masses to eschew public health guidance and enable spread of COVID.
Second worst place goes to the public health mandarins. The politicians ceded responsibility to them, and I do not envy them being put in this position. I think they are doing their best and doing it in good faith. But this does not give them a pass with respect to the failed predictions and the confusing and unfair rules they have made up over the past 13 months.
Third worst place goes to the government leaders across the land. The paramount job of these leaders in the here and now, in my humble opinion, is to get vaccines into arms as quickly as possible - full stop. All else, even third waves washing over provinces, is a lower priority. The data on mass vaccination has been pretty persuasive - in all countries with high vaccination rates this strategy has dramatically reduced deaths by COVID. But the most dismaying thing is that the politicians haven't been able to bring themselves to say to us in a united fashion, "Look, we have a vaccine supply problem that will dominate our decision making about who gets the vaccine. We will first vaccinate those who are at greatest risk of a severe outcome if infected by COVID. If that's not you, we are sorry but we will make you wait for months as we get to these others first. Please bear with us, because we commit to getting all adults the jab."
Not one person brought up the fact that our Canadian Health Care system is showing the very cracks in its foundation that have been continually spoken of, yet ignored. In fact during the last election not only was our Health Care left unmentioned so was anything of great importance. Then the team that was knowledgeable on pandemics and the very ones who were our warning system, not just for Canada but the world, were dismantled shortly before the outbreak. In its place we were left with untrained, uneducated, and completely incompetent bureaucrats who would not know a pandemic from a panda. Our informed, trained immunologists, virologists and any one that could set us on a proper path was replaced by suits who would have difficulty running a one car parade. It did not take any time at all to know where the weakest link was, the Federal Government of Canada and our health care system. The Bureaucracy within and overflowing in our healthcare system who know nothing about health care or health are sitting at the top and would not know the measles from impetigo. When on any ordinary day the health care system and our hospitals are running at absolute capacity you have no choice but to stop massive casualties pouring into them. It has been and continues to be the biggest barrier we face in this country during this pandemic. It’s the reason they have to lock down as there are no beds and no trained healthcare workers. You want to see useless bureaucrats, just look at our healthcare system as there are more of those than any healthcare workers. The health care system is where the problem was, is, and will continue to be. The Premiers can try to change and fund more in an emergency but they need help from the Federal Government as they are the only ones who can print money. It would not in anyway surprise me if funding even during the pandemic was being used as a way to force Trudeau’s agenda down the throats of those Premiers who dared disagree with his carbon tax. Everything they do is politicized from the gun ban in the middle of the pandemic put forth by the Prime Minister to which he failed to inform the truth of the unlicensed guns used in the horrific NS murders. As Premiers talked about beefing up the system, making more capacity by removing the floors full of elderly patients waiting for placement in homes that were already overflowing or non-existent to using empty hotels to lodge patients in, after the first lockdown it seemed to have gone with the wind. Canada had lost before the pandemic even landed here as hospitals are run at full capacity and wait times being beyond horrendous long before any pandemic ever hit. It is the cause of the lockdowns as it would not take anything to collapse the entire system.
I cannot recall one member of any opposition party federal or provincial promot closure of air travel into Canada. With enough preasure from the oppositions maybe things could had been different. The virus came in through the airports and has never stopped.
What leaves me completely gobsmacked is how Ford is being crucified for his performance, while our smarmy, useless prime minister is getting away with all the bad and non-decisions he’s made. At least Ford has looked sincere throughout this mess. Trudeau seems bent on using it as an excuse to reshape our country based on his ideological whims.
The failure to learn from experience must be a Canadian characteristic. In the first wave we failed to learn from our SARS experience, in the second wave we failed to learn from the first, and in the the third wave we failed to learn from any of the previous waves. I am sure the fourth wave will be no different.
The partisan bickering doesnt make it any easier to try to analyze what went wrong. If you criticize Trudeau it means you love Trump. If you criticize Ford or Kenney it means you love Trudeau.
I'd love to live in a country with boring competent leadership, but that country isn't Canada.
Really well done piece on this - though I think Mr. Gurney is far too easy on government as a whole but here we are. When the dust finally settles on this pandemic, governments across the country are going to have a reckoning of their performance and let me tell you, it isn't just Ford who is going to get a big fat F. Kenney is right there with him (as is the rest of the UCP just so we are clear). The biggest problem has been not only that they seem to be continuously messing up, it is that they are continuing to try and govern by ideology when the virus clearly doesn't care about anyone's ideology. This pandering to anti-science has gotten us into so much trouble that I honestly can't see a way to the end of the tunnel. These governments have earned our contempt and our loathing.
Great article! I've been left shaking my head the past few months as various actors and parties try to blame each other for our mess. Sadly, our abysmal pandemic response has been non partisan.
Thanks Matt for your continued thoughtful coverage here and elsewhere. From my first “who threw out our PPE” moment over a year ago I had hoped our leadership would step up. Sincerely hoping strong and compassionate leaders will emerge before next year’s June election in Ontario.
13 months into this crisis I will dare to evaluate the players to whom we, the inconsequential masses, have given our lives over. We who have had to endure, at times, the utter incompetence of the players. We who have been confused by the outright contradictory messaging from the players ("please please please take the first vaccine you are offered, but we will give you a choice, but if you delay you are prolonging the third wave, but you may get a super rare blood clot, but if you are hesitant you may end up getting COVID and increase your risk of blood clot by orders of magnitude, but if the vaccine gives you that blood clot we know how to treat it, but wait until we get instruction to your family physicians on how to call on the experts who can diagnose the rare blood clot because getting the wrong meds can make the clotting worse").
Worst place goes to the media. They have done as they always have, which in normal times can be a public service. But in a crisis such as this, they have shown, mostly through their addiction to disaster porn, that they are part of the communications problem. And their reporting has to some extent enabled enough of the inconsequential masses to eschew public health guidance and enable spread of COVID.
Second worst place goes to the public health mandarins. The politicians ceded responsibility to them, and I do not envy them being put in this position. I think they are doing their best and doing it in good faith. But this does not give them a pass with respect to the failed predictions and the confusing and unfair rules they have made up over the past 13 months.
Third worst place goes to the government leaders across the land. The paramount job of these leaders in the here and now, in my humble opinion, is to get vaccines into arms as quickly as possible - full stop. All else, even third waves washing over provinces, is a lower priority. The data on mass vaccination has been pretty persuasive - in all countries with high vaccination rates this strategy has dramatically reduced deaths by COVID. But the most dismaying thing is that the politicians haven't been able to bring themselves to say to us in a united fashion, "Look, we have a vaccine supply problem that will dominate our decision making about who gets the vaccine. We will first vaccinate those who are at greatest risk of a severe outcome if infected by COVID. If that's not you, we are sorry but we will make you wait for months as we get to these others first. Please bear with us, because we commit to getting all adults the jab."
Another one of those 'Columnists knows everything about Covid' column. How many more do we have to endure?
Not one person brought up the fact that our Canadian Health Care system is showing the very cracks in its foundation that have been continually spoken of, yet ignored. In fact during the last election not only was our Health Care left unmentioned so was anything of great importance. Then the team that was knowledgeable on pandemics and the very ones who were our warning system, not just for Canada but the world, were dismantled shortly before the outbreak. In its place we were left with untrained, uneducated, and completely incompetent bureaucrats who would not know a pandemic from a panda. Our informed, trained immunologists, virologists and any one that could set us on a proper path was replaced by suits who would have difficulty running a one car parade. It did not take any time at all to know where the weakest link was, the Federal Government of Canada and our health care system. The Bureaucracy within and overflowing in our healthcare system who know nothing about health care or health are sitting at the top and would not know the measles from impetigo. When on any ordinary day the health care system and our hospitals are running at absolute capacity you have no choice but to stop massive casualties pouring into them. It has been and continues to be the biggest barrier we face in this country during this pandemic. It’s the reason they have to lock down as there are no beds and no trained healthcare workers. You want to see useless bureaucrats, just look at our healthcare system as there are more of those than any healthcare workers. The health care system is where the problem was, is, and will continue to be. The Premiers can try to change and fund more in an emergency but they need help from the Federal Government as they are the only ones who can print money. It would not in anyway surprise me if funding even during the pandemic was being used as a way to force Trudeau’s agenda down the throats of those Premiers who dared disagree with his carbon tax. Everything they do is politicized from the gun ban in the middle of the pandemic put forth by the Prime Minister to which he failed to inform the truth of the unlicensed guns used in the horrific NS murders. As Premiers talked about beefing up the system, making more capacity by removing the floors full of elderly patients waiting for placement in homes that were already overflowing or non-existent to using empty hotels to lodge patients in, after the first lockdown it seemed to have gone with the wind. Canada had lost before the pandemic even landed here as hospitals are run at full capacity and wait times being beyond horrendous long before any pandemic ever hit. It is the cause of the lockdowns as it would not take anything to collapse the entire system.
I cannot recall one member of any opposition party federal or provincial promot closure of air travel into Canada. With enough preasure from the oppositions maybe things could had been different. The virus came in through the airports and has never stopped.