The COVID-19 virus continues to evolve, as the impressive spread of the Omicron variant at this time reminds us. But when it comes to our political leaders and their ability to react to these new threats, some of them seem to be going in the other direction.
In March 2020, some experts (including Sincerely) credited Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford for working constructively with the federal government and appearing to behave like a competent and empathetic leader. But in the months that followed, it became clear that Ford was little more than a sensitive weather vane, waiting for the winds of public opinion to change and then belatedly pointing his government in that direction.
Now, with Omicron, he’s taken that approach to an even more irresponsible level. According to a report from Queen’s Park today, Progressive Conservatives’ internal pollster decided to field test some ideas ahead of the latest round of new restrictions announced Wednesday. Respondents were asked if they supported closing large public spaces, reducing capacity in small businesses, delaying the return of classroom education, mandatory student vaccinations, and dismissal of teachers. health workers and police who refuse to get vaccinated. One wonders to what extent the results of this survey and the responses to those questions informed the government’s response.
Survey-based policymaking is a bad idea at best, and we’re certainly not in the right place right now. But the speed at which this variant spreads and the degree to which it seems ready overwhelming our healthcare system makes this approach even more reckless and irresponsible. Public opinion cannot keep up with this variant, and by the time it does, the damage will be done and counted. Trying to use polls to figure out the best way to get ahead here is like trying to use a divining stick to navigate rush hour traffic on Highway 401.
If it’s any consolation for Ontarians, and it probably isn’t, Ford’s leadership approach isn’t the worst in the country right now.
As usual, that honor belongs to Alberta’s Prime Minister Jason Kenney, who has once again decided to do a reverse Gretzky and skate where the record definitely isn’t going. Last week, he announced that his province would actually relax restrictions, including allowing unvaccinated people to attend indoor meetings.
“We need to go where the rest of Canada is,” he said, perhaps unaware or not caring that the rest of Canada is rushing in the opposite direction by announcing new restrictions and public health measures.
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His logic, if it can be called that, this decision “eliminates another reason for division, as the families argue about inviting the unvaccinated aunt to Christmas dinner.”
Never mind, for a moment, that the prospect of missing Christmas dinner might have encouraged said aunt to finally get vaccinated, which the Kenney government insists is their goal. The fact that you are more concerned about the unvaccinated aunt than the nieces or nephews you might expose to the virus speaks to where your focus is right now: on the impending leadership review and the huge portion of your rural base and caucus that they refuse to be vaccinated.
In recent Comments, Alberta’s chief health officer, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, said “we must learn from our past.” But her boss, Kenney, seems biologically incapable of doing it. Instead, he seems determined to make the same mistakes with this variant that he made when he recklessly reopened the province, forever, he promised the people, just as the Delta variant was about to arrive.
Opinion: None of the prime ministers shows the gut fortitude necessary to stare at skeptics against vaccines and do what it takes to protect our hospitals and the healthcare system, writes columnist @maxfawcett. # COVID19 # Omicron
Its top officials clearly continue to tempt fate. Are already swagger on Alberta’s performance at the start of a new wave that has yet to reach the top. And his recent tranquility he wouldn’t lift restrictions on the unvaccinated if “this posed a significant risk of widespread viral spread” sounds a lot like the smug statement that “we just don’t see that scenario” when order about the prospect of a fourth wave at the start of his doomed “best summer ever.”
This is what passes for leadership right now among Canada’s conservative prime ministers: either the arrogant stubbornness of Jason Kenney or the passive populism of Doug Ford.
Neither shows the gut strength it takes to stare at vaccine skeptics or motivate people to put the needs of their community above their own and do what it takes to protect our hospitals and healthcare system. . Instead, both are expressions of cowardice that put their own partisan calculations before the safety of the public.
The only recourse left to the public is to remove both of them from office when they get the chance.
Reference-www.nationalobserver.com