COVID-19 What went wrong?
Not sure I’m seeing this clearly but it seems to me the federal government and our politicians in general should have been much better prepared for COVID-19.
As we know, more than one visionary, Bill Gates for one, predicted a destructive free roaming virus would strike the world. Google Gates, and watch it if you haven’t seen it. It’s only 8 minutes long and is bang on to what we are experiencing today. It’s called “The Next Outbreak? We’re Not Ready”. I got chills when I saw it. It was the future. Now it’s the present. But the founder of Microsoft did not deliver his address a few months ago. It was in 2015, five years ago. Didn’t anybody listen to this visionary? Apparently not. Why not? Because our politicians are too busy planning for re-election and concerned with image. Example, Justin Trudeau. You have of course noticed the beard but have you noted our Prime Minister is now dying his hair? Image. We elect and pay them for this?
So some kind of a road map should have been in the works years ago. A committee of epidemiologists, a group of consulting doctors, something, ready to go in the event it happens. It did. But no plan. Our Prime Minister was too busy trying to get a seat at the UN security council, too busy taxing and spending, stopping pipelines, applying the rule of law on the west coast (Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou) flaunting it in the east (SNC Lavalin) etc. To be fair, preceding governments can also take the blame. And here’s the result. We were (still are for some) short of N95 masks, short of ventilators, short of ventilator technicians, short of nurses, short of brave and exhausted front line workers. We had no solution for the most vulnerable people in seniors’ home, knee jerk reaction to international travelers. Remember it was first
“No, we will not ban travelers from China into Canada because that is downright racism” from Canada’s Chief Public Health officer Dr Teresa Tam. We finally did close our all our airports to commercial international travel, but too late. Thousands had already entered the country eventually traced to many having already contracted the Covid virus. And it was the same Tam who said in January “this virus will have a minimal effect in Canada”. And we believed her. We are living our worst nightmare today.
Parliament was recalled a second time to correct a confusing finance package blunder that young Trudeau and his Finance minister got wrong the first time. What an embarrassment for Canada.
There is just a lot of essential tactical and logistical planning that never took place. The result is politicians making decisions on the fly. Not only zero planning but dumb decisions like shipping 16 tonnes of protective equipment including N95 masks to China in January.
We elect politicians and pay them to plan. But they don’t plan for us but for themselves and their re-election. That is wrong.
And did you hear correctly when you first heard or read it? I wasn’t sure myself. Canada’s members of Parliament, including Trudeau, voted themselves a raise effective April Fool’s day. What! Over a million Canadians unemployed (more to come) and our political leaders chose to give themselves a raise. Empty stores, empty restaurants, empty airports and empty streets. Are you kidding me? This is disgusting, disgraceful. Thankfully, some MP’s donated their raise to charities responding to the COVID 19 virus.
And the carbon tax grab, a 50% increase on April 1, could have been stopped. Many argue this tax will mean higher costs to us, kill jobs, and drive up payroll. Is this really the right time? Does this all make sense from supposedly clear and forward thinking elected officials?
This mystery virus is a surprise but what should not and never should have been a surprise, is irresponsible government unpreparedness. And that has consequences my dear friends that we are living now and will continue, in likely worsening conditions. Social distancing and isolation will be nothing to what’s about to happen. Recession will be more a depression. Are you ready for this second financial virus? This one coming not from bats in a live animal market in Wuhan, but created right here in Canada by our elected politicians.
