We Have to Stop Chasing the Soccer Ball
Bonjour Hi! Some discomforting events are happening, in addition to our rudderless elected politicians leading us to who knows where. I can’t make any sense of these pesky little people from the OLF sighting ‘language violations’ unheard of in the western world. It’s the same damn argument we were making the in 70s and 80s. Promotion and protection of a language, without forbidding another, makes sense to everyone. And that’s the way it should be. Monsieur Legault, this is not the time to appeal to nationalists. Call off these OLF cockroaches running around in respectable businesses that are trying to make a living during these extremely difficult times. Quebec is on the edge, with uncontrollable transmission of the virus, and at time of writing, is about to close schools again. Ontario, mostly Greater Toronto, is not fairing better, with their Premier Doug Ford trying to be business friendly, only half listening to medical experts who are telling him to “close it down”. A very difficult decision many of us would not want to make. Canada’s most conservative province Alberta is finally realizing it has to close down its economy even though, with the collapse of oil prices, and no pipeline to sell Canada’s richest resource, oil, to Asia, it simply can not afford to close business down. Alberta, where Premier Kenney says “Covid is starting to win”, now has almost as many cases of infection as BC, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, combined. Enough “consulting and reassessing”, it has to make a definitive decision. And while this virus is now out of control in Canada, here is how some of our supposed exemplary elected officials are behaving, like the liberal member of parliament in the Indo Canadian riding of Surrey Center BC. Liberal MP Randeep Sarai. He attended the “Chetna Association’s welcome to new Indian Consul-General Manish Manish at the Mahek Restaurant and Lounge” on Oct. 26, not wearing a mask. “They chose to put themselves and, more importantly, the public at risk,” a Surrey Councillor told theBreaker.news. That’s some example from our elected ‘poo paz’, isn’t it? You heard that Mr. Trudeau fired one of his favourites from caucus, the mp for Don Valley East, Yasmin Ratansi, for employing her sister at her riding office. She now sits as an Independent, while her case is before the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. Justin Trudeau found it “deeply disappointing, unacceptable”, the same Justin Trudeau who himself was in conflict for voting in cabinet to hire the WE Charity for student programs while WE hired his wife, Mother, and brother and who knows how many of his friends. Oops, those contracts are now shredded before making it to the parliamentary committee. What hypocrisy. Trudeau urges Premiers “to do the right thing”, knowing health is a provincial jurisdiction in Canada. Premiers repeatedly tell Trudeau to stop toying with imposing the Emergency Act. Continued testing is vital, however those test results absolutely need to be followed up by an army of trackers. Too late. BC’s Dr. Bonnie Henry says this “surge is straining contact tracing efforts”, and seems to be ineffective because according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we may no longer be able to “effectively isolate patients and ensure contacts can separate themselves from others”. We have to stop chasing the soccer ball. What will we do for Covid 29? Spotlight on New Zealand’s 40 year old Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who was re-elected with a “smashing” majority because she was able to shut down COVID 19. As early as February she closed the border to anyone, anyone, who had visited China. In March, just weeks later, Ardern shut down the entire country for one whole month. New Zealand was able to get ahead of the curve. The results? During this month of November, in fact one day last week, there were only three new cases of Covid -19 in New Zealand. A returnee from Los Angeles tested positive and self isolated. And here’s how NZ’s Ministry of health, fully transparent in its assessment, unlike Canada, describes what happened to the other 2 cases. “Case C met Case B for lunch in Wellington at the Little Penang restaurant on The Terrace on Friday afternoon. On developing symptoms on Saturday they self-isolated at home and had a COVID-19 test. They are being moved to the Auckland quarantine facility today”. Now that’s tracking, and that’s why New Zealand is a world leader in mitigating and at one time eliminating Covid, without a vaccine.
Why couldn’t we have done that?
That’s what I’m thinking.
Robert Vairo | robert@newsfirst.ca
