The economy is shot. The national deficit will be $250 billion when all of that "free money" for beer and rent has to be paid back.
The tourism industry will take a hit as no one will have the means or the desire to stroll through a country that cannot manage to offer protective equipment to its hospitals.
But despite these crises, there are far more pressing matters:
French has become a collateral victim of the coronavirus pandemic in Canada,
forcing the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, to defend failures to
uphold laws requiring labels and services in both official languages. Canada
is officially bilingual, but the government has allowed the sale of
imported disinfectants labelled only in English because of “the extreme
situation in which we find ourselves”, Trudeau said on Tuesday.
“In certain situations, we are ready to allow unilingual signage and labelling,” he said. ... According to the latest census, almost one-quarter of Canada’s 37 million people speak French on a daily basis.
On April 29, CBC
published an article devoted to this special edition that is
deliberately misleading and intentionally excludes crucial information
we provided to CBC prior to the publication of its article. The sole
purpose seems to be to discredit The Epoch Times and our reporting on
the coronavirus. ...
The headline CBC gave the article seems to speak for all Canadians,
saying “‘Racist and inflammatory’: Canadians upset by Epoch Times claim
China behind virus, made it as a bioweapon.” ... CBC purposefully omitted that our media organization was founded by
Chinese immigrants, which was stated in the email to the reporter. We
are the media telling people that this pandemic is not the fault of the
Chinese people, but is the fault of the Communist Party. The Chinese
people have been victimized by the CCP’s handling of this pandemic. By
discussing the CCP’s role, we are truly standing up for the Chinese
people. ... There is no balance in the CBC article. The reporter purposefully chose a
few voices that have one-sided opinions and used them to attempt to
discredit us. The article includes no comments from any individuals who
might disagree with CBC’s criticism.
**
On April 2, Health Minister Patty Hajdu credited
China and their coronavirus figures around infection and death,
defending their validity, despite reports saying otherwise.
“There’s
no indication that the data that came out of China in terms of their
infection rate and their death rate was falsified in any way,” said
Hajdu, citing the World Health Organization as a source of authority,
despite repeated reports at the time dismissing both Chinese and WHO
reports.
In an interview with the CBC's Vassy
Kapelos, Hajdu again opted not to criticize the authoritarian regime.
Instead, Hajdu said that the post-pandemic era will be a time of
reflection, and again gave credit to China for updating their death
figures after international scrutiny.
**
The World Health Organization is balking
at a Canadian parliamentary committee’s request for key WHO adviser
Bruce Aylward to testify before MPs and explain the global body’s
response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Matt
Jeneroux, Conservative health critic and one of the vice-chairs of the
House of Commons health committee, said he plans to seek support from
other parties to take the request to the next level. He said he will
propose the committee try to compel testimony from the Canadian
epidemiologist by employing a rarely used power of summons.
“We
want this committee to be taken seriously. Dr. Aylward is a key figure
in a lot of this and this committee has been tasked with understanding
the response to COVID-19,” Mr. Jeneroux said.
**
The global COVID-19 pandemic began in Wuhan, China, but data from
Canada’s largest provinces show it was American travellers, not Chinese,
who brought the deadly virus to our shores.
Case 1: A man in his 40s from the Vancouver Coastal
Health region who recently travelled to Wuhan, the Chinese city at the
centre of the COVID-19 outbreak. He has since recovered from the
virus, meaning he is asymptomatic and was cleared by two consecutive
tests performed 24 hours apart.
Taiwan is donating half a million masks
to Canada, expressing hope that some can be used to protect Indigenous
communities, as the self-ruled island tries to counter the Chinese
government’s effort to isolate it during the pandemic.
Taiwan,
a democracy of more than 23 million people, has been prevented from
taking part in World Health Organization activities to fight COVID-19
because of Beijing, which regards the jurisdiction as a renegade
province.
The island has proven
extremely successful at containing COVID-19, with just 429 infections
and six deaths as of Tuesday, and this has left it in a position to
extend medical assistance to other countries.
Taiwan’s
donation of medical supplies to Canada is the latest in a string of
gifts from Taipei to other jurisdictions, from the United States to
Japan to the European Union, as the island practises what’s being called
“mask diplomacy.”
Of the 500,000
surgical-grade masks shipped to Canada, 400,000 are earmarked for the
Canadian Red Cross to distribute, and another 50,000 destined for
Ontario, 25,000 to British Columbia and 25,000 to Alberta. Canada’s
Public Health Agency is testing them now.
There
are no strings attached to the donations, but the “Taiwan can help”
labels printed on the mask boxes are evidence that the Taipei government
wants to work with foreign governments if they are receptive.
Taiwan,
which is not recognized as a sovereign state by most countries,
including Canada, has been increasingly isolated in recent years as
China steps up pressure on its remaining diplomatic allies.
Maybe it's time we started recognising Taiwan as a nation-state separate from China, a friend and an ally.
They support a methodical approach like premier Ford has promised but unlike other premiers, Ford has yet to give any details.
Instead, he asks for patience.
That’s
easy if you are lucky like me, still working and still getting paid.
It’s harder to have patience when you are laid off, your business is
closed, you are being asked to pay rent or your mortgage on Friday with
no income or a much-reduced income.
The “Framework” that Ford and
his team released earlier this week didn’t offer any hope to those
people. In fact, for those who have been without income for the last six
weeks due to this shutdown, it was a truly frightening document.
The lockdown would have had to happen had the government - you know - not been stupid:
It’s shockingly sensible to read: A document from 2014 on how Canada would deal with the Ebola outbreak that was ravaging parts of West Africa.
It seems from reading this document that we were better prepared for this than we were for the arrival of the coronavirus.
I wonder how many deaths we are now dealing with that could have been avoided if we had simply dusted off the old plans.
In
2014, Ebola thankfully did not come to Canada but had it arrived, we
were infinitely more ready. There were 28 hospitals across the country
designated as “Ebola Hospitals” specifically to treat any cases that
appeared.
There were plans on how to transport cases to these
hospitals, plans on how to ensure these hospitals were properly equipped
and plans for travellers who might be of concern. Anyone who appeared
at a Canadian airport after visiting a region where Ebola was present
was subject to already defined rules.
“Travellers with a history
of travel to an Ebola-affected country who are presenting symptoms will
be immediately isolated (distancing the individual from crowds or using a
quarantine assessment room, if available, at major Canadian airports)
and sent to hospital for a medical examination,” the document reads. ... Speaking of Canada’s very first case of COVID-19, Canada’s chief
medical officer said that the man was provided with information on what
to do if he became ill. A pamphlet.
Had we followed the 2014 rules, he would have been quarantined.
As this is Canada and no one will ever suggest that we need a federal level (at least this federal level) of the government like we need a hole in the head, the overfed Hose of Commons will continue making grotesque errors in judgment until Canada finally hits that fiduciary wall and will get no more money to throw around.
The rightness! It continues!:
Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, takes
questions from selected media at press conferences most days but since
the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic 48 days ago,
she has failed to appear before the parliamentary health committee, even
as it has met six times.
This committee has been crucial to
Canada’s effort to stop the virus. For three months now, its determined
group of NDP, Conservative, Bloc and Liberal MPs have dug into the
pandemic like no one else, pushing officials like Tam on whether they
have the right policies in place.
But twice, on March 11 and March
31, Tam has said she’s going to show at the committee but then
cancelled at the last minute, say Conservative MP Matt Jeneroux of
Edmonton and NDP MP Don Davies of Vancouver.
Tam is at the top of the Conservatives’ list to question, Jeneroux says, and he’s frustrated by her no-shows.
She
appears to be dodging the committee, Davies says, noting that two late
cancellations doesn’t seem like a coincidence. “I don’t think she should
be too busy to come to health committee and answer questions, which is
basically the only accountability mechanism in the country.”
Tam
did find time recently for a lengthy chat with the CBC’s Rosie Barton,
where she answered a series of soft-hitting questions.
On the
issue of Canada’s slow move to border closure and quarantines, which
only happened two months into the crisis, Tam said: “Could we have done
more at the time? You can retrospectively say yes, absolutely, you could
screen more, or you could change your stance. But at the time we had
very, very few cases globally and in Canada.”
The problem with
Tam’s answer? Numerous world health officials understood in late January
2020 — not retrospectively — that strict measures were needed. The
Chinese, for example, were so alarmed they completely shut down Wuhan, a
city of 11 million, on Jan. 23. By Jan. 26, Taiwan medical officials
had closed and quarantined all travel from China.
Did anyone, including Theresa Tam, think that these documents would never be seen?
**
A clip has resurfaced
of Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam suggesting the
use of virus tracking “bracelets” and using police to enforce quarantine
measures in a 2010 documentary.
Tam was included in a segment in the film Outbreak: Anatomy of a Plague, which has recently been shared on social media.
Indeed, there is a lot of very sympathetic behaviour going on and it's troubling:
China's
puppet, the WHO, "accidentally" published negative
(and presumably untrue) data about remdesivir while China was actively
stealing Gilead's IP by trying to patent it in China. #DecouplefromChinahttps://t.co/93fNfc1tU7
Even doctorsseemed bemused
by the CBC's Pravda-esque questions: "Many frontline doctors are
quietly questioning decisions of the Trudeau government," said Dr. David
Jacobs.
"There were ways to prevent COVID-19 from spreading to Canada, they just weren't taken," he added.
Excuse me? "We" didn't close several strategic medical supply depots in 2018
that are meant to house the necessary personal protective equipment our
front line health workers need in exactly times like this.
"We"
didn't send hundreds of thousands of medical masks and gloves to
landfills last year, and let hundreds of tons of other medical supplies
expire without replenishing them like Justin Trudeau's government did
last year.
"We" didn't ship hundreds of
thousands of pounds of other critically needed medical supplies overseas
to China, just as the pandemic was coming here.
"We"
didn't fail to enact travel bans or even properly screen travellers who
were arriving at airports from global hotspots like Wuhan or Milan. Not
only did the government fail to take sensible precautions like this,
that other nations like Taiwan and New Zealand did, but Justin Trudeau
scolded Canadians for even suggesting it.
These
are just the latest examples where "we" are being blamed for something
that Justin Trudeau has done. Last year "we" were taken to task by him
because someone (who can remember who?) had been caught wearing
blackface several times, so many times in fact that that special someone
couldn't even put a number on the amount of times they wore blackface.
(author's note: I can tell you exactly how many times I've worn
blackface—zero).
Before blackface, "we" didn't
fire a woman from our Cabinet (and force another to resign) for standing
up to us on a principle of prosecutorial independence & government
interference, rather than just go along with a scheme that allowed other
privileged friends evade responsibility.
“We”
didn’t break Canadian law by taking private jets to the private Bahamian
island of a billionaire who regularly lobbies our own government.
And in the now-infamous "Kokanee grope"
incident, Justin Trudeau had to give us Canadians a sermon on sexual
harassment. Again, "we" didn't sexually harass a female reporter at a
local newspaper, then try to laugh it off by saying "if I knew you were a
reporter I wouldn't have been so forward."
How embarrassing for Justin but blaming others for his weaknesses is his specialty.
So, what is it that Derek Sloan should apologise for?
Also - wearing masks, sealing borders and just general preparedness was folly, really, eh, Theresa?:
Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children says it now has two patients with
unrelated cases of COVID-19 — and one of them is linked to an outbreak
that infected their parents and a member of the clinical team.
**
Ontario is reporting 525 new COVID-19 cases today and 59 more deaths.
That ends three consecutive days of declining numbers of new cases.
**
The University Health Network estimates that approximately 35 people
have died from cardiac issues as a result of delayed procedures due to
coronavirus healthcare restrictions in Ontario.
Ontario’s Minister of Health Christine Elliot revealed
the estimated deaths when questioned about whether she had any
knowledge of “collateral damage” resulting from restrictions to elective
procedures.
“I understand that a report has been released today by UHN with
respect to cardiac deaths and it has been estimated that approximately
35 people may have passed away because their surgeries were not
performed,” said Elliot during Tuesday’s daily coronavirus briefing.
**
The Public Health Agency yesterday acknowledged it underestimated deaths
from Covid-19 in Canada. The Commons health committee earlier heard
testimony that actual infection rates will be five times Agency
estimates: “It’s kind of hard to look at predictions.”
It's just money:
Federal executives billed thousands in commercial flights for routine
business even after the Department of Health advised Canadians to stay
home where possible. Records show managers booked unnecessary travel the
very day Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked the public to “figure out
how to stay home from work and work from home”.
Parliament has now guaranteed some $16 billion worth of interest-free
loans for small business, according to the Department of Finance. MPs
said small operators disqualified on technicalities are becoming
desperate as competitors reap a windfall: “There are so many holes in
these programs.”
(Sidebar: where is this money coming from and how will it be paid back?)
**
Statistics Canada reports nearly one-third of Canadian businesses who
responded in a newly released survey they have seen their revenues
plummet by 40 per cent as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A further one-fifth of businesses reported
a revenue drop of between 20 per cent and 40 per cent, suggesting that
more than half of Canadian companies have watched earnings drop since
the crisis began in March.
Make no mistake - no one cares about justice anymore than they care about order:
“There is currently no national RCMP policy on the
use of the national Alert Ready system,” said RCMP national
spokesperson Cpl. Caroline Duval.
**
The Tuesday decision that granted Marco Muzzo, the heir to a
billion-dollar family contracting firm, day release was not made public.
The mother of the children killed posted the decision on her Facebook
page.
Why, if we didn't have a border, this wouldn't be a problem:
More than half of the individuals being held in Canadian immigration detention centres have been freed during the coronavirus pandemic, according to Global News.
Between March 17 and April 19, 206 people who were being held for
immigration violations or other reasons were freed by the Immigration
and Refugee Board of Canada.
During this period, the number of detainees being held in various
immigration holding facilities, including provincial jails, fell from
353 to 147 people.
I can appreciate that not many have contingency plans for every crisis. What I cannot appreciate is that a system that richly rewards its loud and tiresome unions cannot muster even a vaguely effective effort to fill in any gap:
Joanne’s story: Shutdown was announced on a Friday. By Monday
morning both girls’ entire schedules were posted and they were told to
be online by 8:30 a.m. Noa spends five hours a day on Zoom. In addition
to her regular learning, she can choose amongst art, math, “mindfulness”
and other clubs to attend. Toby is online six hours a day, continuing
with group projects, taking quizzes and submitting assignments. Zoom
class discipline is as rigorously monitored as in the classroom (Joanne
sometimes hears the teachers chiding the kids when their focus strays.) ... Lara’s story: “At first we were given no direction and just
told to relax, which seemed kind of fun for the kids, but terrifying for
me as a parent.” For two weeks, Lara heard nothing from the school or
the school board. In the third week she was notified that she would
receive links to resources. The links were “generic,” Lara said, and not
related to her children’s specific curricula. Looking through them was
like “wandering in a maze.” Some offered programs you could register
for, but demanded a fee. Others were program “teases” that were not yet
available. They “really did not help at all.”
Where is Kim Jong-Un?
It's still up in the air:
South Korea’s minister for North Korean affairs, Kim Yeon-chul, said on
Tuesday that Kim Jong-un may have stayed out of the public eye to
protect himself from COVID-19, not because he is ill. An authoritative
source familiar with U.S. intelligence reporting said on Monday that it
was entirely possible Kim Jong-un had disappeared from public view to
avoid exposure to COVID-19, adding that the sighting of his presidential
train in the coastal resort area of Wonsan did suggest he may be there
or have been there recently.
**
Kim Pyong Il, 65, is the last known surviving son of North Korea’s
founder, Kim Il Sung. After losing out in the 1970s to his half-brother,
Kim Jong Il -- who ended up running the country from 1994 to 2011 --
Kim Pyong Il spent about four decades overseas in diplomatic posts
including in Hungary, Bulgaria, Finland, Poland and the Czech Republic
before returning to Pyongyang last year.
Although Kim Pyong Il has
been effectively sidelined -- he was largely purged from state media
and never developed enough power back home to mount a serious challenge
for leadership -- some North Korea watchers say he could end up taking
over from the 36-year-old Kim Jong Un, who hasn’t named a successor.
This is mainly because he has Kim blood, and he’s a man.
**
Two defectors told Reuters their relatives in North Korea did not
know that Kim has been missing from public view for almost two weeks,
said they didn't want to discuss the issue, or abruptly hung up when the
supreme leader was mentioned.
Kim's health is a state secret in insular North Korea and speculation about him or his family can invite swift retribution.
