Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Mid-Week Post

Your middle of the week folly ...




From the most opaque and corrupt government ever re-elected:

Cabinet is concealing thousands of pandemic records including details of contracts and ministerial memos. Cabinet in one case breached a direct order from the Commons health committee to disclose briefing notes, while the Library of Parliament has refused to disclose files it admits are public documents: “They were not so busy that they could not busy themselves with redacting the documents.”

**
The RCMP commissioner, the public safety minister and the prime minister are all unwilling to answer a simple – but important – question about the man who killed at least 22 people in Nova Scotia: did he have a firearms license?

As the investigation, which spans at least 16 crime scenes, goes on, there are understandably many details that aren’t yet known. No one expects police to have answers to all our questions right away. Whether Gabriel Wortman, the now-deceased murderer, was lawfully authorized to own guns is an easy one that could be answered in just a few keystrokes.


Also - accountability is a word that Canadians do not like:

Andrew Scheer was right to call out the Liberals on their failure to respect Parliament.

Even if the Conservatives losing the vote was a foregone conclusion, Scheer wore the robes of his former role as Speaker with dignity, as he fought for our democratic institutions and for more government accountability.

Watching Justin Trudeau’s Sunday news conference, it was striking how many times he took gratuitous shots at the Conservatives. In doing so, he proved Scheer’s point: Trudeau has replaced Parliament with press conferences.



The country would not have been in a complete lockdown had there been even a  rough template for action after the 2003 SARS virus outbreak and had the Trudeau government acted instead of being the put-upon girlfriend to China's roguish boyfriend.

Canadians are too fat and drunk at the moment to realise not only the physically crippling nature of the coronavirus China spread but the effect it has on the economy. Still curled up on the couch in their bed clothes, they are not thinking of the offshore corporations getting taxpayer grants or the haphazard way in which money that their children and grandchildren will have to repay is handed out without scrutiny or audit, or how the price of oil which Canada produces but does not sell at any great amount will affect them. People who are glad that someone else is mismanaging this crisis and are quick to say that the incompetent government is doing a terrific job are probably people who don't work two jobs to get by or own a business that, after an extended period of time, will collapse and bring financial ruin. All of this is some vague reality that has nothing to do with them.

That will be until the goods and services dry up. Before one knows it, arguments will break out over a bushel of apples or a can of soup.

Also not to be forgotten, the coronavirus is now a part of the annual illness cycle. As of now, no one has a natural or near-effective pharmacological defense against it. Were Canadians to wait for Health Canada to drag its feet on a vaccine, it would be over a year before life as they remember resumes.

That is why considering an end to the lockdown - carefully and with great vigilance - should be done:

Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister said he’s aiming for his province to be the first to reopen. He’s even coined an acronym for it: “First in restoring safe services together,” or FIRST. ...

In Saskatchewan, which reported four new cases of COVID-19 Tuesday, Premier Scott Moe is scheduled to deliver a televised address to the province Wednesday evening with updates on the COVID-19 pandemic situation, in advance of his government releasing its “re-open Saskatchewan plan,” scheduled to be made public Thursday.
 
In Ontario, however, Premier Doug Ford urged people to stay the course as his province continues to face a more challenging public health scenario, with 551 new cases of COVID-19 reported on Tuesday. ...

Even so, Ontario’s chief medical officer David Williams said Tuesday that he doesn’t believe the province will need to wait until daily cases reach zero before the province starts to lift certain restrictions. Instead, he said, the number needs to get low enough so officials are confident that community spread has slowed substantially and they can do full contact-tracing on the new cases.



It's that wonderful healthcare system I keep hearing so much about:

Rachel Newman had just spent 10 days on a mechanical ventilator in a medically induced coma, then four days alone, scared and disoriented in a hospital ward room.

Countless studies suggest the experience could set her up for prolonged emotional distress and a steep physical recovery.

But when the COVID-19 patient was finally discharged from a Toronto hospital this month, she was delivered to the exit on a cold April night in just a hospital gown, with virtually no instructions on what to do next.

Newman’s husband, Zale, struggled to look after a wife whose stomach had shrunk and psyche had taken a beating, with health-care professionals refusing to see her in person. He had tested positive for COVID-19, too, and the couple seemed “toxic” to the medical system, Zale says. An overseas relative who had been a nurse finally gave some much-needed guidance.

“After somebody goes through something like this, there should be someone who looks after your needs,” Rachel Newman, 61, said.

Her experiences underline both the harsh after-effects of long stays in the intensive-care unit, and the impact of a pandemic on getting the required follow-up help.

It's wrong to treat patients as people. They might just think that they are entitled to care for which their taxes are paid.




Who watches anything Canada produces anyway?:

The Liberal government is studying regulatory options that would force U.S. tech giants to share their advertising revenues with Canadian media companies but has not yet formed a hard position on the matter, a senior government source says.

The senior official said Ottawa has not made a final decision on whether it would write regulations similar to those introduced in France and Australia, which could force international tech behemoths Facebook and Google to share a chunk of their advertising dollars with local media companies that provide them with news content. Federal officials have been weighing regulatory options ever since a Parliamentary report earlier this year called for them.



Possible underlying reasons for the massacre in Portapique:

Zinck once ran an auto body shop but fell on hard times in 2004 and needed money to hang onto his family home in Mineville, N.S.

Wortman offered to help, but it was a big mistake. Before long, Zinck was evicted from the house his father built and its contents were sold off.

“Somehow in the paperwork he got it that he owned the house,” Zinck said. “He just sucked me right in.”



Oh, this can't be good:

 

I'm surprised that there is anything to buy.




And now for something completely everyday but forgotten:

You’ve probably noticed that some of your jeans have a small pocket located in one of the front pockets. Many people think the tiny addition is meant to keep coins from jingling around in the larger pocket, but according to Levi’s, they created it to provide extra protection for pocket watches.  

And now you know.

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