Wow, People Totally Have a Handle On This Coronavirus

Seriously:

Even as planeloads of supplies to protect Canada’s medical workers arrive, many primary-care physicians say they are in the dark about when they’re going to get what they need to keep helping patients.

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The federal government says that all air travellers must cover their nose and mouth with a non-medical mask to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Why are they coming in at all?

Thanks to our stupid leadership and non-existent screening, Canada is a hot zone (as of this writing, there are 33,062 infections and 1,466 deaths). How do you stop infections by letting everyone come in and get infected?




In a normal country, Theresa Tam would have been removed from her post:

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer refused Thursday to express confidence in Canada's chief public health officer, arguing the need to question her decisions around the COVID-19 pandemic is one of the reasons Parliament must resume. ...

(Sidebar: this Parliament. The vacation has to end some time.)

"We do have important questions as to why certain directives were issued by the public health agency, and ultimately ministers are responsible for that," Scheer said in response to the second of multiple questions about his confidence in Tam, which he declined to answer directly.

"Ministers are accountable for the decisions they make based on whichever advice they take."

The fact that Canadians refuse to look at this matter objectively and instead waste their energies on attacking Scheer (who, though no world-beater, is completely right about this) shows the extent of emotional retardation throughout the country and why we will be one of the last to lift the lockdown (which didn't need to happen, but I digress ...). If protecting someone who has proved partisan and/or incompetent is far more important than accounting for her serious and numerous mistakes, associating any opposition as "American" or relying on the poor advice of one mouthpiece instead of real medical practitioners who have been on the forefront of this crisis since they were thrust into it by the aforementioned mouthpieces then it is no wonder that Canada has ceased being a nation of sensible hard-workers and has instead become an airport of fluff-headed flag-wavers who are too proud and stupid to see the ruin that is all around them.




Well, that's interesting:

The Canadian government quietly secured a deal with India last week for five million capsules of hydroxychloroquine, the National Post has learned, a drug that U.S. President Donald Trump has unfoundedly touted as a remedy for COVID-19.

Demand for hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug mainly prescribed to treat auto-immune diseases such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, has exploded throughout the world as some countries have decided to go forward with plans to use it as a treatment for COVID-19 patients.

But ... but ... Trump!




Speaking of whom:

U.S. President Donald Trump gave governors a road map Thursday for recovering from the economic pain of the coronavirus pandemic, laying out “a phased and deliberate approach” to restoring normal activity in places that have strong testing and are seeing a decrease in COVID-19 cases.

“We’re starting our life again,” Trump said during his daily press briefing. “We’re starting rejuvenation of our economy again.”

He added, “This is a gradual process.”

Other provinces are also toying with the idea of a gradual release from the national lockdown.

Justin, however, is worried about the return from his holiday isolation:

“We talked last night about how important it is to be coordinated and agreed on the principles and the approaches that we take, while at the same time recognizing that the situation in P.E.I. is very different from the situation in Ontario, very different from the situation in B.C.,” he said on Friday morning.

“There will be regional approaches, as there have been all along to the next steps, but we all agreed that we need to continue to remain very, very vigilant as we carefully look at reopening the economy, about relaunching certain sectors in the future.”

It would be humiliating of the provinces decided that they didn't need the useless word of the federal government to resume normal life. One could only imagine Justin's temper tantrum once they did.

Think of all that would be lost:

Sure it was only a couple of weeks ago that the Liberals came up with the idea that they — a minority in Parliament, remember — should give themselves the power to tax and spend for the next two years, without having to get parliamentary approval. It was a truly brilliant idea, except that it ignored the fact that approving government spending is one of the most important functions of Parliament. Take away its authority over spending and the House of Commons might just as well be any old bingo hall, or with a little imaginative renovation, a one-of-a-kind Costco store.

Now, compliments of Privy Council President Dominic LeBlanc, we learned that the Liberal government is contemplating legislation to make it an offence to, as a CBC report put it, “knowingly spread misinformation that could harm people.” In plain language, this government is openly thinking of making itself the official censor of what can and cannot be said about COVID-19. Pure brilliance again, don’t you agree?

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Long, long ago – around the end of January – Conservative MP Tony Baldinelli submitted a written question about a loan for $196 million that was written off by Export Development Canada.

Who received the loan, what was it for and why was it written off, he asked, not unreasonably.

He has just received the answer from Global Affairs Canada, a department notorious for its imperiousness when it comes to public accountability.

The transaction in question was export-related and deemed to be in Canada’s national interest, he was told.

That was all Baldinelli, or you and I, are entitled to know. Any more details would breach confidentiality rules and customer privilege.

(Sidebar: read the whole thing for the litany of write-offs and rip-offs.)




Bald-faced and pathetic:

Native American tribes and environmental groups pressured a federal judge on Thursday to shut down work on the disputed Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Nebraska, citing fears that workers could spread the coronavirus and construction could damage land.