Mid-Week Post

Your middle-of-the-week calming moment ...




From the most opaque government ever re-elected and its Chinese bosses:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office faces a federal lawsuit over media blacklisting at his daily press briefing held in lieu of Question Period. Data show the CBC was invited to ask twice as many questions as any of its competitors, while some other media were not permitted any questions at all: “Media are the cornerstone of any democracy.”  

(Sidebar: this CBC.)

 
A bribed press is not a free and independent press and a snowboard instructor pretending to seriously answer questions that were presented to him in advance is still a snowboard instructor pretending to seriously answer questions that were presented to him in advance but without the scrutiny of his duly elected peers, citizen journalists or the public and all in front of a prop as staged and as artificial as the person who delivers prepared lines.

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The cross-country scramble for workplace masks and face shields is a national embarrassment, the United Steelworkers yesterday told the Commons finance committee. MPs complain they’ve been unable to get data on equipment shortages as more Canadians return to work: “We can’t produce our own equipment?”

(Sidebar:  apparently not.)

**

With personal protective equipment in short supply in the battle against COVID-19, many Canadian manufacturers have retooled and begun producing hand sanitizer, gowns, masks, face shields and ventilators. But despite the great need on the part of healthcare facilities, many are reporting being tied up in red tape as they seek approvals from the federal government for the sale of their products.

**

Of course!:

The Chinese embassy in Ottawa claimed Monday that the one million faulty N95 masks that arrived in Canada from China last month were the result of a “contractual” issue that has now been fixed.

Canada however is thus far saying nothing about the matter.

You know, Taiwan never sought praise for its good deeds, China:

A donation of 500,000 surgical masks needed by health-care workers on the front lines of the novel coronavirus pandemic has been officially handed over to Canada from Taiwan.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer posted a picture Tuesday of himself accepting the masks at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada, thanking Taiwan for its “generous donation.”

**

A growing number of reports indicate Chinese officials pushed their counterparts in Europe to make positive statements about China in order to receive shipments of medical supplies to fight the novel coronavirus.

Because priorities:

The Public Health Agency of Canada in weeks leading to the Covid-19 outbreak spent more than $50,000 on catered staff luncheons, party snacks and refreshments for Take Our Kids To Work Day, records show. MPs cited the Agency for failing in its duty to stock up on vital pandemic supplies for doctors and nurses: “Hindsight is 20-20.”

Why, none of that sounds suspicious or coercive at all:

Three doctors who were working on the front lines of the novel coronavirus pandemic in Russia have now fallen out of hospital windows within the past two weeks, according to local media reports.

Two of the physicians have died from their falls, while the most recent case is in serious condition in hospital with a skull fracture, the reports say.

That man, ambulance doctor Alexander Shulepov, reportedly fell from the second-storey window of the rural Novousmanskaya hospital in the Voronezh Oblast on Saturday, where he was being treated for COVID-19 after testing positive in late April.

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But in January, Mr. Zhang, who grew up in Wuhan and now lives in the southern metropolis of Shenzhen, was unaware of the virus’ ability to spread, as Wuhan authorities initially downplayed the severity of the outbreak.

Unaware of the risks, Zhang brought his father to a Wuhan hospital to treat his injuries after a bad fall.

His father contracted the CCP virus and died shortly after.

Hoping to offer solace to others like him whose loved ones have died of the virus, Zhang recently made plans to raise money for a monument for those who passed.

Zhang said Shenzhen authorities began monitoring him. “They didn’t solve my issues, but monitored and blocked my phone calls…Others can’t see my posts on social media,” Zhang said in an interview.

Anyone expecting the government to help them, especially now, is so mistaken:

The only people who really seem to be thriving on pandemic-driven change are those who believe the world as it was needs to alter drastically, according to their own personal preference. Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam keeps telling us she doesn’t have a crystal ball, but they seem to be widely distributed elsewhere.

The media are full of predictions and prescriptions for how the world should change. Among the things we have been told are that cycling should replace cars, meat is unnecessary, we should work from home indefinitely, a huge new green infrastructure plan is essential, everyone should have a $2,000-a-month minimum income, capitalism should be vastly revamped and Canada should develop a world-leading space agency.

Most of that is people riding their hobby horses to the unicorn farm, but the one idea that is truly dangerous is the notion that the pandemic shows we need bigger, more powerful government, all the time.

It’s a startling argument in a period when government has failed to provide protective equipment, failed to protect people in long-term care, failed to provide adequate hospital capacity, adopted a haphazard but costly economic shutdown, and taken away people’s basic freedoms without blinking an eye.

When we look back at this pandemic, we will see a failure of government, not a triumph. Sadly, that’s normal, not new.

Euthanasia fetishists were waiting for a global pandemic like this to remind you how unimportant you are to them:

One in four Canadians — about 25 per cent of the population — has a disability, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada.  Despite this, advocates say they are often left out of emergency planning.

David Lepofsky, who chairs the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, likened the situation to a fire raging inside of an apartment building complex, where the people inside are alerted by a fire alarm and loudspeaker that tells them to exit by taking designated stairs illuminated by clearly-indicated markers.

A person who is deaf wouldn’t hear the fire alarm. A person in a wheelchair would be trapped inside. And those designated markers will do nothing for someone who can’t see. Unless they receive support, Lepofsky said anyone with disabilities living in the building will likely not survive.

The pandemic the world was forced to endure because of China exposed the faults not only in our infrastructure but ourselves. Our reliance on dictatorship's supply of cheap labour for our comfort and health, the glaring incompetence and loyalty to the aforementioned dictatorship of so-called political betters, the blissful ignorance of the well-fed public to serious matters and consequences of current events and arguably the deliberate apathy of the elderly and disabled are all moral failings we must address but won't.

Liquor stores were kept open and people made sure of that. Who made sure to mind the infirm and aged?




It's just farms:

Cabinet yesterday vetoed farmers’ call for billions in pandemic relief in the first sign of a slowdown in deficit spending. The Department of Agriculture pledged $252 million in aid, almost half of it already announced. Cabinet by comparison earlier pledged twice as much, $500 million, to support arts and culture: “It’s a crumb.”