, 03.16.2020 06:53 AM

Spotted by one of my former Law 599 students at the airport

Good information, here.

Bad – really bad – that a provincial government has been obliged to fill the massive, yawning information gap caused by federal incompetence.

34 Comments

  1. Ron Benn says:

    Health care is a provincial responsibility, so a tip of the hat to Alberta for doing what should be done.

    At issue is what a federal response should look like.

    The problem is that Canada is geographically huge, with some areas that are quite dense (read whatever pun you want in to that) and some that are quite sparsely populated. The potential for the spread of the COVID-19 differs across the country. The challenges faced in larger cities (mass transit = limited social distancing) are very different from those the residents of smaller centres (more limited supply chains for essentials).

    I think that the role of the federal government needs to be to:
    > ensure that more than adequate funding for COVID-19 is made available so that the medical professionals can do their jobs;
    > provide centre of excellence analysis to the medical professionals;
    > communicate in a clear, concise manner that the politicians will stay out of the way of the medical professionals (and then stay out of the way).

    The critical concept is to give the medical professionals the resources to do what they do best – deliver medical treatment.

    • Jim R says:

      Airports are ultimately a federal responsibility, I *think*.
      Additionally, the federal government is responsible for borders and entry into Canada.

      As such, I don’t think it would be overstepping for the federal government to have, at a minimum, mandated the posting of similar such notices at the country’s airports.

      • Fred from BC says:

        “Airports are ultimately a federal responsibility, I *think*.
        Additionally, the federal government is responsible for borders and entry into Canada. ”

        You and Ron are both correct: health care is provincial, airports (international, at least) are federal. This notice should have been made by the Government of Canada only because it’s in an airport….anywhere else, the appropriate provincial government should have done it.

  2. Derek Pearce says:

    Well I can confirm I am now an official economic casualty of Covid-19. Myself and 3 others at my workplace were laid off, yesterday was last my shift. For probably 6 weeks at least, we’ll see how long. I work (hopefully can continue to use the present tense of that verb) in retail and business has nosedived. Off to the EI line I go…

  3. Fred Pertanson says:

    Those are passive responses, Warren.

    I would have expected leadership from our politicians:
    – consult quickly with health professionals and develop national policies and strategies
    – implement said policies and strategies as rapidly as possible. (I do not need to provide suggestions, there are lots of ideas out there)

    Instead, they have waited too long and the disease will now run its course.

    • Max says:

      I disagree Fred. Unlike the US, the messaging from Public Health experts and politicians across Canada has been remarkably consistent. If we all do our part, and heed the public health advice, we will slow the rate of infection and transmission. It is a shared responsibility. At the grocery store yesterday, I ran into my brother’s 88 year old father-in-law. A co-worker spent a week in Florida and went straight to work last Monday. It’s all too easy to say “close the airport” before a single case is test-confirmed. Or close all the restaurants before tests say we’re there. There is a science to this and I feel our governments have been and continue to do their best. Hindsight is 20/20, and while there have been some missteps, on the whole the response has beeb solid. Erin O’Toole’s cheap shots are helpful.

    • Max says:

      I disagree Fred. Unlike the US, the messaging from Public Health experts and politicians across Canada has been remarkably consistent. If we all do our part, and heed the public health advice, we will slow the rate of infection and transmission. It is a shared responsibility. At the grocery store yesterday, I ran into my brother’s 88 year old father-in-law. A co-worker spent a week in Florida and went straight to work last Monday. It’s all too easy to say “close the airport” before a single case is test-confirmed. Or close all the restaurants before tests say we’re there. There is a science to this and I feel our governments have been and continue to do their best. Hindsight is 20/20, and while there have been some missteps, on the whole the response has beeb solid. Erin O’Toole’s cheap shots are helpful.

      • PAMELA LEVY says:

        Yup Public Health experts and politicians across Canada have been remarkably consistent in reassuring and doing nothing. They have insulted the intelligence of the average Canadian and I can hardly wait for the next election.

  4. Pedant says:

    Meanwhile, daily flights from China into Vancouver and Toronto continue. The strict “screening” in place? A questionnaire asking whether the traveller had visited Wuhan, answered via a TOUCH SCREEN. Welcome to Canada!

    Political correctness and globalism are clearly more important to this government than Canadian lives.

    Whose interests does this government represent?

  5. Gord says:

    During Kenney’s presser yesterday, he expressed his clear dissatisfaction with the federal response, particularly at airports. He said that he and others in the provincial government were alarmed at the fact that there did not seem to be any sort of screening measures or information available for returning travellers, and said he intended to take it up with the federal government.

    I’m no Kenney fan, but I thought he was appropriately restrained in making his comments. Across the country, the Province of Quebec and City of Montreal are showing similar impatience with federal inaction and dispatching their own resources to airports to assist returning travellers.

    I guess we’ll see what PMJT has to say in a few hours. Yes, health care is a provincial responsibility, but transport, borders and national security are the feds’. We know the main vector of infection is travel – the time for action by the federal government is long past.

    • Fred from BC says:

      “I guess we’ll see what PMJT has to say in a few hours. ”

      I watched it at lunchtime. He did okay…despite a whole bunch of reporters asking him the same question over and over (what’s with that, anyway?). That question was if he regretted not closing the airports sooner, and he answered it pretty well, I thought.

      As others have pointed out, there is a time for observation and planning and a time for action. He may have waited too long, or he may have lucked out and time if perfectly. We’ll see…

  6. Lawrence Barry says:

    Hey WK – do you know what Jane Phillpott is up to these days ? You know , DR.
    Jane Phillpott? Stay safe everyone.

  7. Lawrence Barry says:

    Philpott

  8. ABB says:

    This whole exercise in the next 4-6 months will generate enough real-world comms #fail #pass examples to fill an encyclopedia.

  9. Terence says:

    It’s the same response in all the “Five Eyes” countries. Social distancing….international travel not recommended…blah blah blah. Too many naive Libertarians running around. Today Spain just took over all of the private healthcare providers after locking down the country. A beautiful reversing of disaster capitalism for some disaster socialism. Germany closed the borders finally. Governments are waaaaay to deferential to business in the Angloshpere. Trudeau stated that Canadians will not have to worry about paying bills as a result of this. So I expect guaranteed income supplements going out in due course. Capitalism only works until it doesn’t. We’re all socialists now or expect total breakdown.

    • Pedant says:

      You’re blaming capitalism even though Canada was never capitalist. I’d think the Liberals’ shared-equity mortgage scam (i.e. using taxpayer dollars to speculate in the real estate market) would have ended the illusion that capitalism had any place in modern Canada.

      • Ronald O'Dowd says:

        Pedant,

        Wall and Bay Street are staunch capitalists…need I say more? Maybe we can send them all thank you cards for blowing (again) all of our hard-earned savings to hell with their greed and anything goes mentality.

    • Fred from BC says:

      So I’m guessing that you’re against giving the border-crossing exemption to Americans, then?

      My personal opinion is that it was a good move.

  10. joe long says:

    These are scary times and most of us have never experienced anything like this before.

    I am very confident we as a country will emerge from this stronger than before. Not from the actions of the politicians and media, but from the actions of ordinary Canadians.

    We ordinary Canadians have shown our strength, compassion, and fortitude in many local and regional emergencies. Now we have a national emergency and it’s time for us all to do our bit. Be it stocking grocery stores, transporting goods, providing heat, water, other services, supplying health care, or just self quarantining, it’s our time to help out.

    I suspect this will take many months of effort. We are a strong resilient people. We will support each other, help each other and rebuild a great country.

  11. Ron Benn says:

    Travel within Canada is also a problem.

    A COVID-19 positive carrier travelling from Toronto or Vancouver (big cities are big problem centres) is just as toxic as the person arriving from London, Paris, Zurich, Miami, Beijing …

    Screen everyone before they board an aircraft and after they deplane, not just those from away.

  12. WestGuy says:

    They might also want to restrict domestic travel in Canada for anyone coming from Vancouver, for starters.

  13. Pipes says:

    An aside- I recall, on behalf of my organiation at the time, planning an emergency response to SARS and it got serious when I was told that the local arena is a designated Morgue.
    It probably has the same designation with this one.

  14. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Bet you that we also have the same problems as the Yanks: a critical shortage of EU and ICU beds and a serious lack of an adequate number of ventilators.

    That’s one you can’t lay at the feet of the Feds. (Don’t tell Kenney.)

  15. PK says:

    Boris communicated best – not necessarily the containment strategy – I have no idea about that, but his speech, where he said we’ll lose loved ones; He had the right tone – instilling a sense of urgency. Containment to prevent overwhelming the health system requires a sense of urgency in everyday people. Washing hands and keeping your distance and cleaning surfaces – everybody has to do this.

  16. Gilbert says:

    I live in South Korea. Many places have been disinfected, many have been tested, masks are required to enter hospitals, and not so many people are outside. Though we have many who are infected (over 8000), the number of new cases is not so high. The government has managed this crisis well.

  17. PK says:

    That’s not to say I agree with his politics (not offering an opinion), or with their domestic strategy to cope with this, just that the tone was appropriate. It’s a war, everybody has a part to play – we need to mobilize awareness because that is the key to slowing this down – we will fight and survive, we won’t surrender to this, we will keep going, we will soldier on, but we will lose loved ones.

  18. Lawrence Barry says:

    Gee ” Mike”- out here in BC we have a little different call – the fact that the Feds abdicated their obligation to close the border with the USA yesterday makes no sense – ask the health professionals here about that – in fact it should have been closed days ago. King and Snohomish county are Ground Zero in the good old USA and that’s our neighbour to the south. The Feds have been 1000 miles behind on this crisis for whatever reason – that’s reality . Stay safe everyone

    • Mike,

      Maybe you should do what you can to get him that job. They sure could use his help and thoughtful reflection.

    • WestGuy says:

      Or, instead of waiting for the government to close the borders, people in BC could have simply not driven south into “ground zeroes” and stayed home. That’s what I find most frustrating about this.
      Despite knowing about the infection numbers in Washington state, despite knowing about the potential for getting infected and knowing all about the risks they would then represent to the people around them at home, they abdicate all personal responsibility and blame the government for not making them not do what they had the personal choice to not do all along.
      A good amount of the transmission of this disease in North America is driven by people who don’t want to change their habits or preferences or act as if their whims are more important than public safety. Fucking dumbasses.

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