As the pandemic grinds on, as more and more of us get infected, there’s lots of blame to go around.

Anti-vaccination spreadnecks, for making a bad situation much worse. Inept politicians, who falsely claimed that the pandemic was coming to an end, or that it was nothing to worry about. Canada’s federal government, for mishandling everything from vaccine procurement to border crossings.

The framers of Canada’s Constitution deserve some blame, too, even though it’s arriving more than a century late. Let us explain.

Responsibility for health care — and, critically, responsibility for the financing of health care — isn’t clearly addressed in our Constitution. Hard to believe, but it isn’t.

Federal responsibilities are listed in Section 91. Provincial responsibilities are detailed in Section 92.

But as no less than the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 1982: “Health is not a matter which is subject to specific constitutional assignment but instead is an amorphous topic which can be addressed by valid federal or provincial legislation, depending (on) the circumstances.”

“Amorphous?” And: “Depending on the circumstances?”

You don’t need to be a constitutional scholar to recognize the problem created by this constitutional fuzziness. It is a sure-fire formula for federal-provincial squabbling over the funding of health care. And, in the intervening 155 years, there’s been plenty of squabbling — because, on average, health care costs more than any other program.

In Ontario alone, the biggest program areas are hospitals ($25.8 billion) and the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (which is made up of physicians and health practitioners, at $17 billion). Taken together, those two expenditures alone account for 58% of the health ministry spending planned for this year. Nearly 60%, and growing every year.

And in the decade leading up to the pandemic, provincial health-care spending grew by nearly 120%. That’s a formula for bankruptcy.

Throw in a pandemic, then, and you’ve got a fiscal crisis that defies description. COVID-19 has overwhelmed our doctors, nurses and hospitals — and has completely gutted provincial health budgets, and budgetary planning.

Because constitutional responsibility for providing health care, you see, has fallen mainly to the provinces. And responsibility for funding much of it is the role of the Justin Trudeau government.

The Trudeau regime repeatedly claims to “have Canadians’ backs” during the pandemic. But it simply doesn’t.

In September, the premiers and the prime minister met to discuss the health funding catastrophe. The premiers of the two biggest provinces, Doug Ford and Francois Legault, were quite specific: They told Trudeau the provinces need the federal government to do more.

Ford and Legault and others wanted Trudeau to increase health-care transfers to the provinces by $28 billion this year. That would boost the $42-billion transfer the provinces receive to $70 billion.

“We’re here to ask the federal government: Step up to the plate,” Ford said. Legault, meanwhile, issued a warning to the federal Liberal leader: “Don’t come and invent all sorts of new programs and new spending when the priority of Canadians is to properly finance health care. And right now it is not well financed.”

And it isn’t. Anyone on a waiting list, anyone seeking a vaccination or a booster, anyone who has tried to see a doctor or get a hospital bed knows that the Canadian health system isn’t at a cliched “breaking point” anymore. It’s broken.

The pandemic is the biggest personal, political, cultural, and economic event of our collective lifetimes. None of the other fetishes of the Trudeau government — like approving hefty pay hikes for its MPs — come close to being as important.

More than perhaps at any other time in our 155-year history, we need to properly fund health care. We need to dramatically step up our efforts to fight and beat COVID.

Our Constitution may not have addressed that.

But Canada needs to, now, if we are ever to be free of the prison that is the COVID-19 pandemic.

— Warren Kinsella is a lawyer and former Chief of Staff to a federal Liberal Minister of Health

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A new year!

People make resolutions. People make promises. People promise to do things differently.

It’s likely that there have been fewer resolutions this time. Why? Because people have been hoping for a different kind of year. Because the resolutions they made a year ago didn’t work out so well.

2020 (most of it) and 2021 (all of it) were pretty awful. That’s stating the obvious in a way that is beyond obvious. You know that.

You also know: There has been so much death — more than five million people, globally. Five million lives, snuffed out. The statisticians and epidemiologists figure that it’s twice that number, if not more.

And the sickness, so much sickness that it is beyond measure. Millions and millions and millions of people, made terribly ill. All of us know people who are still struggling, more than a year after the fact. We love them and pray for them. That’s all you can do, some days.

Jobs lost. Businesses and careers lost. Worst of all — faith lost.

It’s terrible. It’s horrible. It’s so depressing and awful and sad. Will it ever end? As Ontario announces its millionth lockdown, as faith fades, it’s a fair question to ask.

So let me tell you something. My Dad — Dr. Doug Kinsella — was an immunologist. I remember him coming home, in Montreal, and telling us about this new virus.

They called it 3H, he said.

The “3H” were those who had been disproportionately targeted by the new virus: Haitians and heroin users and homosexuals. They didn’t have a name for HIV/AIDS, yet. But my father told my brothers that it would kill millions of people around the world before we would know how to deal with it. And it surely did.

Viruses are smarter than us, my Dad said. They change quickly. They mutate quickly. They have a little regard for borders or rules or pity.

But he also told us this: that, through our ingenuity and our science and our sheer determination, we always conquer these things. We push back the awful Black Tide. We prevail, in the end.

We will prevail with the Satanic COVID-19 virus, I think. My Dad isn’t here, now, but I believe that he’d tell us that.

I think it will take another year, at least. I don’t think we are out of it yet. Persuaded by Pulitzer-winning health writer Laurie Garrett, I’ve always believed it would take at least three years to prevail over COVID. To get back to some semblance of what we once had.

Personally, I’m amazed that I haven’t gotten it yet. Truly. At the start, I said publicly (and say again) that I would not be placed on a ventilator. That I was determined to die differently.

I still feel that it is going to catch up to me. It’s been nipping at my heels, and I can feel it’s icy breath, and I’m pretty sure it will catch me.

Whenever and whatever happens, it will not beat me. It will not beat you, either. It will not beat us.

I have no science or reports or columns of statistics to show you, to convince you. I just believe that we will prevail, in the end, because we must. Because we have no choice. Because we have to live. We have to keep going.

That is not a resolution for 2022. That is not a prayer. That is my prediction for the twelve months that lay ahead of us, which are already looking like a battlefield.

We will win. We will beat this. Believe it.

And you and we will meet at the other end – me maybe in spirit – and we will have a drink together, and we will toast our resilience and our strength and our determination and our grace.

— Warren Kinsella was special assistant to Jean Chretien

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I don’t like to talk about how the year has been for me – because so many people are having a tough time.

But for me, I can’t deny that it has been a truly great year. And I’m very grateful for that. Humbled by that.

In no particular order, here’s some reasons why:

• My family and friends are safe and healthy

• We beat Maxime Bernier in a major court decision – decisively

• I worked for Joe Biden – and he won (it was in all the papers)

• I got to write for a fun, scrappy paper, and have some amazing colleagues there

• Raised thousands for suicide prevention, my major cause

• Painted paintings and sold – lots of them, to my amazement

• Built an amazing cabin on 15 acres – we call it Crow’s Head and it’ll be open for rentals soon

• Daisy Group had the best year ever – and the best team ever. And we’re growing again – thanks to amazing clients and amazing colleagues

• Built a glass house at my PEC place – you have to see it to believe it

• Befriended some brilliant and beautiful people – but I think may be settling down a bit in 2022

• Did a Beetle refurb and it kicks ass

• Moved into a loft on Queen Street – and it is pretty cool

• Did the Kinsellacast, did Sparky and wrote more music

Anyway. I’m grateful for all of that, and more. A friend said to me that I’m living my best life, now, finally.

And I am. Happy 2022. It’ll be better!

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Warning: Reckless, feckless predictions ahead. Buckle up, readers.

A year ago, 2021 was supposed to be the cure for 2020. Remember that?

Now, 2022 is supposed to be the cure for 2021. Will it be?

Well, those of us in the predictions business have learned — the hard way — that things that haven’t happened may, um, never happen. The future is indeed unwritten, as Joe Strummer of the Clash liked to say.

But here’s some predictions anyway. If I’m wrong, I’m counting on all of you to gather around my stool at the Midtown Brewery in Prince Edward County and remind me. I’ll buy.

Justin Trudeau: He’s gone into the witness protection program since the election, and his Liberal Party is accordingly up in the polls. That should tell Liberals — even him, the ostensibly top Liberal — something. Assorted ambitious Grits are pawing the dirt, waiting for the starting gun. But, to mix metaphors, will Trudeau go for the proverbial walk in the snow in 2022? My hunch: No. Every leader prefers to leave on a high — and, until the pandemic fades from memory, Justin is staying put. He wants to be remembered for sunshine, lollipops and sunny ways — none of which have been in abundance, lately. (Besides, those of us in the columnizing business want him to stay. He’s the worst prime minister in memory, and he gives us stuff to write about.)

Erin O’Toole: The Conservative Party doesn’t know what it is, it doesn’t know what it wants, and it doesn’t know where it’s going. As such, O’Toole is the perfect Tory leader: He doesn’t know any of those things, either. O’Toole arguably isn’t human: He’s a colour, beige. He belongs on a wall in a government waiting room, not in Parliament. What does he believe in? What does he care about? Who knows. This is seen in O’Toole’s tendency to have multiple positions on single issues. Carbon taxes, assault weapons, abortion, gay marriage, vaccinations: On the stuff that matters, O’Toole is in tatters. That said, he’s unlikely to be jettisoned by his party before the next election: As noted, Tories don’t know what they want or need, and — until they do — he’s safe at Stornoway. Doing whatever it is he does.

Jagmeet Singh: With the notable exception of Tom Mulcair — who, while a dislikable rageaholic, arguably deserved a second chance — New Democrats are enthusiastic about losing. It comforts them, like an old blanket, because it is all they have known. Case in point, Singh’s former boss at Queen’s Park in Ontario, whatsername. She’s decisively lost three (3) elections in a row, and her party still sticks with her. That’s good news for Singh, who is the part-time federal New Democratic Party leader, but the full-time enabler of Justin Trudeau’s every legislative desire. It’s the best job Singh’s ever had: He’s not going anywhere anytime soon, either.

The Damned Virus: I was talking to a psychiatrist friend, recently, to ascertain what people were feeling about the Omicron variant and what it has done to the holiday season. “They’re pissed off,” said he, using expert psychiatrist terminology. “They believed in vaccines, they played by the rules, and they feel angry and depressed that things are worse than ever before.” All that is true, but this writer verily believes this is true, too: For COVID-19, Omicron is good news and bad news. It’s good for COVID because it is so wildly infectious. But it’s bad for the pandemic, too, because Omicron may signal that COVID is mutating itself out of existence. As my smart health-care politico pal Dan Carbin told me this week: “This has been the end game (all) along. Viral mutation to an infectious, but mild, virus. Like the other four endemic coronaviruses, all of which likely killed a lot of people when first introduced. The last was likely the flu of the 1889-91, which killed one million. And is now a cold.”

That’s my big — and, as it turns out, only happy — prediction for 2022: COVID is always going to be with us, like its bastard siblings, the flu and the common cold. But it is not going to upend our lives as much as it did in 2020 and 2021.

That’s my big prediction. And if I’m wrong, come find me on my stool at the Midtown.

But don’t forget your mask and vaccination passport!

— Warren Kinsella was Chief of Staff to a federal Liberal Minister of Health.

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