Roundup: Essential incoherence

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The provincial stay-at-home order is now in effect in Ontario, and it’s already a gong show because the province refuses to define what is “essential” for travel or items, leaving it up to police to interpret for themselves – and we all know that that’ll never end badly, or disproportionately targeting marginalised communities, right? Yeah, and it’s so typical of Ford’s government, where they lack the basic self-awareness that they are the ones in charge and have to make the rules.

https://twitter.com/moebius_strip/status/1349390384938450944

So what is the Ford government doing instead of their gods damned jobs? Why, they’re picking even more fights with the federal government over vaccines, insisting that their capacity to administer outstrips supply (not so far, it hasn’t), and I fail to see how a number of premiers think that if they’ll bellyache loud enough that they can magically make Pfizer produce millions of more doses in the blink of an eye, at a time when they are dealing with global supply chain issues. But we all know that this is performative, and attempts to distract from their failures to control the spread of this pandemic. To add to that, their constant focus on the vaccines and the fact that it takes time for deliveries to ramp up is an attempt to shift the blame on the ongoing uncontrolled spread to the federal government – that they would have been able to control it if only the feds had acted faster (when Canada was pretty much the third country in the world to approve it and accept deliveries). That was never going to happen – vaccines don’t work like that in the middle of an outbreak. But these premiers need to wash their hands of culpability, so that’s where we are.

https://twitter.com/SusanDelacourt/status/1349483284707868673

Good reads:

  • Here is a look at the current schedule for vaccine deliveries in the country.
  • Civil liberties groups are concerned about the Quebec curfew and Ontario stay-at-home orders because they essentially turn over arbitrary powers to police.
  • The federal government may start striking one-off deals with provinces around national standards for long-term care in the absence of national consensus.
  • Transport Canada is now listing where travellers can get COVID tests before they can return to Canada – as well as the penalties for being caught with a fake test.
  • There appears to have been some quid pro quo as the Two Michaels are getting increased family and consular access as Meng Wanzhou’s family is allowed to visit.
  • Maclean’s has a longread about the current state of the Two Michaels and their families back in Canada.
  • We can add Senator Scott Tanas to the number of those who travelled – to Hawaii – as well as Senator Jean-Guy Dagenais – to Florida, ostensibly to repair a property.
  • Here’s an interview with new Liberal MP Marci Ien, who is now the only Black woman in the House of Commons.
  • The Bloc have objected to Omar Alghabra’s appointment to Cabinet on grounds that sound suspiciously racist and Islamophobic.
  • Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column looks at the notion of the House of Commons as an “essential service” as more countries impose further restrictions.
  • Heather Scoffield hopes that the focus on pandemic benefits for travellers will trigger fixes for getting those benefits to those who need sick leave. (I am dubious).
  • Colby Cosh reminds us how recent the Beirut explosion really was (in an era where time loses its meaning), and how it was a perfectly avoidable tragedy.
  • Robert Hiltz is livid at the continued failures by premiers to do anything effective to curb the pandemic, and who are now turning more power over to police.

Odds and ends:

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