Roundup: Zero doses mean new histrionics

Posted on by

News hit yesterday morning that some of those Pfizer shipments will be a little less than anticipated – namely zero doses, which had a bunch of people in a panic. Making things worse is the fact that some European countries will still get some doses while Canada isn’t getting any, which has even more people in a tizzy (never mind that most of those countries are far behind Canada in terms of their own vaccinations, while our provinces can keep on rolling out second doses). Ontario premier Doug Ford went on television to say some boneheaded things, including a public appeal to Joe Biden to send Ontario a million doses out of the goodness of his heart, and the media cycle went into full distraction mode.

Never mind the assurances from Justin Trudeau, Anita Anand, or Major-General Dany Fortin that with their retooled production lines, Pfizer would be able to deliver more doses faster in February to catch up with the missed shipments and keep the contracted doses for the end of the first quarter, no, the opposition parties all demanded serious accountings and timelines, as though this government could provide them – especially in light of just how fluid this situation has proved to be, and the fact that the zero-doses notice came that morning.

Something else I found a bit off-putting throughout this was media personalities trying to demand that the prime minister personally get on the phone with the CEO of Pfizer to demand that something must be done. I fail to see what this could possibly accomplish other than the theatrics of hysterically demanding, nay, weeping into the phone in desperation as though that were the key to making Pfizer’s retooling happen faster, or more doses appearing by magic, because apparently, we deserve them more than countries who are further behind in their vaccinations than we are – but that seems to be what everyone is demanding. We have become so inundated with pandemic theatre, with demands that won’t meaningfully have any impact, or dramatically introduced half-measures that aren’t doing enough while infections continue to climb. To demand more theatre seems to me to be an indication of the state of debasement we find ourselves in, but when all you worry about is optics over substance, then I suppose it makes a certain amount of twisted logic.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau says he’ll make sure that Canada’s views about the Keystone XL pipeline are heard by the incoming Biden administration (not that it’ll matter).
  • Surprising nobody, parliamentary interpreters are suffering auditory injuries because of problems with hybrid sittings, but MPs don’t seem to care.
  • The government is looking to settle a class-action lawsuits from veterans whose disability pensions were improperly indexed for a period of about eight years.
  • Surprising nobody, changes made to qualifications for veterans’ families receiving mental health benefits after a convicted killer accessed them are now too restrictive.
  • While the Conservatives plan to vote on Derek Sloan’s ouster this morning, it seems it was also predicated on his allegedly abusing membership lists to make robocalls.
  • Doug Ford says that because of the federal sickness benefit he doesn’t need to implement paid sick days, never mind that it’s 94 percent provincial jurisdiction.
  • One of the former civil servants who developed Alberta’s coal policy in 1976 believes the Kenney government is pulling a fast one in rescinding new leases.
  • Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column looks at the mechanism by which the Conservatives will have to employ to kick Derek Sloan from caucus.
  • Max Fawcett makes the obvious point that the Liberals’ inability to communicate made it too easy for the Conservatives to lie about carbon pricing and rebates.
  • Susan Delacourt revisits some of the Conservatives’ greatest hits in order to show why Derek Sloan was an obvious fit for the party when he ran for them.
  • My column looks at how Erin O’Toole has outed himself as a naked opportunist with the way in which he has dealt with Derek Sloan during and after the leadership.

Odds and ends:

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.

4 thoughts on “Roundup: Zero doses mean new histrionics”

  1. Sometimes I think that the opposition especially the Conservatives are more interested in opportunities to slag the Liberal government than they are actually interested in getting this vaccine into peoples’ arms.

  2. Good laugh this AM. I’ve been writing letters to editors and politicians for years now begging them to stop referring to the carbon levy as a tax and start explaining the reason for the levy. My Con MP of course wouldn’t even write back although he does on every other subject with his propaganda. Maybe Trudeau could expound on it a his next at his next cottage cheese opportunity.

  3. What about the news last night that Pfizer is trying to strong-arm the govt into favourable tax code rewrites? I’m sure Doug will still want to send firecrackers up the wazoo of the C suite now, what with him being for da little guy and not big bizniss, right? Folks, folks, folks.

  4. “NDP MP Laurel Collins announces she is pregnant, and includes three photos of her with a baby bump in her press release, just because.”

    Maybe you weren’t there at the time and missed it, Dale, but at the 2014 Liberal Party of Canada convention in Montreal on February 20, 2014, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau showed off her baby bump — and did it on video for the television audience. So maybe you might want to cut Laurel Collins some slack while you are doling out the snark.

Comments are closed.