I continue to fume about yesterday’s ghoulish questions in Question Period, where the federal government is being blamed for the deaths in long-term care facilities because the vaccine rollout hasn’t been as expeditious as many had hoped, which is not only gross, but it’s about trying to provide cover for the (mostly conservative) premiers who have failed to do their jobs. Vaccines were never supposed to be the way we stop those deaths – actual public health measures like testing, tracing, and isolation were supposed to do the job, but the fact that premiers continued to under-fund these and didn’t invest in expanding capacity even when given billions of federal dollars to do so, were the actual solutions to preventing those deaths. But instead, these premiers and their ideological inability to grasp that in a pandemic, you need to pay people to stay home and cushion the economic shock, absolutely refused to do that and kept insisting that they re-open their economies with “a little bit of COVID” going around. Of course, that “little bit of COVID” turns into a whole lot of COVID because of exponential growth, and new variants mean even greater transmission. But the cover being given to these premiers is obscene.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1354227667713855490

And lo, we have a report that shows that provinces continue to sit on federal pandemic funds, with Ontario clocking in at $6.4 billion unspent, as they struggle to re-open schools (recall that they cut corners from the expert recommendations and then had outbreaks) and have unchecked spread of the virus in yet more long-term care facilities, which now appears to be the so-called UK variant. So what is Doug Ford doing about it? Howling that he wants the federal government to institute even more border measures including testing people when they arrive (they are already tested before they get on the planes), and trying to pretend that Pfizer is simply lying to us about not shipping us more vaccines. And guess what? Reporters are focusing on the vaccines and hounding Justin Trudeau about it rather than demanding accountability from Ford for all of the deaths in long-term care that are because of his inaction.

“The report also notes that over the past 36 months, inspectors had issued Roberta Place with 12 previous compliance orders, 30 voluntary ‘plans of correction’ and 15 formal written notices of other rule violations.” https://t.co/vWhh95esof

— Shannon Proudfoot (@sproudfoot) January 26, 2021

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau offered assurances that rumblings of export controls for vaccines out of the EU are unlikely to affect Canada, as it is largely targeted to AstraZeneca.
• Trudeau also said that more travel restrictions are on the way, so anyone thinking of travelling should cancel their plans.
• Here is a more thorough explanation for the Pfizer vaccine delays, as well as other delays for those countries that have approved the AstraZeneca vaccine.
• We got more background on the timeline of when the CanSino vaccine candidate deal fell through, and how China’s Cabinet blocked it days after the announcement.
• Bill Blair says that in spite of the NDP motion on the Proud Boys, he’ll continue to let the usual terror list process carry on as usual, proving the vote was theatre.
• Actual national security experts are sounding the alarm against that aforementioned NDP motion in the Commons on having Proud Boys listed as a terror group.
• The government is mulling changes to the Public Service Employment Act to help eliminate obstacles for BIPOC people to reach leadership positions.
• Apparently the investigation into Julie Payette’s conduct included complaints of physical contact, which is alarming to contemplate.
• An independent review of the programme that helps former GGs pay for expenses related to carrying on certain duties calls for greater transparency.
• After years of trying to disenfranchise expat voters, Conservatives have created an organization to engage them, and have John Baird and Nigel Wright heading it up.
• Yves-François Blanchet is doubling down on his racist and Islamophobic remarks about transport minister Omar Alghabra.
• Surprising nobody, Bill Morneau has ended his bid to become the OECD’s Secretary-General because he couldn’t get enough support.
• A group of Ontario doctors, researchers and other professionals has written to the government with demands to improve the “humanitarian crisis” in long-term care.
• Jason Kenney’s Cabinet refuses to release any of the details of their loan guarantees for the now-cancelled Keystone XL pipeline.
• Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column delves into the details around the proposed voting app for the Commons, and one of its particular quirks.
• Heather Scoffield calls out Erin O’Toole’s bizarre rejection of Chrystia Freeland’s economic plan as “pushing an ideology,” while offering nothing in return.
• My column expands on just why the Commons’ voting app is an Abomination that will make Parliament meaner, more divided, and less effective overall.

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