Roundup: Playing chicken with the variants

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It’s been such a long and dispiriting week, as many of us in this country live under the rule of murderclown premiers who simply refuse to do their jobs when it comes to this pandemic, and keep trying to blame the federal government for their failures, or to at least distract from their inaction. We’re going through that especially in Ontario right now, where Ford and his ministers keep up this song and dance about the borders, without once recognising their own culpability in the spread of variants.

Dwivedi is absolutely right about the role of the media in this, constantly framing this as “squabbling” or “finger-pointing,” and not “there is clear jurisdictional authority for the province and they refuse to exercise it,” which means that these premiers (and Doug Ford most especially) get to escape being held to account. This is why I object so strenuously whenever I hear another journalist or TV host say “nobody cares about jurisdiction in a pandemic.” Sorry, but that’s not how real life works. There’s a division of powers in the constitution that doesn’t care about your feelings.

Meanwhile, Andrew Leach has a few observations about the situation in Alberta that are just as trenchant as the ones in Ontario.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau says he is open to tougher penalties for those who break quarantine rules (but that would still require provincial authorities to enforce those rules).
  • Trudeau also admitted that the (half-) measures they brought in to combat sexual misconduct in the military were inadequate. You don’t say!
  • While Canada is due to start getting its Pfizer shipments from the US instead of Europe, Johnson & Johnson doses are being held back for quality control issues.
  • Here is a better explainer of Bill C-10, which amends the Broadcast Act, and why there is an uproar about changes the Liberals are proposing for web platforms.
  • The commander of the Special Forces is due to be replaced after he apologised for writing a glowing letter of recommendation for a soldier convicted of sexual assault.
  • Former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour seems confident that her report on changes to the culture of the military will actually be implemented.
  • Maclean’s has a longread about the leadership role Canada is taking when it comes to bringing international governments together to regulate web giants.
  • Bio-pharmaceutical industry players are happy with the investments in the budget, but immediately want the government to also abandon drug price regulations.
  • The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that police can’t sue Crown prosecutors for how they dealt with allegations of police brutality on a prosecution.
  • The Conservatives are gearing up to run another election preaching “choice” instead of creating new childcare spaces (as though this wasn’t a supply-side problem).
  • Lisa Raitt was pushed off her riding association’s executive after a dispute with the new candidate (and no, guys, this is not a “coup.”)
  • The NDP have pledged to support the government’s climate accountability legislation on the promise that the government is open to amendments.
  • A recording was obtained by a Green Party executive meeting, where Annamie Paul can be heard expressing frustration at being blocked from trying to do her job.
  • My weekend column counts the ways in which Harjit Sajjan has failed in his duty and lost his moral authority, and points out why it’s long past time for him to go.

Odds and ends:

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One thought on “Roundup: Playing chicken with the variants”

  1. Dwivedi is right that it’s not just cons. It’s their horseshoe-politics enablers like Singh who knows full well that he can’t keep giving Horgan a free pass unless he avoids Ford and Kenney. Layton made common cause with Harper in the same way to pwn teh Libs. In the US the Bernie Bros made common cause with the MAGA morons, and even the original “antifa” in Germany thought attacking the moderates and letting the *other* Former Guy have his day, would usher in the glorious revolution. They got that revolution all right; good and hard, and suffered until 1989. I’m sure the Dippers are getting an earful about Freeland’s support of the memorial to victims of communism.

    The constitution isn’t a thing that can or should be just hand-waved away. For all the griping that Trudeau is a dictator, it’s the populist extremes of the CPC and NDP who want a centralized rule by fiat. Populism — whether hard left or hard right — is a helluva drug; unfortunately, in an actual *pandemic* it’s a sickness in and of itself that impedes progress toward a cure.

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