By Sally Barnes
As we struggle through the pandemic fog to understand what’s happening around us, some issues are just no-brainers.
First of all, in the immortal words of the 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke: “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”
“Today, we are seeing some sunlight break through the clouds,” chief cheerleader Premier Doug Ford crowed this week to an increasingly weary, frustrated, and cynical public as pandemic restrictions were lifted in some areas.
But not so fast. On the same day, the City of Toronto’s medical officer of health offered a different perspective.
“Today we are in a transition from one pandemic to another,” proclaimed Dr. Eileen de Villa. Variants of the COVID-19 virus are cropping up and this new enemy is even more virulent, it seems.
It’s a no-brainer that only widespread use of vaccine can get us out of this mess. And the drug manufacturers will decide who gets what and when. Experts refer to this world-wide competition as vaccine nationalism. That’s a nice term for a dirty process that pits nation against nation and rich against poor. Can a black-market supply be far behind?
It’s also a no-brainer that the more time we go without vaccine the more the new variants will spread, deaths will increase, our already wrecked economy will worsen, and our staggering debt will continue to bloat.
As Canadians, we can’t be sure where we stand in the vaccine pecking order because the stories change almost daily.
The messages out of Ottawa are not only mixed; they are beaten, scrambled, and half-baked.
Which gets me to another no-brainer: China.
They screwed us on the vaccine front when they pulled out of a Canada-China agreement to develop a new vaccine. The Chinese made no secret that this decision was retaliation for the RCMP’s arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. The rug was pulled on the deal last March but this was not disclosed to Canadians until five months later.
By then, other nations were in bed with more respectable partners and are now well ahead of us in vaccinating their people.
Why would the Government of Canada consider China trustworthy on such a vital issue as life-saving vaccine when at the time two Canadians were held in one of their prisons on trumped up charges and remain there today two years after their arrest? Diplomacy to bring them home to safety has failed miserably.
Why would we do business with a country’s Communist government that practises well-documented genocide in its persecution, forced labour, and population control of a million ethnic Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang province?
Beijing says it is running a voluntary employment and language training program to help the Uighurs minority. And pigs fly! A parliamentary committee in Ottawa has declared China’s actions as genocide but our government has yet to do so.
Whatever happened to Never Again—the vow that the Holocaust would never happen again? Well, it has—and in our lifetime. It’s happening today in China and the world knows it.
As a child, my mother told me the Chinese would one day take over the world. I took that about as seriously as a lot of her other advice and wisdom—only to learn in later years that she was smarter than I knew.
So, here’s another no-brainer: Canada, like other nations around the world, now has the opportunity to show some guts and not allow the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing to be turned into a propaganda exercise by the host country to spread its lies and predatory ambitions and to cover up its crimes.
We’ve seen this movie before. Hitler used the 1936 Berlin Games as a powerful propaganda tool for Nazi Germany to curry international favour for his brutal racist regime. A boycott movement was organized but fizzled and failed to stop what became known as the “Games of Shame”.
Some 180 human rights groups have called for a boycott of the Beijing Games. Others who oppose Chinese Communist Party domestic and foreign policies say the Games should be re-located so athletes are not used as political pawns and denied the right to compete after years spent in preparation.
Our own Green Party leader Annamie Paul—a bright light on our dull federal political stage—says the International Olympic Committee should relocate the games and Canada should consider offering to host them, perhaps with the United States because both countries have the necessary infrastructure and experience.
Realistically, this idea won’t get far due to lack of time, resources, and political will. The games are only a year away and there is not much political appetite in this world for offending the mighty Chinese.
Like many other Canadians, I’ve been cooped up for a long time, I’m sick of so-called experts who don’t seem to know what they’re doing and politicians who are long on rhetoric and short on courage.
To quote another old movie (Network, 1976), “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.” I’m not alone.
It’s no wonder that polls show a federal election in the next few months could have some surprising outcomes.
(The writer confesses to watching too many movies in her attempt to survive the pandemic!)
Sally Barnes has enjoyed a distinguished career as a writer, journalist and author. Her work has been recognized in a number of ways, including receiving a Southam Fellowship in Journalism at Massey College at the University of Toronto. A self-confessed political junkie, she has worked in the back-rooms for several Ontario premiers. In addition to a number of other community contributions, Sally Barnes served a term as president of the Ontario Council on the Status of Women. She is a former business colleague of Doppler’s Hugh Mackenzie and lives in Kingston, Ontario. You can find her online at sallybarnesauthor.com
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Phil Beacock says
Absolutely correct there Sally!
The world should boycott the games! Trudeau needs a lesson in life that being mister nice is not the right way sometimes! He threw all his eggs in one basket for the vaccine coming out of china! He basically kicked dirt in his allies faces with the China vaccine attempt! NO canada is not back!
I when i see his picture there standing at the podium like the sun is shining every day on him! When he thinks he is doing the best in the world! When in reality he is NOT!
As Rex Murphy said, maybe the worst leadership we have ever had in the history of this country! I may even add THE WORLD!
Safe day to all first responders, cause they and the rest of us are going to need all the help we can get!
Ray Vowels says
We are all mad as hell and sick and tired of our Govt’s at all levels telling us one thing then doing something different. Why don’t they just say we have no idea how or when this can be fixed and get it over with. Let us decide how we want to battle the virus stay home or go out and do whatever we want it should be up to us.
Jim Logagianes says
Great article Ms Barnes, what intrigued me the most was the reference to your mother. That she had the foresight to warn her daughter.of and imminent threat. And now here we are today having that very discussion due to the fact that our government underestimated the Chinese communist regime.
Death by China on you tube for anyone who is interested in how all this came about and the consequences that are unfolding before our eyes.
https://youtu.be/mMlmjXtnIXI
Brenda Begg says
Mr. Vowels: I understand your frustration. However, leaving it up to us (each individual) as to how to “…battle the virus stay home or go out…” is one scary idea! I, for one, don’t fancy a ‘free for all and let’s just see what happens’ approach.
Bill Beatty says
Ray stay home , I begg You. The Science/Simon Says STAY HOME !
Anna-Lise Kear says
Ms. Barnes, you cover a lot of territory in your article, so my comments/questions will also seem a bit scattered in a few directions.
1] Wow! the “yellow peril”- I thought some of this rhetoric had died with Robertson Davies fiction. I give you credit for some nuance to the issue. We already see the “other” by skin colour and look where that has taken us. China has for some time been recognized as an emerging international power to be watched – a former sleeping giant- economically for example.
2] “Network” reference. Your quote from the character, played by actor Peter Finch, has a mental breakdown on TV, he had just been fired. The travesty is that because the TV ratings shoot up after he delivers this line, he is left in his job fully exposed in this mental disintegration, along with some conspiracy theories to boot during his mental deterioration. That is until the ratings go down, won’t spoil the ending. I would love you to draw some comparisons between our poorly regulated, digital, Facebook age and the TV version of that movie – as it is allowed to control our worldviews, without question, and offers up an emotional padded room.
3] Can you answer why Mulroney sold Connaught Labs, Toronto? Ontario could have benefited from a vaccine manufacturing centre. It seems short-sighted on the part of the federal Cons.
4] Are you aware of some of the tribulations when the newly discovered insulin (in Toronto) went into production? Though not perfectly analogous, I have patience because I know there are lots of issues with the production/manufacturing of a new medicine, vaccine.
5] Where I Do Not have patience is the provincial handling of this pandemic in LTC. I grant they inherited problems, decades in the making. However, their failure in political will to act in short-medium planning continues.
Bryan Holford says
Trudeau is anti-canadian and pro-china, that is why our two Canadians are still locked up in China, Trudeau needs to be replaced by someone with the guts to do something about China and get our Canadians out of the Chinese prison and to get the needed vaccines coming to Canada.
Anna-Lise Kear says
Mr. Holford; it is a fine line to walk with China, at times. The current government is well-aware of the issues involved.
Jim Sinclair says
Will someone – anyone please tell us what happened to the Federal Leadership in this country? If anyone asks Mr. T a question the only answer is the always repeated ” Our Government has always got the backs of Canadians and we will continue to do so.” Mr. T is a Hippie and it shows. On the International stage the representation of Canada by him is deplorable. Mr. T follows in his Daddy’s footsteps but he is not as adept at getting out of missteps as his pappy was. I look forward to an election replacing him with Mr. O’toole, ( But I DO wish Mr. O would brush up his effective speaking. Mr. Singh is a beautiful speaker as noted by the networks who ask him to speak. But we seem to remember Bobby Rae and His Rae-days fiasco and I doubt the NDP will ever form a Government with the memories from that. (NDP always has personable representatives, but….)
Someone keeps blaming Mr. Mulroney for selling Connaught Labs, but I think it was Mr. T’s daddy that started the downfall of Connaught by dislodging it from the U. of T.?
Bring on the election, and i wish people would stop picking on Doug Ford, he has the needles ready, but Ottawa’s glamour boy won’t come up with the stuff to fill them with. Petty, petty , petty!
Bring on the election, enough with the drivel.
P.S. Mr Ford is an honest guy trying to right the ship called Ontario. – just my opinion.
Anna-Lise Kear says
Mr. Sinclair; JT is not a hippie- he is too young, you have the wrong generation! Perhaps you are thinking of his mother?
Mr. Mulroney sold Connaught! Why?
Yes, I look forward to an election, especially provincial. I certainly won’t “stop picking on DF”, especially as related to health care, LTC and community care. He appears as dumbfounded as a deer in the car headlights.
NDP has shone as a movement federally. I was particularly pleased with Mulcaire’s opposition to “party of one” leadership by SH, who was ” incrementally” moving country policies further right, a la GOP.
Jim Sinclair says
Ms. Kear. I was referring to his actions when I called him a hippie. I was a part time one in my day, (a weekender) and had a ball! No taking any responsibility for my actions. Believing that when I did nothing or refused to do squat, it wasn’t my fault.
I was a proud card carrying member of the Purple Onion coffee house on Avenue Rd. at Davenport and life was good. I don’t know why Mulroney sold C.L. you’ll have to ask him. Why did Pierre nationalize the Lab in the first place? Ans: To see how long he could drain money out of the kitty before the well went dry. His attempt to require the civil service to become 100 percent bilingual was a good try, except the constitution wouldn’t allow a petition to apply Chapter 13.
Mr Ford would gladly deputize you in a heartbeat if you have all the answers, when you feel like cutting people a break for trying, send him a few kudos .
Anna-Lise Kear says
Thanks Mr. Sinclair, good to read your comments – you have an interesting past. I’m of the hippie generation, though was not one of the tribe. I have heard comments about JT’s arrogance; with DF it is just the appearance of “dumb-founded-ness”.
No, DF doesn’t need My advice – he just has to get much, much better at listening and acting on the begging and pleading coming from the health professionals on the front lines, who are advocating for patients and the public.
? cut DF a break? = ?cut JT a break? Just wondering.
Public ownership of a vaccine lab might be worth it, especially if there is research development.