Canadian Politics: Is that a Light at the End of the Tunnel?

[Fragile Bird]

Update

Jan          9Sa    10Su  11Mo   12Tu   13We    14Th    15Fr                          

BC           538     507    430      446      519      536      509                                

AB           989     811    639      652      875      967      785  

SK            332     307   412      248      247      312      382            

MB           203     151   133        92      158      261      191      

ON         3443   3945  3338    2903    2961    3326   2998

PQ          3127   2588  1869   1934     2071    2132   1918    

Atl-4           33       15        2       19       27         31       28               

North           0         0        0         0         0           0         1                                           

Total       8665   8324   6847   6294    6858    7565    6812

As I said, I'm trying to post every couple of days now, to stay on top of the numbers. As the week comes to an end, we usually see numbers go up, and that did happen Thursday but not today. I wonder if Ontario was playing catch up on tests.

I was a bit surprised to catch some of the Alberta Covid press conference and hear that Alberta is easing some restrictions.

Eta: the vast majority of the Atlantic cases are in NB. Looking at today's 25 cases, they are spread all over the province, but only 8 of them are people 60 or older. All the rest are younger, teens, 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s all represented.

As for vaccines, I don't think there are anymore updates for today. We have received a total of 761,500 doses, with 480,396 first shots administered and 25,943 second shots, mainly in Ontario. I'm puzzled about why so few have been given in NS. I heard NB confirm that they will be giving the two doses at the recommended times. Manitoba seems a bit behind as well, but I understand that they have the highest per capita indigenous population of all the provinces, and remote locations will take time, as the person responsible for the same said in Ontario. 

Next update will be late Monday, after BC reports, since they are still taking weekend reporting off.

[Paxter]

Got to give Albertans some credit - clearly they changed their behaviour much more than Ontarians over Christmas/NYE.

But they would be silly to relax restrictions!

[Aemon Stark]

NL is now apparently having an election Feb 13 (on a Saturday no less). This was a big surprise after the government released all sorts of funding announcements over the last few days. Hmm. Perhaps not a coincidence. The timing is curious as well, as we are due for initial reports about the province's "economic recovery" plan at the end of Feb (my comments):

Quote

In the leadup to the decision, the likelihood of Furey calling an election now — in the middle of both an unpredictable North Atlantic winter and a pandemic — had already come under fire from the Opposition Tories and the NDP, who both said the governing Liberals should wait for the premier's economic recovery team, chaired by Moya Greene (she's been involved in numerous privatization schemes here and there, most significantly the Royal Mail in the UK)  , to report first. 

A progress report from the recovery team, outlining recommendations for dealing with escalating debt, is not expected until the end of February. Its final report is due April 30. 

"It's a little suspicious that the premier thinks it's a good idea to call the election now, instead of waiting for these recommendations and [letting] the public judge the Liberal government based on those recommendations," (NDP Leader Alison) Coffin said Friday.

Furey defended his decision, stressing that the non-binding recommendations will be heavily debated in the House of Assembly.  

"There will always be a reason not to have an election," he said. "I think now is the best time (for the government and me generally)."

As for more cynicism, we have the spectacle of the Health Minister saying there's no need for a PET scanner in the new hospital in Corner Brook (and, really, there isn't a strong case), but then saying, wait, actually you'll still get one when the "cancer doctors" think it's needed, and here's some (enough?) money for the hospital foundation for one. 

Quote

A state-of-the-art multimillion-dollar piece of scanning equipment has become a political hot potato in the last week — but the origins of it go back to 2014 — and the latest development comes with election speculation in overdrive.  

At a hastily called media conference Thursday afternoon, Health Minister John Haggie and Corner Brook MHA Gerry Byrne said the Liberals would put $2 million in trust with the Western Regional Hospital Foundation toward the purchase of the PET scanner, when health-care professionals — specifically, cancer-care doctors — say it's needed. 

Haggie made more than a half-dozen references at the news conference that the air needed to be cleared on this issue, and laid some of the blame for that on the "mainstream media."

That's despite Haggie saying, in an interview for a CBC story less than a week ago, that the PET scanner in St. John's is doing only a handful of scans a day and has the capacity to do much more.

Anyway, I'm not sure why the government would make the money available if there wasn't a good business/health case for such a contraption. I'm not sure that half the people arguing for a PET scanner understand what it would be for let alone how much it would be utilized. But it seems the new hospital will have one, eventually, maybe, if "cancer care doctors" think it should have one, at some point, to be determined, and possibly even with additional money to fund its operation. 

[Fragile Bird]

I had heard there was an election call in Newfoundland but I was waiting for tomorrow's paper and a chance to listen to some pundits before saying anything. I guess the Covid situation has been ok in Newfoundland so it was time to go for it, like BC and Saskatchewan did.

[Aemon Stark]

As of yesterday there were only five active cases, one of whom has been in hospital long enough that I'm not sure how "active" it is. 

This article outlines some of reasons for the election timing and the government's motivations. The bottom line is that the "economic recovery" team is doing its work entirely in secret, with zero transparency, to the point that labour leaders who have been involved actually resigned recently claiming it's something of a sham process. And while I assume privatization or municipal restructuring or who knows what else is involved, we really don't know:

Quote

The government has defended the confidential nature of PERT's (premier's economic recovery team) work. "They have full access to confidential information and are expected to have full and frank discussions of all options," Furey's office told CBC in a prepared statement.

Greene's team will be submitting a temporary report at the end of February, with a full report that we have been told will be made public coming expected at the end of April.

The timeline does not align with the Liberals' plan to convert its minority status in the House of Assembly to a majority government. A majority will be needed, for instance, to push through a budget that could include things like program cuts or job losses.

Furey, evidently, wants to get ahead of what is almost certainly going to be a strong prescription for change.

Many key facts will not be on the table

But putting the election before a major economic policy change could have risks. The opposition parties naturally want things to be the other way around; it would be in their interests to campaign against whatever it says.

But there are other things to consider. One of them has to do with true public engagement. Earlier this month, I spoke to a retired politician with many years of experience in politics and in campaign organization.

His view was that voters are mature enough to not only want the facts, but to comprehend and understand them. Going to the electorate with that plan, he said, would bring a mandate that is truly significant.

We are not though going to have the details of that report, or even a Coles Notes outline of what to expect.

Instead, the governing party is starting a campaign starting with the same-old, same-old, with one announcement after another of funding commitments, some of them much more curious than others.

One thing about political parties in NL is that the distinctions tend to be lesser and more a matter of degree than anything else. The PCs if anything ran to the left of the Liberals in the last election and the NDP pulled out respectable results despite an abysmal campaign. There's nothing very ideological about this, but there definitely is nepotism and careerism. I guess the only bright side is that there's no one like Doug Ford or (shudder) Jason Kenney. 

[Fragile Bird]

If you read the US Politics thread, you know Myshkin is a brave soul who has been diving deep into the MAGAt swamp to see what the Trumpanistas have been saying. Reading various tweets people have posted, I see that two topics are trending in Canada right now: Take Back Canada and Take Canada Back.

Anyone feel brave enough to wade into the Canadian right wing swamp?

[Paxter]

59 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Anyone feel brave enough to wade into the Canadian right wing swamp?

After Scheer's fairly limp performance in 2019, I feel like Canada has a couple of mangroves in the river mouth rather than a fully-fledged swamp :P. 

[CrackMyPc]

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[TrueMetis]

The swamp metaphor has always bothered me, swamps are diverse ecosystems that are super important to ecological health for a wide area around the swamp. These rightwing fucks wish they were even a fraction that essential.

[Fragile Bird]

Update

Jan         12Tu   13We    14Th    15Fr   16Sa   17Su   18Mo                          

BC           446      519      536      509     584     445     301                                

AB           652      875      967      785     717     750     474  

SK            248      247      312      382    270     287     290           

MB             92      158      261      191    180     189     118      

ON         2903     2961   3326    2998   3056   3422   2578

PQ          1934     2071   2132    1918   2225   1744   1634    

Atl-4           19        27        31       28        27       36      26               

North            0         0           0         1         4          4       0                                           

Total        6294    6858    7565    6812    7063   6881  5425

We had a huge drop in numbers of new cases in Ontario, after we had a jump on Sunday, so I'm not sure if we can celebrate yet or if the numbers will pop up again. Everyone else has come down as well, but I heard that the Quebec number might be inaccurate because of some missing data. I guess we'll see tomorrow. There's a nursing home in Barrie that had a massive outbreak, 63 out of 140 residents infected and 53 staff, plus 2 essential visitors. Nine dead residents so far. The large numbers continue in NB as well, many in a poultry processing plant outside of Edmonston.

The lockdown in Ontario was extended for 30 more days. The chief medical officer said daily cases need to drop below 1,000 before restrictions will be loosened.

I have started checking the vaccination numbers every night. Alberta once again is over 100%, at 106.7%, but they still haven't given a single 2nd dose, and neither have BC or Quebec. Since the 15th 106k doses have been administered, about 26.5k a day. Ontario said we could do 20K a day by ourselves. Let's hope people can get their acts together. Ontario opened the first of what will be 50 mass vaccination centres, at the Toronto Conference Centre downtown, as a beta site for when large shipments of vaccine start arriving. Unfortunately, because of the Pfizer cutback, the site will only be open until Friday, when we run out of doses.

There's something weird about NB's numbers. They are showing 3,097 first doses given and 7,339 second doses. I have been reading the list so far as showing a total of first doses and a total of second doses administered in each province. Obviously NB can't have more second doses administered than first, so I wonder if they are subtracting 2nd doses from 1st doses in their report. Unfortunately the link in the CTV page does not provide the information. The Ontario numbers are in fact first and secnd doses, you add them to get the total administered.

[maarsen]

Someone at th new Vaughan hospital has a sense of humour. Today's Globe had a photo of Ford touring the hospital, looking at a patient bed. Problem is that that particular bed is designed to be used by the morbidly obese, or those who weigh more than 500 lbs. 

[Fragile Bird]

Good news this morning that may actually have been a mirage, lol. In my mind I've set up goals for my province of Ontario, get out of the 3,000+ cases a day range into the 2,000+, hold steady, then drop into the 1,000s+. How long will that take? Well, Sunday was 2,578, good start, but today is 1,913! Unfortunately, Toronto, usually 1/3 of all cases, had data collection issues and their number is an underestimate, so I assume we'll have a high number tomorrow.

[Fragile Bird]

James Cross just died, at the age of 99, from Covid-19. As it Happens ran an old interview from 2010, and then interviewed his son, who looked after him until the end. The NHS folks decided at his age it was no use taking him to hospital. His son also has Covid-19 now, but he's hoping it's a mild case.

His son said he thought his father survived his two months imprisonment by the FLQ because of his positive attitude and politeness. Pierre Laporte got shot pretty quickly.

And so a major chapter of the Quebec crisis comes to a close.

[Fragile Bird]

Update

Jan         14Th    15Fr   16Sa   17Su   18Mo  19Tu   20We                          

BC           536      509     584     445     301     465     500                                

AB           967      785     717     750     474     456     669    

SK            312      382    270     287     290     309     234           

MB           261      191    180     189     118     111     154      

ON         3326    2998   3056  3422    2578  1913   2655

PQ          2132    1918   2225  1744    1634  1386   1502    

Atl-4           31       28        27      36       26       37      24               

North           0          1         4         4        0         2        0                                           

Total       7565    6812    7063   6881   5425  4679  5738

All the numbers were up today, not surprising since they rise as the week continues. As predicted yesterday, there was a big jump in Ontario's number because Toronto had had some data collection issues two days ago. I'm hoping we stay in the 2000s and then do another drop, since we seem to be past the Christmas season wave. Sadly, we will likely pass Quebec in total cases some time in the next week.

I really don't have any information today because I was watching the US Inauguration Day ceremonies and celebrations.

In terms of vaccinations, we now have 650,627 first doses done and 45,765 2nd doses done, 1.83% of the population. No second doses have yet been done in Alberta, BC or Quebec. I think I'd start getting a little nervous about that. Ontario has done 205,557 first doses and 32,361 second ones.

I saw that yesterday for some reason we got 18,400 more doses. I don't know if a small shipment came in or if it was a correction. Some time today we got a delivery of 90,015 doses, but nothing was distributed as far as I can tell. Both Alberta and Saskatchewan have really done well in terms of squeezing out every single dose, administering 113% and 111% of their vaccines respectively. We (in Ontario) have less than 40k doses unadministered yet, so it sounds like we have almost run out. I think a large portion of those doses are in the north. Since we have almost 40% of the population, we'll presumably get about 40,000 of the newly delivered doses tomorrow, and run out by the weekend. Next week is the bad week for Pfizer deliveries, only 25% of the expected shipment.

[Paxter]

I read that Ontario has vaccinated less than 50% of its LTC residents compared to Alberta’s 90%. Meanwhile, some executives and researchers at ON hospitals have had the vaccine.

To me, the above is far more egregious than a few pollies heading to the Caribbean. Failing to properly prioritize vaccine distribution is going to cost lives.

[Fragile Bird]

15 minutes ago, Paxter said:

I read that Ontario has vaccinated less than 50% of its LTC residents compared to Alberta’s 90%. Meanwhile, some executives and researchers at ON hospitals have had the vaccine.

To me, the above is far more egregious than a few pollies heading to the Caribbean. Failing to properly prioritize vaccine distribution is going to cost lives.

You always have to ask what the numbers are in Canada. There are just under 20,000 LTC residents in Alberta, there are just over 71,000 in Ontario, so twice as many have been vaccinated here. We’ve had vaccine doses for the same amount of time. There are many outbreaks in LTC homes in Ontario, and I think that slows down the vaccinations, you don’t give a vaccination to someone with Covid. The outrage over a couple of people getting a vaccine who shouldn’t have is overblown, once defrosted the Pfizer vaccine has a very short shelf life, just get it in an arm, any arm, instead of throwing it out. 

I didn’t look up the number of support staff in both provinces, but don’t forget them either. I bet more support staff in Ontario have been vaccinated because, first, they have been going to the hospitals to get the jab, which many LTC residents can’t do, and second, because they are the ones who were the biggest spreaders of the virus. 
 

Also, Alberta hasn’t given any second doses. None. Zero. We’ve done 32,000, full protection for those people. If you check the Covid thread you’ll see Israel has vaccinated almost 2M out of 9M people, but only first doses. It has not slowed down the spread of the virus. The first shot of the Pfizer vaccine may give less protection than we first thought.

[Paxter]

On Israel, we don't actually know whether it's slowed the spread of the virus do we? The counter-factual could be much worse than the status quo for all we know. Plus there is an inevitable lag in getting results for any vaccine rollout. 

I take your point on the LTC vaccinations...I just feel like Ford talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk on that front. 

[SpaceChampion]

Julie Payette stepping down from Governor General position.

[Fragile Bird]

Just now, SpaceChampion said:

Julie Payette stepping down from Governor General position.

I was just out and heard on the CBC that the independent investigation report was brutal, confirming all the complaints previously uncovered.

[Paxter]

I wasn’t aware of that story but looks like the right result. I love that she still claims she wasn’t afforded due process, even though an independent reviewer substantiated the claims after dozens of interviews.

Some people never say die!