This is on you Jason Kenney...

[outtawind]

Having to call military medical specialists to deal with your covid outbreak is 100% on your shoulders. There is no 'other path' that lead Alberta to this situation - it is you, you have chosen killing your constituents to capture power over common sense.

You did this by:

• 1. Pretending the pandemic was 'over', allowing large events to resume this summer.
  2. Downplaying the seriousness of the pandemic with your "I support businesses" rhetoric and ridiculous reopening.
  3. Downplaying the unconditional importance of vaccines to reduce risk of serious infection and death.

Your actions created doubt and the falsehood that life could return to normal. YOU are directly responsible for the deaths occurring daily - this is 100% your fault and you stand ashamed to those who are dying and all of our amazing health care workers trying to save their lives.

The rest of Canada is not responsible for bailing you out here. Your citizens will continue to die and you will continue to put others at risk with your reckless and uninformed behavior.

You are NOT a Scientist. You are NOT a Doctor. You ARE, however, a Leader (unfortunately). Those you lead think you are informed, they trust you - but you are a leader taking your herd off a cliff.

[mexi cali]

That about covers it.

[JagXKR]

Wrong in so many ways. Responsibility is solely with the unvaccinated who choose to not become vaxxed.
I feel no sympathy whatsoever for unvaxxed who succumb to Covid. Zero.
But just keep up the KDS. Kenney Derangement Syndrome.
The left is great at villainizing any non-left wing politician.

[fluffy]

You are NOT a Scientist. You are NOT a Doctor. You ARE, however, a Leader (unfortunately). Those you lead think you are informed, they trust you - but you are a leader taking your herd off a cliff.

First and foremost Kenney is a politician, and an unscrupulous one at that. He was late on every step he took in managing the provinces pandemic response, and early in lifting restrictions when he did finally get around to imposing them. He did nothing preventative, his policies were after-the-fact knee jerk responses to situations after they got out of hand. Alberta has a strong contingent of far right voters, voters who openly resisted pandemic restrictions and vaccinations, a contingent that Kenney was loathe to alienate with the provincial NDP nipping at his heals. His recent changes of heart are not a repsonse to rising case counts, it's a response to rebellion from within his party that are reconsidering his leadership because his pandemic response has been weak and overdue. For Jason Kenney it's all about politics.

[hobbyguy]

While Kenney has done a poor job of managing the pandemic, that may have been so otherwise, the poor results in Alberta have many of their seeds in other contexts.

It is perhaps easier to understand if one looks at Idaho. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/a ... ightly-on/

In that article you will see references to viewpoints of "frontier Americanism" that stem waay back to "manifest destiny" times of the US. There is an ethos of individualism and religious dogma that tends to lead to self destructive behavior in the context of COVID, and it is an ethos that has been kept alive and more recently stoked by opportunists. It is insular and highly resistant to anything "new" and sticks too roots from the 1800s and further back.

Part of that ethos is rooted in the long running battle between secular government and religious power structures (not spirituality and religious belief itself, but the power structures of organized religion that rely on dogma). Within that is a distrust of modernity in all its forms, including democratic government, which in the timescale of the religious power structure versus governemnt is a new concept.

There are reasons to be skeptical of some politicians, and that gets transferred to government as a whole. That gets amplified in rural areas by the fact governemnt services are not well distributed in rural areas. Many services that government provides are of little use and/or availability in many rural areas - or if they do come to those areas are often too little and too late - and perhaps in conflict with the religious power structure that controls the societal centers of some rural areas (and therefore the societal norms).

The total mix can lead to a bit of a siege mentality. Something that comes from "the outside", "the big city" etc. can seem an affront to that old "frontier Americanism".


In the Canadian context, there is always a spill over from US culture. It is fairly easy for Vancouverites to relate to Seattle, Portland and even San Francisco. Not so much for someone in Grangeville, Idaho or High Level or Mayerthorpe Alberta. The forces of change and urbanization (and its manifestations) have not been kind to such places. Folks in High Level or Mayerthorpe are much more likely to relate to Graingeville, Idaho than to Vancouver et al.

In many cases such places were failed by governments of the day. In Alberta, it was 1948. Ernest Manning was premier. The key issue was (finally) bringing electricity to the farm and rural districts of Alberta. The proposal was for the government to take on the duty of providing electricity to framers et al, including the infrastructure. Manning staunchly opposed public ownership, and in what has reminiscence of Brexit, a campaign and referendum was held. Farmers and rural residents lost, after fighting to get electricity since the WW1 era. "Big City" government had failed them, and left them "out in the cold". Farmers then did their own thing, forming co-ops and by 1961 87% of rural Alberta had electricity.

I chose a 1948 example to show where the roots of distrust in government come from in rural areas, because it has less obvious political visibility today, but highlights an a situation that has been duplicated many times and in many places and ways along the road to modernity. Telephones, TV, cable TV, and other benefits of modernity such as up date sanitation and health care are latecomers in many rural areas - even today reasonable internet speeds are not available in many rural areas.

On top of that, many small prairie towns are shrinking and dying out. Mayerthorpe lost almost 6% of its population between 2011 and 2016 as part of the trend where young folks leave for the big cities. If the price of modernity is the death of your community and withering community roots for folks, the distrust is not unfounded.

Then from the outside comes COVID. Easy to see it as a "big city" problem. Easy to find folks on Facebook saying it is a hoax etc. etc. Then the "big city" governemnt says you have to wear a mask, and poke some new fangled stuff in your arm? And your pastor says its nonsense, and your local opportunist politician says its nonsense - and away we go.

[nucksRnum1]

Kenny is a crook. Just like Nixon.

[Glacier]

Canada's health care sucks, including in Alberta. The covid cases in Alberta aren't as bad as they are in almost every state, and many other nations in the world, and yet the hospitals are overwhelmed. That's because we don't have the capacity in Canada.

[daria]

They are also more transparent about the co-morbidities linked to their deaths with COVID:

[fluffy]

They are also more transparent about the co-morbidities linked to their deaths with COVID:

Does this lessen the extent of Kenney's failure ? Kenney and the UCP embarked on a program of cutbacks and cancellations in the healthcare sector from when they were elected in the spring of 2019, leaving Alberta's healthcare system totally vulnerable to overload. Deflections such as pointing to underlying conditions in COVID fatalities are meaningless.

[daria]

They are also more transparent about the co-morbidities linked to their deaths with COVID:

Does this lessen the extent of Kenney's failure ? Kenney and the UCP embarked on a program of cutbacks and cancellations in the healthcare sector from when they were elected in the spring of 2019, leaving Alberta's healthcare system totally vulnerable to overload. Deflections such as pointing to underlying conditions in COVID fatalities are meaningless.

I don't agree with what he did to health care workers in the province. Just pointing out the transparency they are giving people about the reality of deaths with COVID, and what we should see across this country.

[fluffy]

I don't agree with what he did to health care workers in the province. Just pointing out the transparency they are giving people about the reality of deaths with COVID, and what we should see across this country.

I'm not seeing your point here, are you saying that people with underlying health conditions are somehow "lesser-than" people without ?

[daria]

No, they are not "lesser than," but the reality of their underlying health conditions shouldn't be swept under the rug, as if it doesn't make a difference in the outcomes once they have contracted Covid. I find the reporting of these stats to be less about the fear-based tactics we see here in BC and more about the reality of the vast majority of deaths with COVID. And I appreciate it.

[fluffy]

No, they are not "lesser than," but the reality of their underlying health conditions shouldn't be swept under the rug, as if it doesn't make a difference in the outcomes once they have contracted Covid.

I don't dispute that underlying health conditions can increase the severity of a COVID infection, I'm just not getting why that's important. It's not a reason to take the virus any less seriously.

Kenney downplayed the extent of the threat that the virus posed right from the start, and left the province dealing with circumstance more dire than the could have been had he not laid the groundwork in the manner he did. The fact that some Albertans were more susceptible due to pre-existing conditions doesn't really have anything to do with it, Kenney was treating all Albertans with equal disregard.

[Glacier]

I know a guy in critical condition with Covid. I don't know if he was vaxxed or not, but assume he was because he was involved with coaching hockey.

But if he isn't vaccinated, you can guarantee people will be blaming him for not getting vaccinated, but won't say anything about his 350lb weight, even though losing weight and giving up smoking would do more to ward off Covid death than the vaccine does.

[The Green Barbarian]

Canada's health care sucks, including in Alberta. The covid cases in Alberta aren't as bad as they are in almost every state, and many other nations in the world, and yet the hospitals are overwhelmed. That's because we don't have the capacity in Canada.

nailed it 100%.