Juno News - November 02, 2020


Canadians aren't taking the government seriously


Episode Stats

Length

3 minutes

Words per Minute

194.5542

Word Count

755

Sentence Count

33

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 There's one particular part of our pandemic discussion right now that gets more troubling,
00:00:10.300 more problematic, the more weeks and months pass by. And what is that? It's the fact that no
00:00:15.900 Canadian public health official, no politician, no real international public health figure or
00:00:21.840 politician has clearly articulated what the objective is. And this whole sort of
00:00:27.700 social disarray we're seeing, a bit of tearing of the social fabric, where increasingly people are
00:00:33.360 not saying hashtag, we're all in this together, and they're troubled by many of the restrictions.
00:00:38.380 They're asking follow-up questions. They're doing a bit of pushback, even potentially a bit of civil
00:00:43.120 disobedience. I think all of that has been worsened by the fact that we are not having that conversation.
00:00:49.080 We're discouraged from having it. And there's no leadership to try and bring forward all the
00:00:54.440 different options to talk it out here in society. What do I mean by that? What would the end goal,
00:00:59.480 the objective be in all this? Well, is it to flatten the curve, as the saying goes? Well,
00:01:05.120 we already flattened the curve more or less, and things are actually doing pretty well. There's a
00:01:08.840 lot of positive notes to talk about as we enter November in terms of dealing with COVID-19 and the
00:01:14.460 death rates and hospitalizations and so forth compared to the first wave. Okay, so is that the
00:01:19.100 objective? If so, we've kind of already accomplished it. All right, well, what about this then? Is it
00:01:23.540 to get to practically zero cases like we've seen in places like Australia? Okay, maybe it is. I mean,
00:01:30.820 that's pretty impractical here in Canada, but is it? I don't know. Tell us. Let's talk it out.
00:01:35.360 Is it to learn to live with coronavirus, to basically do calculated risk assessments,
00:01:41.480 try and inform people as much as we can about how their particular demographic profile, their age and
00:01:47.240 their health indicators and so forth, how that makes them vulnerable and what they should do
00:01:50.900 to protect themselves, but then, you know, otherwise go about their business? What is
00:01:55.500 the objective? Now, you listening may say, okay, I think it should be this or that or the other and
00:01:59.880 so forth, and that's fine, but the problem is we haven't heard from Dr. Teresa Tam or Justin Trudeau
00:02:07.280 or Doug Ford or anybody what they think the option should be, and we really need leadership on that,
00:02:13.100 and I don't think that they have a preference. So Dr. Tam released this report the other day,
00:02:18.680 her big annual report looking at the pandemic and just everything in Canadian public health. It was
00:02:24.160 on the pandemic, and you would think this would be the prime opportunity for her to actually step
00:02:28.940 forward and articulate that very proposition that I'm saying. All right, guys, you know, I've been
00:02:33.920 watching this unfold for seven months and pay attention to this, that, and the other, and I put
00:02:38.460 it all together, and this is the path forward. All right, Team Canada, here we go. Let's rock and roll.
00:02:43.780 And you can hear her say that and see what she's read and either agree or disagree,
00:02:47.340 but it's a starting point. But she didn't do that. It's a very troubling report, actually. It was more
00:02:52.560 about equity approaches to the pandemic and concerns about age and ableism and intersectionality and all
00:02:58.620 these sort of social progressivism things in there that really didn't have all that much to do with
00:03:04.400 outright managing the pandemic. Kind of more read like Dr. Tam was running for the NDP leadership than
00:03:09.340 as if she was trying to get us out of this very troubling and dark chapter in our lives. So guys,
00:03:14.760 I don't think that we're going to be able to really unify as a society and even progress in
00:03:20.900 a productive way, in a way that isn't full of rancor without having that discussion. And that
00:03:26.120 discussion has to start at the top. If all these people who are issuing recommendations and advice
00:03:32.800 and flat-out edicts about the way we have to live our lives, well, if they want to be listened anymore
00:03:37.800 and if they want to be taken seriously, because right now I think there's a whole bunch of people
00:03:42.000 out there who are not listening all that closely to them anymore and are not really taking everything
00:03:46.700 they say all that seriously anymore. And based on the way things are unfolding, it's kind of hard
00:03:51.840 to blame them.