Juno News - Canadians can reopen the economy responsibly

00:00:00.000 People across Canada have various and differing opinions on just how severe the coronavirus is

00:00:10.420 right now, how alarmed we should be as a society. And I saw this play out really interestingly

00:00:15.620 during a visit to one of my local grocery stores. So it was actually quite full. There wasn't a

00:00:20.360 lineup in front. And I thought, okay, this is great because I'm going to get around

00:00:23.100 quite productively. But there were a lot of people there. I guess they were just at their

00:00:27.300 limit. And I saw people who were really making a show of enforcing the rules and others really

00:00:34.300 making a show of the opposite. So at one point I needed to get some ground beef. Now at this

00:00:39.320 particular store, there's just one line of ground beef up on the rack. And there was an older lady 1.00

00:00:43.940 who was looking at the ground beef and she was taking a long time to decide what she wanted. I 1.00

00:00:48.280 don't know what the big deal is. It's kind of all the same size and you either get medium lean or

00:00:52.240 extra lean. You just take it and you go. I mean, what's the longest you're going to be there for?

00:00:55.300 Eight seconds or something. This lady was there for a long time, but I was like, whatever. I stood

00:01:00.700 well behind her and waited for her to do her thing. I mean, normally I would have just said,

00:01:04.200 oh, excuse me, ma'am, and dodged in and grabbed one for myself and headed on. But then I would have

00:01:07.980 been within like two feet of her face and you're not supposed to do that. So I think some of the

00:01:12.960 rules out there are a bit extreme, but I'm happy to follow many of them, particularly this one.

00:01:17.580 So I'm just being polite and courteous. But then this other lady comes up behind me and she's all 1.00

00:01:22.640 like, what, is there some sort of lineup here? What's going on? I'm in a hurry. And I look back

00:01:27.220 and I said, yes, this lady is waiting for the ground beef. She's looking at the ground beef. 1.00

00:01:32.960 I'm letting her go first. The woman, and she kind of huffed and she got really up in my business. 1.00

00:01:37.500 She was like standing really close behind me. And I'm like, okay, lady, you know, what's going on

00:01:41.320 here? Chillax. Meanwhile, what happened later was I went down an aisle and you know how there's the

00:01:46.640 directions that tell you, you got to go this way or that way. We're just not used to that. I've been

00:01:50.240 going 35 years of my life without that. And it's hard to sort of retool your brain. So I guess I

00:01:54.280 was going the wrong way. And so were these other people in front of me. Well, this guy coming the

00:01:58.860 other way, as in the right way, he's walking towards them and he's waving and he's pointing

00:02:03.640 down at the floor. And we didn't know what he was doing. I thought he was saying they dropped their

00:02:07.060 wallet or something. And then finally this couple clues in and this guy was very sort of aggressively

00:02:11.860 and anxiously and angrily saying, you're all going the wrong way. Turn around, get out of my face.

00:02:17.480 And I thought, oh, okay. Yeah. I'm not falling. The signs are a good point. And I was happy to

00:02:21.620 turn around, but really interesting to see that what's playing out right now in Canadian society

00:02:25.740 is these very divided opinions and people getting at loggerheads. If this guy and this lady had met

00:02:31.380 at the store, the ground beef lady in the aisle guy, oh boy. I mean, that would have been fisticuffs. 1.00

00:02:36.160 We have to bring the law in on all of this. And I think maybe what that tells us is that divided

00:02:42.580 opinions, that they're natural. I can't really blame either of these people. I don't have the

00:02:47.060 extreme perspectives that either of them had. Most people, I don't think either. I think that

00:02:52.040 they're representative of more extremes, but still there's a large segment of people

00:02:56.100 in both of those opinions. I think what it probably tells us is that we need to continue

00:03:02.680 with the reopenings. We need to continue with them quickly, but we just have to acknowledge

00:03:07.820 that people are going to be doing things different ways. I was recently writing about the state of

00:03:12.520 Georgia. And there's this concern, oh, the reopening they're doing is going to kill people

00:03:16.180 and this and that. Here's the thing. Georgia is actually doing great. They flattened the curve.

00:03:20.340 It's been about 17 days since they did that. The cases are only just declining, but not all

00:03:26.000 businesses are open and not all shoppers are going back to normal because people are looking at it and

00:03:30.980 they're going, I don't feel comfortable opening my business. I don't feel comfortable as a customer

00:03:35.880 going to the hair salon. So they're not doing it. Here's the thing. The reopening is not the government

00:03:41.040 putting a gun to your head and telling you, you must go and live the way you were living before.

00:03:46.080 You're simply now being given the choice, whereas before you didn't have the choice.

00:03:51.500 And I think if we factor that in more, if we realize this is not government edict,

00:03:55.580 this is human choice about what you feel is an informed and responsible choice for you

00:04:00.520 and your family to make. I think it's going to be a whole lot easier for us to navigate this new

00:04:05.620 landscape. Like I said, I don't fault either of those people at the grocery store,

00:04:09.120 but they need to appreciate that there's going to be people who have the opposite end of the view

00:04:13.980 of them. So if the, first of all, I think the lady who was getting grabbing for the ground beef and so 1.00

00:04:18.900 forth, right, you know, getting up on my back, she needs to chillax and realize not everybody has her

00:04:23.680 view. And the other guy with the signs, yes, we need to follow the rules, but he probably needs to

00:04:29.900 stay home a little bit more. I mean, this guy's really anxious about things. So if you're very anxious,

00:04:34.500 you stay home more. If you're feeling a bit more free and liberal, well, act a little bit more free

00:04:38.840 and liberal, but still be aware of other people's concerns and their own boundaries. Looks like we're

00:04:45.360 going to be out of this sooner than later and that the summer, not going to be normal. We're not going

00:04:49.860 to be rocking out at the Bryan Adams concerts as much as I wish that we would be to applaud that

00:04:55.880 great Canadian icon. But hey, we'll be getting back to some semblance of normal if we take it steady

00:05:01.140 as she goes.

Juno News - May 13, 2020

Canadians can reopen the economy responsibly

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