Juno News - September 25, 2020Canadians don't want another lockdown
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Summary
On Friday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced some new pandemic restrictions to the province, rolling back some previous reopenings. They basically amounted to telling bars, restaurants, nightclubs and so forth that they must stop selling alcohol at 11pm.
Transcript
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On Friday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced some new pandemic restrictions to the province,
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rolling back some previous reopenings. They basically amounted to telling bars, restaurants,
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nightclubs, and so forth that they must stop selling alcohol at 11 p.m., and that strip clubs,
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which are believed to have caused a few outbreaks in the province, they are to be shut down fully.
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Now, I don't have major problems with these issuances. I think it's more or less consistent
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with what we've heard and the facts. It seems to make sense, and it's not that big of a deal. But
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I'm a little worried about how easily and how readily our politicians have gotten comfortable
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with the idea of just sitting around and talking about, well, what should we be allowed to have
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open today? What should we shut down next week? And so forth. A very authoritarian impulse that
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many people would argue, and I would agree with them to a large degree, is needed right now as
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we manage the pandemic. But it's not something that they should be doing easily. It's not something
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that they should be comfortable about. In fact, we should only be closing things down with the
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absolute highest threshold of evidence. It's not incumbent upon the people, upon business owners,
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upon sectors to plead their case with the politician. Please, sir, please allow me to reopen.
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Let us have these liberties. No, the default position actually has to be keep things open
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unless you have a very, very good reason to do otherwise. Now, there's a lot of people out there
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who are calling for more. You see these voices online, people saying, we got to shut this down
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and shut that down just because, because of their concerns, their fears of the unknown, of variables that
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are just kind of out of our control. But we're at a point right now in the pandemic, yes, we're facing
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a second wave. But hey, we could face a third wave, we could face a fourth wave, and so on.
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We're at the point where we have to, I think, learn to live with coronavirus in a way that
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protects our public health, follows the rules, and certainly protects the most vulnerable. So
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should people be protesting these new decisions by Doug Ford, other decisions in BC? They shut down
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nightclubs and banquet halls earlier this month. No, I don't think so. They are within reason.
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But it's important that the people, that business communities, various different business associations,
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that they feel empowered to step forward and really make their case heard to the government
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and to not let the government and politicians get so comfortable with the idea of proclaiming
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these edicts day after day from on high. Who will I allow to have open this time? Who
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shall I shut down tomorrow? Because that is a direction that we do not want to see ourselves headed in.