Juno News - March 04, 2021


More politicians need to push back on lockdowns


Episode Stats

Length

4 minutes

Words per Minute

181.78873

Word Count

748

Sentence Count

38

Misogynist Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 More and more Canadian politicians continue to join the chorus of everyday Canadians who are fed
00:00:10.720 up with lockdowns and think they need to stop. Lockdowns have now been afflicting municipalities
00:00:15.840 and provinces and more importantly the people in them for close to a year all after we were
00:00:20.720 promised we just needed two weeks to flatten the curve. The latest is David Sweet a federal member
00:00:25.520 of parliament from southern Ontario who along with Ontario MPP Roman Baber took to the stage this
00:00:31.360 week to speak out about why the lockdowns need to stop. Now David Sweet is on his way out of politics
00:00:37.280 right now he's already said that he's not going to run again which means when it comes to taking a bold
00:00:41.840 stand like opposing lockdowns he politically speaking doesn't have anything to lose but that
00:00:47.040 in and of itself is one of the dangers here. Why is opposing lockdowns something that can actually
00:00:52.160 jeopardize your political career? Politicians have been kicked out of caucuses around the country
00:00:57.680 for speaking out against it. Just look at Roman Baber himself in Ontario as well as his former
00:01:02.480 caucus mate Belinda Carajalios. This is why we see the end the lockdowns caucus growing. Current and
00:01:08.560 former councillors, Reeves, mayors, MLAs, MPs, MPPs that have joined together to say enough is enough.
00:01:15.920 We need to get back to work. While we look at governors in the United States that are saying we need to
00:01:20.800 welcome in the great reopening in Canada lockdowns seem to be going further and further with no end
00:01:27.120 in sight. Even when it looked like governments were getting ready to reopen things concerns about the
00:01:31.840 variants made it so that that so-called easing just wasn't to be. Conservative leader Aaron O'Toole
00:01:37.840 was asked about David Sweet's public statements on this and had this to say.
00:01:41.920 After a year of the pandemic people are frustrated and tired. Frustration is understandable but it should
00:01:47.600 not lead to counterproductive behavior. My view and the view of the CPC is that we respect the work
00:01:53.440 being done by our premiers and health officials throughout the crisis. They are trying to put the
00:01:57.360 health of Canadians first. We all want the crisis to pass as quickly as possible and are frustrated
00:02:02.480 by the slow pace of vaccine deployment in Canada. Our focus will remain on that and the need to plan
00:02:07.840 for an economic recovery in all sectors and all parts of this country. The reality is opposing
00:02:13.520 lockdowns is a remedy against the economic carnage that's being unleashed on this country. Opposing
00:02:19.120 lockdowns is actually supporting economic recovery. So to call it unproductive or counterproductive to
00:02:25.680 oppose that misses the mark. Reopening should be a national goal and a national priority. This shouldn't
00:02:31.760 be something that's continued to be framed as fringe and it shouldn't be partisan. Liberals,
00:02:37.040 New Democrats, Conservatives, Bloc Québécois, Greens all should want people back to work. This isn't a
00:02:42.800 right versus left battle. It's not just people on the right who have been put out of work because of
00:02:48.320 these lockdowns. So why is it only politicians on the right and at that a small-ish subset of them
00:02:53.920 that are speaking up to say we need to push back against these lockdowns. No one is disputing that we need
00:03:00.160 to take health concerns seriously. But the antidote to that is not shutting down everything which we
00:03:07.040 know doesn't work. That's why after a year of this we are in a worse place politicians tell us than we
00:03:12.800 were a year ago when lockdown 1.0 came. Remember it wasn't just lockdown one then it was lockdown two
00:03:18.800 and now we're being told that the third wave might actually be worse than the second wave. More
00:03:23.280 politicians need to be speaking up and people in other sectors as well. Labour leaders, civil society groups,
00:03:28.800 people in media to say hey you know what lockdowns aren't working so we are not going to abide by
00:03:33.840 them. And we need a political culture and climate that is not vilifying those who take that stand.
00:03:39.280 It shouldn't just be politicians that are on their way out the door that are willing to speak up and
00:03:42.960 say we need to end the lockdowns. It should be everyone who has a constituency they represent of
00:03:47.440 people that have no job security in the future because we have no certainty about our economy.
00:03:52.880 For True North, I'm Andrew Lawton.