On Hospital Protests

If someone tells you who they are, believe them.

This statement goes around on the internet occasionally, and despite being a bit trite and cliché I’ve come to recognize it as fundamentally sound.

So when anti-vaxxers rally outside hospitals, screaming abuse at workers and slowing ambulances, then they’re telling us exactly who they are… even when they’re claiming to be someone they aren’t.

Today and though in the week, the anti-vaxxers have planned another series of protests outside hospitals right across Canada. The first round, of course, included infamous scenes of anti-vaxxers spitting and coughing on counter-protesters; of ambulances being blocked and delayed; of cancer patients forced to run a gauntlet of unmasked and agitated protesters; and worst of all of front line health care workers being targeted by the mob.

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Priorities

I did a survey the other day. I still hadn’t received my voter information card for this election, so I went to the Elections Canada website and double-checked that I was registered. (The card ended up coming in the mail that afternoon, so no worries.) After I went through that process, I was prompted to do a survey, so I figured “why not?”

One of the survey questions has stuck with me: What are your priorities for this election?

I’ve found myself thinking about that one a lot in the last few days. There’s a lot of stuff that I’m concerned about… but priorities? How do you choose?

I’m reminded of a job I used to have in IT where one of my co-workers had the habit of flagging every new ticket with “priority.” Eventually I had to explain that if everything is marked as a priority, then effectively nothing is a priority. You have to put some thought into it, and ticking a little box on an internet survey doesn’t really address the nuances.

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Anti-Vaxxers and Hate

The election continues, and Liberals are losing ground to the CPC on the right and the NDP on the left. Trudeau’s Liberals are still in minority government territory on the seat count, but between the unpopular election call and the absolute shambles of his handling of the Afghanistan evacuation, they’ve lost a lot of traction on the popular vote. It’s starting to look like Trudeau has made an historic mistake calling this election. (Not that I want a Conservative victory; the last thing we need during a global pandemic is a return to “austerity” economics. But that’s not what I want to write this post about.)

I want to write about the “protesters” screaming obscenities at Justin Trudeau’s campaign stops.

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Another Damn Election

It’s 2021 and Canada is having an election. Again. For the third time in six years. In the middle of a global pandemic.

So yeah, I guess I’m writing about that this week.

Never mind that the world is literally on fire. Never mind that fascist terrorists are shooting up American cities and their Canadian wannabes are saying “get us some of that.” The total count of unmarked graves at former Residential schools is approaching 6,000. Never mind that schools are opening in two weeks and the delta variant is going to kill and cripple a lot of kids and as far as I can tell there’s not a single level of government in this country with a better plan than “Meh.”

Yeah, another election only twenty-three months after the last one is exactly the best way for our elected officials to be spending this September.

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