KENNEY TAKES HEAT, BUT SELFISH PEOPLE TO BLAME
Some inconsiderate Albertans let the rest of us down, forcing the government's hand
The UCP government has fallen behind the COVID-19 curve. For that, it's hammered by a public that has moved from concern to actual fear.
But why exactly did Premier Jason Kenney and the entire health system start to lose their grip?
One reason, I think, is that Kenney and the government simply put too much faith in Albertans to voluntarily comply. If nearly everyone had heeded the endless calls to help, the government's earlier measures and restrictions might well have worked.
All those rules were created in a cabinet committee and endorsed by Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the chief medical officer of health.
The new ones are by far the toughest we've seen yet. At this stage, the government had to show some muscle.
There will be tickets and fines for hosting private social gatherings in your home, for instance.
“If you're holding an indoor social event, you're now illegal,” said Kenney, who later avowed he could hardly believe he's talking like that.
I asked Kenney if his goal, pushing the infection rate below one, can really be reached with these measures by his deadline date, Dec. 15.
(If each infected person reinfects less than one other person, the disease will start to decline.)
Yes, he said, that can be done. Otherwise the committee would not have adopted the measures.
But that only works if people comply.
Now the government will force them with tickets and fines, which could go up to $100,000 if especially egregious cases are taken to court.
A public health emergency is decreed for the province. Masks are now mandatory in all indoor workplaces in Calgary, Edmonton and surrounding communities.
Students from grades 7 to 12 will be on home-schooling until January.
Restaurants and bars stay open, which seems weird when home social gatherings with outsiders are banned.
But Kenney said only family cohorts can eat in restaurants — another restriction the UCP never imagined it would impose.
These mandatory constraints on personal social life will be hugely controversial as the holiday season approaches.
Retail establishments can only allow customers to 25 per cent of their capacity under fire regulations.
And here we are after all this, with infections still well over 1,000 a day and trending up.
If those numbers don't improve by Dec. 15, there will be sterner action. Kenney didn't quite say lockdown, but it will be close.
It's clear now that too many people have been selfish, inconsiderate and dangerous to public health.
Some people are defiant; an astonishing number believe the whole COVID-19 thing is a hoax; still more are just ignorant and cluelessly irresponsible.
That's why more than 40 per cent of cases come from gatherings that would not have happened if people had simply shown some respect for public health guidelines.
This is not the majority of Albertans, by any means. But these people are the problem. They're the reason measures are now mandatory.
Kenney tried time and again to rally them around the common cause. He may even have hoped to show the country that the vast majority of Albertans would comply without being forced.
Rather naively (an odd word to apply to Kenney), he relied on an Alberta spirit that once reliably compelled people to sacrifice, but is no longer much of a binding force.
Ultimately, the misjudgment is on the government. But Kenney has some cause to be disillusioned.
He didn't count on so many selfish Albertans letting us all down.
If you're holding an indoor social event, you're now illegal.