Despite a pandemic, there’s so much to be grateful for
Thanksgiving weekend is almost here.
It has traditionally been a time when families in this region get together for a large feast of turkey and a renewal of connection with family members who we don't see as often throughout the rest of the year. In the age of COVID-19, things will be different this year and we are being encouraged by public health authorities to limit our gatherings to those already inside our social bubble or to consider virtual get-togethers with those whom we consider family.
While this may be far from satisfactory for those of us who desperately want to spend one-on-one time with our loved ones and to physically hold them in our arms, it doesn't mean Thanksgiving is ruined; and we have many things for which to be grateful this year.
During this pandemic, we can be thankful that we live in Atlantic Canada. While many other parts of this country experienced large outbreaks of infection and some are presently going through a worse second wave, we have worked together collectively to control outbreaks when they occurred, and presently have extremely a low incidence of transmission across this region.
While there were initial fears that our health-care system would be overwhelmed, because our citizens followed the recommended guidelines, we are now in a good position to deal with a second wave should one occur and we have been able to safely open our borders to our fellow Atlantic Canadians.
We can be thankful we have a federal government that was in a financial position to help and was quick to act with necessary funding once our economies were forced to shut down. While it’s concerning there is not a clear indication of how we will deal with all of this extra spending in the future, action was required in the present to ensure Canadians who had their incomes ended by the shutdown had the necessary resources to survive this unprecedented time; it helped remove some of the stress and anxiety we were all having in dealing with this pandemic. For the most part, federal parties put aside their partisan fighting to work together to help Canadians and there was a much healthier relationship exhibited between the provinces and the federal government than before the pandemic struck.
While on the topic of politics, we can be thankful our democracy appears to be functioning despite the pandemic. New Brunswick showed that it was possible to hold an election during this health emergency and it seems to have occurred without any major hitches.
British Columbia and Saskatchewan will both be holding elections in the upcoming weeks, P.E.I. will be holding a byelection and, with a change in leadership here in Newfoundland and Labrador and an impending change in Nova Scotia, elections may be forthcoming in these provinces as well as in the near future.
In none of these cases have there been claims that such elections will be rigged or any election fraud will happen. Compare this with the chaos and uncertainty surrounding the election in the United States, in which President Donald Trump claims voting fraud is rampant and he is threatening to not accept the results if he loses — and we can have gratitude for our democratic system and how we conduct it.
Many people can't wait for 2020 to end and, because of the challenges brought about by the pandemic, would rather forget this year happened. I would prefer to focus not on the challenges but on how we chose to meet them when they arose; in this respect, I am thankful for how Canada, and in particular Atlantic Canada, chose to do so.
Instead of turning on one another, we learned new ways to reach out to those who were suffering. When faced with being shut in, many families returned to cooking family meals at home, baking bread and raising their own vegetables in their back yards. We have adapted to the challenge of COVID-19 in remarkable ways and will likely continue to do so. Sometimes it takes adversity to teach us what things in life we truly need and for which we are thankful; may we remember these things as we celebrate this weekend.