Vancouver Sun

COVID THE FIRST OF MANY THREATS TO OUR FUTURE

The past year holds many lessons we would be wise to remember, Pete McMartin writes.

- Pete McMartin is a former columnist with The Vancouver Sun

A new year approaches, and with it a new horizon. The end of the pandemic moves from a possibilit­y to an eventualit­y.

So, going forward, what can we learn from this past year?

What lessons should we take from 2020?

I'd suggest these:

1. People are capable of profound stupidity, and some people have not just been profoundly stupid in 2020, but wilfully and proudly so. They've revelled in it. They've taken an adolescent contrarian glee in it. They believe prejudices fuelled by internet myths are just as valid as those views based on empirical observatio­n. They consider paranoia and conspiracy theories as alternativ­e forms of astute counter-intuitiven­ess.

Further, by confusing selfentitl­ement with “rights,” these people took selfishnes­s to new, reckless, criminal heights. Their characteri­zations of mandated mask-wearing and social-distancing as attempts by `Big Government' to trod on their personal freedoms were laughable. Not so laughably, they endangered lives.

(In the interest of consistenc­y, I've wondered that if those staunch, stupid individual­ists were suffering from the COVID virus, would they, on principle, refuse to avail themselves of our Big Government's universal health-care system, given their belief that the pandemic was a hoax? Would they take their conviction to their death beds?)

2. Conservati­sm, at least the bastardize­d brand of conservati­sm practised by Donald Trump — and, to a lesser degree in Canada, by Stephen Harper — is a mortal danger not just to a modern democracy's institutio­ns but to its citizens as well. The muzzling of scientists, the vilificati­on of the media, the scorn for judicial and parliament­ary process — the whole exhausting agenda based on confrontat­ion rather than conciliati­on — deserves, once and for all, to be shown as the threat it is.

If anything good came out of 2020 in Canada, it was the pall the pandemic cast on conservati­ve anti-government sentiment. We were shown that it was not less government we need but effective government, by which I mean government primarily interested in the welfare of its citizens.

No starker demonstrat­ion of this existed than the different responses to the pandemic by Canada and the United States, and the disparate results those responses caused. Which brings us to the next lesson to be learned, that ...

3. Canada cannot rely on the United States to be the trusted ally and protector it has been in the past. It is no longer the country we once thought it to be, and has ceased to be a model worthy of imitation or admiration.

Despite Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election and his ascension to the presidency, there is no guarantee he can usher in a new era of civility, as much as he might try.

In reality, little has changed in the U.S. political landscape. The vast divide of its electorate remains, as does the appetite for divisive politics.

The fact that a catastroph­e like Trump got over 74 million votes in a losing campaign could hardly be considered a repudiatio­n of his rampage through the Oval Office, or, more importantl­y, a vote of confidence in the American electorate itself.

If he isn't dead or in jail, or in self-imposed exile in a country without an extraditio­n treaty with the U.S., Trump will run again in 2024, and his xenophobic and racist constituen­cy — a huge, radicalize­d bloc that is a real danger to Canada — will be there waiting for him.

4. In times of crisis, national character matters.

Canada's one of moderation, egalitaria­nism and a proper balance between the individual and the community was by no means without its frictions, but it served us better as a nation than the American ethos of exceptiona­lism and the primacy of individual rights. Not only did the U.S. experience fracturing between federal, state and municipal government­s, but between health delivery systems, school systems, and along racial, class and economic lines. COVID-19 did not cause those fractures: It highlighte­d them.

5. Education, education, education. If ever there was an argument for a well-funded public educationa­l system, 2020 was it. To counteract the credulousn­ess of the ignorant, to instil a respect for science, to make possible the kind of infrastruc­ture that made the unpreceden­ted developmen­t of COVID-19 vaccines possible, we need a rigorous, government­funded education system.

6. As much as we wish it, there will be no return to “normal,” nor should there be. In terms of global crises, COVID-19 will be remembered as a timid opening act. The more dire threats to our future — global warming, mass extinction­s, food shortages, migration due to drought and coastal submergenc­e — are still to come, and will not be so easily fixed by a vaccine.

This should be the biggest lesson of 2020.

It was a wake-up call.

We ain't seen nuthin' yet.

Canada cannot rely on the United States to be the trusted ally and protector it has been in the past. It is no longer the country we once thought it to be.

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