Kenney blames everyone but himself
UCP premier blames everyone but himself as Alberta's health system nears collapse
Once again, Premier Jason Kenney is late to the crisis and blames everyone and everything else for making it happen.
There seems to be no situation — not even the impending collapse of the health-care system — that will mute this man's impulse to deflect.
His Wednesday news conference was a litany of denials for the government's cluelessness about what was happening in Alberta.
The premier did not apologize for lifting COVID-19 measures in July, only for pushing “Open for Summer” too hard and declaring the pandemic to be over.
People would have been very angry if restrictions persisted, he said. The alternative would have been “permanent, immovable, consistent lockdown policies.”
He also said: “We have consistently not agreed with those who call for hard permanent measures.”
This is trash politics. No politician in Canada wants permanent COVID-19 restrictions. No sane leader would keep them a second longer than necessary, when the key to popularity is lifting measures once and for all.
But Kenney, by continuing to say his opponents would use the pandemic to impose permanent societal lockdown, feeds a conspiracy theory.
He throws red meat to the very anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers his government is paying to get the vaccine.
On Wednesday he again urged people to be immunized because this is “a crisis of the unvaccinated.” But Kenney himself contributed to vaccine resistance when he and his health minister whooped it up around the Open for Summer sign.
He called the virus “COVID flu” and said there was no more pandemic.
For more than two months, people who were resistant to vaccination in the first place were encouraged to say, why bother, it's all over.
Now, Kenney says: “COVID is hitting Alberta harder than any other province in Canada because we have the lowest rate of vaccination in Canada.”
Another Kenney clanger:
“One thing we've learned about COVID is that it is not predictable.”
Not by him, that's for sure.
But experts all over Canada warned that Alberta was lifting restrictions too soon as the Delta variant surged.
Literally scores of Alberta doctors and scientists said we were heading for a health-care disaster.
Now we've got it — 10 more days until the system is overwhelmed and people who badly need immediate care will actually be refused. They call it “triage,” but it's the definition of system collapse.
With alarming honesty, Dr. Deena Hinshaw told family care doctors Monday that the fourth wave will persist for weeks, with high numbers of cases even as the totals begin to drop.
That means growing pressure on the hospitals nearly every day.
Nothing the government announced Wednesday — the modified vaccine passport, new bar and restaurant closures, the whole depressing litany — can have much effect for several weeks.
Kenney and his government are late — irresponsibly and carelessly late.
Firm measures and a passport should have been announced weeks ago. But the key decision-makers went on vacation.
Kenney was widely said inside government to be in Europe. Questioned about this, key Kenney aides have never acknowledged repeated questions sent via voice mail and messaging.
B.C.'S passport system went into force Sept. 13.
The first thing we hear about Alberta's delays is because of system problems.
People will now be scrambling for vaccine proof. Businesses will need days or weeks to ramp up a system they'd been given no formal reason to expect.
Kenney said: “I had earlier committed not to introduce proof of vaccination because of concerns I had about privacy rights.
“But the government's first obligation must be to avoid large numbers of preventable deaths. We must deal with the reality we are facing, we cannot wish this away. Morally, ethically and legally the protection of life must be our paramount concern.”
Fine words.
The premier should be directing them at the mirror, not the public.
Kenney and his government are late — irresponsibly and carelessly late. Firm measures
and a passport should have been announced weeks ago.