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Cue the vaccine queue jumping now, writes Fr. Ray de Souza. Plus, Rex Murphy, Barbara Kay, Conrad Black and more.

Cue the queue jumping, now that Ontario has released its leisurely vaccination schedule. Once people discover how long they will have to wait, some may choose not to.

In Florida, where many Ontario seniors spend their winters, vaccines for those over 65 years of age were available on Christmas Eve. Many of them have already been vaccinated, as they are eligible if they are Florida residents — i.e., they have a mortgage there, a rental lease or pay utility bills. That's mostly due to the Trump's administration's Operation Warp Speed.

Ontario snowbirds who stayed home as per the government's advice will be subject to Operation Gentle Stroll instead. About three weeks from now, octogenarians will be eligible to get their shots. Then those over 75 on April 15, followed by the over-70s on May 1 and those 65 and older on June 1. It won't be until July that 60-yearolds will qualify.

Gen. Rick Hillier, Ontario's point man on vaccines, also says that the province is unlikely to complete vaccinations by the federal government's September deadline. It's possible that things might go faster if Ontario hijacks vaccination shipments destined for Somalia or, more likely, Florida sends its surplus doses north when it wraps everything up.

Saskatchewan is already in Phase 1 of its plan, which includes those 70 or over. Phase 2 begins in April, when sexagenarians will be eligible — three months ahead of Ontario. Forget snowbirds, those Ontarians who winter in Moose Jaw are in luck!

Alberta began vaccinating 75-year-olds this week, and has completed vaccinating all of its nursing home residents. Ontario has done neither. When asked about Ontario's laggardly performance, Premier Doug Ford was testy.

“The population of Alberta is a little over four million. We're upwards to 15 million. It's as simple as that,” Ford said. Florida has a population of 21 million. Simple math suggests 21 is the bigger number.

Ford, flailing about from embarrassment, pointed out that when Alberta's vaccine registration website went live this week, it crashed from overuse. That was the first day. Now 100,000 Albertans have appointments. The Ontario website won't crash for several weeks yet; it only goes live on March 15.

So how might Ontarians deal with Ford's sluggish performance? Some will jump the queue.

There have been reports that in some care homes, vaccines designated for residents and staff have ended up in the arms of the family members of managers. There will be those who get their jabs when abroad, as the head of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Mark Machin, did. His trip to Dubai was described by the finance minister's office as “very troubling.”

One can only imagine Ford's fury should a few intrepid seniors sneak off from Sault Ste. Marie to Saskatoon.

About jumping the queue, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said “we're better than that.” Except that Canadians are actually pretty good at it. Our reverence for our health-care system means we are reluctant to admit it, but in any system where long waits are the norm, there will be queue jumping.

We don't like it. Indeed, so much is our dislike that Alberta even had a special commission back in 2013, the Health Services Preferential Access Inquiry. It basically said that people shouldn't do it.

Nevertheless, we have quite a bit of it. The government itself is the leading queue-jumper, moving workers' compensation cases to the head of the line, as well as some other government cases in certain circumstances.

Every sports team that has a doctor — volunteer or paid — has its cases moved along with a quick phone call ahead of time to the ER.

Ontario itself runs a website on wait times that recommends patients travel elsewhere to get in faster. That's not queue jumping, but queue switching. I live 10 minutes from the American border. If I were to cross over to get quicker treatment, I would be denounced as a queue-jumping scofflaw. However, if I drove 10 hours into northern Ontario, that would be fine.

Queue jumping is even more fundamental than any particular treatment; it's how many, perhaps most, people get into the healthcare system in the first place. The access point to the health-care system is the general practitioner or family doctor. Yet in many cities — even worse in many rural areas — it is very difficult, sometimes impossible, to get a family doctor, as none are taking new patients.

What, then, do people do? They start calling friends, family, anyone they know at work, at school, at church, in their weekend softball league. People who have good networks eventually get a friend of a friend of a colleague to get them in somewhere. Those with poor networks are left behind until they end up in the emergency room or walk-in clinic.

We denounce it as queue jumping or preferential access, but it is how a lot of health care in Canada actually works. Why then would the coronavirus vaccine be any different?

IN ANY SYSTEM WHERE LONG WAITS ARE THE NORM, THERE WILL BE QUEUE JUMPING.