Is worldwide alarm over outbreak over the top?
Outbreak active and spreading, WHO says
Australia plans to send its citizens evacuated from China to a quarantine camp on Christmas Island, there’s a global run on face masks and, in Toronto, thousands of parents have petitioned to keep children whose families have visited China home from school.
Nothing fuels a new disease outbreak quite like fear, one of the most primitive human emotions. But is the alarm undue?
“Of course people are concerned — why wouldn’t people be concerned?” Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s health emergencies program, said Wednesday.
The spread of the disease outside China is a “grave concern,” WHO officials warned, adding that the virus may spread not just via droplets, but also by touching contaminated surfaces.
Canada, meanwhile, announced plans to fly Canadians out of the province of Hubei, the epicentre of the outbreak, once it secures China’s cooperation. Air Canada announced its plans to halt all flights to Beijing and Shanghai while Ottawa issued new warnings to Canadians to avoid travel to the country.
On Thursday, a WHO emergency committee will reconvene to deliberate whether the outbreak constitutes a “public health emergency of international concern,” and if so, what more will be needed to contain it.
China now has more cases of the rogue virus than it had of SARS, according to the New York Times.
The number of confirmed cases has surpassed 6,000 worldwide, all but 71 of them in China, and more than 130 people have lost their lives to the outbreak, again, all of them in China.
The recent batch of written answers reveal the usual questionable spending of tax dollars — $1.9 million on the UN Security Council seat; $59,500 for the new Destination Canada logo, and the food and drink bill for various prime ministerial trips on the Airbus — $51,500 spent on a round trip to Paris, for example. (I’m sorry I missed the trip to the G20 in Japan last July — 57 bottles of wine were consumed on the round trip and $95,000 worth of food.)
The bill for the trip to the UN Climate Change conference in Madrid last month is not in. But we did discover that 65 Canadian bureaucrats and political staff burned their way through a lot of jet fuel and taxpayers’ money to attend — proof that the number of bureaucrats required to attend a conference is in direct proportion to the temperature at the location.
It’s not all bad news. One answer revealed that Transport Canada is conducting its own risk-based validation exercise on the grounded Boeing 737 Max aircraft and may refuse authorization in Canadian airspace if it is not satisfied, even if the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority gives it clearance for takeoff. That’s a scenario that Canadian authorities acknowledge “would not be considered routine practice.”
Elsewhere, it was revealed that the protocol panel of senior bureaucrats convened to monitor foreign interference in last fall’s election “did not observe any activities that affected Canada’s ability to hold free and fair elections.
But problem files remain for this government, beyond indefensible spending.
The Liberals’ imposition of a stress test on many first-time homebuyers was blamed for freezing young people out of the housing market. The government responded with the First Time Home Buyers’ Initiative, which offers buyers 5-10 per cent of the value of their home, with no interest required. The catch is that when the house is sold, the government takes back the same percentage — a clear disincentive to anyone considering renovations. In addition, terms and conditions mean people in high income brackets are not eligible.
During the election, the Liberals promised to increase the value of homes that could be covered by the initiative in high-cost markets like Vancouver, Victoria and Toronto. No wonder — one answer revealed that take-up has been light between September and December — just 3,252 applications for an average amount of $15,774. While there were 654 applicants in Montreal, there were just 148 in Toronto, 45 in Vancouver and five in Victoria.
Perhaps the most concerning, though not surprising, revelation was on the number of irregular migrants who have been deported. It emerged that 55,025 removal orders have been issued to foreign nationals in the last three years but only 1,310 have been removed. The reason is that, even after being found ineligible to settle in Canada, claimants are allowed to remain in this country while seeking a judicial or administrative review.
That’s not the kind of admission of failure you are likely to hear in the House. As the old parliamentary precept goes — it’s called question period, not answer period.