Alberta lost around 5,600 people to Covid-19 during the epidemic that swept the world five years ago. That’s close to 12% of the national total, not bad for a province with just about 10% of the national population.
It’s not clear what those numbers would have looked like had many Albertans not picked up their Covid vaccinations while in the heat of the battle, despite being citizens of Canada’s most vaccine-resistant province, although Saskatchewan has emerged as a bit of whack-job as well when it comes to common sense and vaccines. Alberta, after all, is the province that chased away Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the province’s chief Medical Officer of Health.
Alberta, as you may already know, exists fully a century behind the rest of us when it comes to a lot of the important stuff. As proud as they are of themselves as being the Texas of the North, that distinction only really applies to oil patches, cowboy hats, and an innate ability or inclination to just simply get everything wrong when it comes to their attitude around a lot of the important stuff, like the environment, or the basic stuff surrounding life and death. And sadly, many in that province would rather die than admit they were wrong about something.
Totally in keeping with both herself and the hatchet-job government she leads, Premier Danielle Smith has announced that, henceforth, Covid vaccinations of the future will be available only if you pay for them, and not as a result of the government providing them. The Alberta government estimates that the shots will cost around $110/dose, but Smith and her cronies will escape public discontent since everyone will blame it on the Trudeau Liberals. Or the Carney Liberals. Or any Liberals, really.
The upshot of this is that it sucks to be poor and have Covid at the same time when you live in God’s Country, although I struggle to see the hand of God at work in this province outside of its natural beauty. As to a lot of the people, they’re too dogmatically enmeshed with conspiracy theories and a religious perversion they’ve bought into, a garden tended to watered by “bible-thumping” politicians eager to capitalize on the general anger and discontent that they, themselves, cultivate. You would think the people of Alberta would be able to figure out one basic fact of life that most of the rest of us figured out a long time ago: the harder one thumps on a bible, the more likely they are to be world-class sinners behind the scenes.
Matthew 23 talks about these harmful hypocrites.
The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honour at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others.
So I figure in a province like Alberta, with its rich history of religious dogma, they might be able to relate to scripture, although Matthew is a New Testament guy, whereas the God-loving folks of Alberta are decidedly Old Testament types.
Jesus was a New Testament guy all the way, and even the thumpers in Alberta have to accept that Jesus is a pretty important part of the whole God thing, with most, if not all Christian denominations preaching that Jesus is just another manifestation of God himself. So he’s kind of tough to ignore, unless you prefer to pick and choose your Christianity like it was a smorgasbord, cherry-picking the parts that feed into your angry narrative.
Also in Matthew 23, Jesus says, a little later:
Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.
It sounds to me like Jesus has a bit of a problem with people who put on a righteous show in public, but less of one in private.
In a nation that lost close to 60,000 dead during the pandemic, and one with universal health care, where the Covid-19 vaccine, in all its variations, was free, we have a provincial government that is literally going to punish people for wanting to get vaccinated.
Back in the day, Premier Smith claimed that the people of Alberta mandated to get a vaccine were “the most persecuted people” in the history of the world. Aside from the wilful historical ignorance behind such a statement, it appears Premier Smith is now content to persecute those Albertans that actually want to get a Covid vaccination.
It’s important to point out that people voted for Smith, just as they voted for Trump. Hell, even Hitler managed to get himself elected, precisely once, before going into dictator mode.
How is it that, after decades of advances in the spheres of science and medicine, that we have so many Luddites among us who seemingly cannot handle an evolving world, and an evolving humanity? And I do the Luddites of the world some dishonour there, because at least they were fighting for a cause, such as better working conditions.
Will Canada’s demographic reality impact this? As in, as the older generations atop the population pyramid die out, will their old-world view of the world die out with them? I say this with a heavy heart, because as a white male in my sixties, I guess I’m supposed to be just as much of a dinosaur as they are, but somehow I managed to climb out of the grasp of ignorance and doomsayers.
During the last pandemic, did Premier Smith get vaccinated? Did then-premier Jason Kenney? What about Alberta’s health minister? Preston Manning?
If there were to be another pandemic, would they get vaccinated again, despite all they say? You bet they would. They preach otherwise because that’s where they perceive the votes to be. Also, they’d be the type to afford the shots, or the insurance to pay for the shots.
I should cut Jason Kenney some slack, although I can’t stand him. A Catholic like I am, he seems to fit the mould of the angry, bitter, and resentful Catholic, the kind the Conservatives produce with regularity, people like Stephen Harper, Pierre Poilievre, Andrew Scheer, and Kenney himself. But Kenney, despite being a piece of work in his own right, did warn his province that the “crazies” would be running the shop if he was to be chased out of office. In my opinion, you don’t have to wake up early in the day to be crazier than Kenney, you have to wake up several days in advance. And yet he was right. As far as crazies go, Kenney looked absolutely middle-of-the-road compared to the nail-spitting crew presently in office.
I do have to give credit to former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole, also a Catholic, but one who hasn’t strayed from the tenets of his faith in the name of political expediency. He was the most decent leader they’ve had in a while. In fact, it’s why they got rid of him. He wasn’t hateful enough.
The new Alberta policy is what you get when you stir abject ignorance into a drink dominated by ideological bankruptcy. Government of the people, by the people, against the people. Abe Lincoln twisted entirely out of shape. Twisted by people who clam to understand God better than the rest of us, and who have taken on the mantle of self-appointed people who claim to speak for God as well, yet break commandments with impunity and as a matter of political convenience.
It sickens the heart to witness this in a nation like Canada. If there is anything even remotely resembling God in all of this, it’s the prayers we should be saying in the hopes that we’re not re-visited by some super-cell of a Covid-virus.
Because if we do, there’s absolutely no doubt that the 5,600 dead from the last time out will be a drop in the bucket.
As to the rest of us, we’ll have access to free vaccinations.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 