I doubt there is anyone amongst us who doesn't wish this pandemic were over. The cost in lives, health and jobs has been unprecedented in modern times. Yet to think that the vaccines, remarkable achievements that they are, will end all of our Covid-19 troubles, is akin to wishful thinking, as the following video attests.
The feds really need to up Canada's bio-chemical capabilities. Until Covid-19 how many of us were even aware that Connaught Labs was gone and, with it, our ability to produce, under licence, the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or both, in Canada to meet our domestic needs?
ReplyDeleteI have watched with concern how even the most powerful nations have struggled to cope with the disruption of Covid-19. The warnings of this sort of threat go back several years. Just as the Clinton team told Bush/Cheney that al Qaeda posed a grave threat to the United States, a warning promptly ignored; the Obama team tried to tell the incoming Trump administration of the threat of some plague and even handed over a detailed playbook for how to use the levers of power to respond. Trump tore up the playbook and dismantled the pandemic response team.
Governments today have the attitude that "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it" and then, when they arrive at the bridge, wheeze and gasp as they struggle to cross. It's the equivalent of whistling past the graveyard and we're doing it across the board of looming threats.
Most of these challenges are identified. We can visualize them, or we could if we weren't so fond of those blinders. Ours is a failure: governmental, societal, individual for which we may pay dearly.
The loss of Connaught Labs was a national tragedy, Mound. For those unfamiliar with it, Linda McQuaig's latest book, The Sport and Prey of Capitalists, is an excellent resource.
DeleteOnce again, your comments underscore the shortsightedness of our species.
.. We are seeing who Public Servants are.. as opposed to taxpayer paid opportunists who are simply faking it & looking for ways to profit, whether financial, electoral or ideological (which always end up being the same thing anyway)
ReplyDeleteThere's a certain arrogance & entitlement that is always a canary in the coal mine.. and certainly, a Majority election victory raises the arrogance to fever pitch. Witness Jason Kenney & Doug Ford, and prior, Justin Trudeau and of course Stephen Harper.. Christy Clark another classic example. Its 'The Ticket To Ride' for 4 years, or possibly 8 years without inhibition.. freedom to raise cash, exploit, reward cronies.. feather your nest for the future - Amen. (apologies re the mixed metaphors)
I won't get into specific examples.. but they're right there.. shoved in our faces.. or evolving even now
That we have been ill-served by our leaders is beyond doubt, Sal, although there are some interesting reflections on them in today's Toronto Star print edition by Susan Delacourt in which she suggests the usual retail politics have given way to some tough talk by politicians to their constituencies in light of the pandemic. I expect this reality check to be but a temporary blip, however.
DeleteWe are a long way from a safe harbor. This is no time to engage in wishful thinking.
ReplyDeleteYet far too many seem happy to engage in it, Owen. The number of cases in Ontario today is just under 3000.
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