Federal Government & Politics II

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by Hawrylyshyn

I'm pretty sure they were avidly against government handouts (eg. CERB?), they wanted to work/wanted people to work

Also what do you mean by "demanding to be front of the line at the hospital emergency room"? I know they were against the concept of unvaccinated being denied hospital help, but were they demanding priority treatment?

Both of these claims seem incorrect/false from what I recall

They turned up in vast numbers at the hospital requiring intubation and tying up resources because of their refusal to take any form of precaution during the pandemic. The best stories being those of patients verbally abusing medical staff calling Covid fake right before they died.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I don't think I've ever seen a period where the Horseshoe Theory is so vividly evident to those of us with our eyes wide open.

Illuminati confirmed!!!

I think it just shows how susceptible people are to bullshit. Previously it seemed like people had a worldview and would believe things in line with that view, anywhere from completely factual to much less so, but it was a cohesive set of beliefs.

Now people will hold two beliefs that directly contradict each other without batting an eye.

[Hawrylyshyn]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

They turned up in vast numbers at the hospital requiring intubation and tying up resources because of their refusal to take any form of precaution during the pandemic. The best stories being those of patients verbally abusing medical staff calling Covid fake right before they died.

HA the irony in that is actually too good. Maybe it was actually the 5G that got them?

Showing up to the hospital and "demanding being put at the front of the line" are two different things however... so let's atleast keep claims truthful

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Illuminati confirmed!!!

I think it just shows how susceptible people are to bullshit. Previously it seemed like people had a worldview and would believe things in line with that view, anywhere from completely factual to much less so, but it was a cohesive set of beliefs.

Now people will hold two beliefs that directly contradict each other without batting an eye.

I blame social media and youtube and the degradation of legacy news.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Tvisforme

Yes, it was a petty political move that once again raises questions (assuming the electorate bothers to pay attention) about his suitability as a leader.

PP was literally blaming Trudeau on the floor of the HoC while information was incomplete, especially for him.

It's stupid and shameful. He is becoming a caricature of himself. Next he will blame Trudeau for the poor performance of the Oilers this season.

[kool maudit]

This is the era in which [your guy] is secretly a bit disappointing but at least keeps the crazies at bay, while [the other guy] is absolutely intolerable, a monstrous provocation.

[Marshsparrow]

Originally Posted by Hawrylyshyn

HA the irony in that is actually too good. Maybe it was actually the 5G that got them?

Showing up to the hospital and "demanding being put at the front of the line" are two different things however... so let's atleast keep claims truthful

These are the clowns at the hospital who think "first in, first treated" mentality and have no concept of triage. Constantly complaining about the state of healthcare and demanding to speak to the head nurse or manager while recounting glory days of years gone by and that all the "foreigners" are clogging the healthcare system (with no mention that same group are the ones doing their treatment and care). You can hear them loud and clear in every emergency room across Canada... actually they're everywhere - in stores, restaurants, hotels, sporting events...

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

They are myopic, selfish and low IQ individuals.

Stereotyping much???

[MolsonExport]

When Trump won, somebody here stated

I feel good

[Hawrylyshyn]

Originally Posted by Marshsparrow

These are the clowns at the hospital who think "first in, first treated" mentality and have no concept of triage. Constantly complaining about the state of healthcare and demanding to speak to the head nurse or manager

I think this has less to do with political view and more to do with ignorance on how healthcare works. People from all political sides bitch about this because they don't understand the concept of triage. It's also not something new, it was a common occurrence well before COVID.

Originally Posted by Marshsparrow

T... while recounting glory days of years gone by and that all the "foreigners" are clogging the healthcare system (with no mention that same group are the ones doing their treatment and care). You can hear them loud and clear in every emergency room across Canada... actually they're everywhere - in stores, restaurants, hotels, sporting events...

Blaming foreigners themselves is definitely unwarranted. The real blame falls on Canada's / provinces' failure to keep up with increasing infrastructure demands to meet the needs of an increasing population (which immigration happens to be a big part of).

Moral of the story: governments need to invest more in healthcare (eg. more hospitals), make healthcare training more obtainable in Canada (more students and more affordable), and improve healthcare efficiency

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

There is no reliable constituency of people who lived through COVID-19 in Stockholm who would, looking back, prefer to have done whatever you were doing in Toronto and Montreal. The reverse isn't true.

I suspect, if given a choice, the people who didn’t live through it might have thought differently. Or even people who lost loved ones to Covid? Or are Swedes not that attached to their loved ones?

[jamincan]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

This is the era in which [your guy] is secretly a bit disappointing but at least keeps the crazies at bay, while [the other guy] is absolutely intolerable, a monstrous provocation.

Do even half of Liberal voters consider Trudeau "their guy"? And similarly would half of polled supporters of the Conservatives consider PP their guy? I'd argue the people you describe are only a tiny slice of Canadians.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Nashe

I dunno if there should be excessive hand-wringing or back-patting given we all went through a literally unprecedented plague. Everyone was trying everything and everyone was stressed out.

I'll be more interested in what we do "next time" due to lessons learned. I suspect nearly every country will make some adjustments.

This is the most sensible take on it, IMHO

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

It's weird how the anti big pharma, natural medicine contingent has shifted so dramatically from the left to the right wing. Danielle Smith being a prime example of this.

In North America, it's because our politics are all reaction-based and tribal-based.

In North America, opposition to lockdowns, mask mandates, vaccine mandates, etc was heavily associated with being right-wing and support for them was heavily associated with being left-wing. In Europe, that association was much weaker, and where it existed actually more often than not trended in the other direction.

I think it literally all comes down to the fact that Trump and his gang of misfits decided to back the anti-lockdown side so the left felt compelled to do the opposite in the spirit of tribal politics. In some alternate history scenario where Trump's response in spring 2020 had instead been to do the Australia thing with draconian lockdown measures to try and eradicate COVID entirely, the political affiliations would have ended as the exact opposite, and Canadian progressives would be flexing about how we don't do lockdowns because "we care about people here" while the right would be screaming about the need to "protect the elderly."

We saw a bit of this with vaccines, actually. This has kind of been forgotten in the whirlwind that was 2020-21, but Trump actually put a lot of federal money into vaccine development with "Operation Warp Speed" which is part of why we ended up with vaccines so quickly. At the time, during the summer and fall of 2020, there were a fair number of internet progressives who called the whole vaccine project a stupid excuse to avoid lockdowns and insinuated that Trump was trying to push corporate profits with a rushed (implied as unsafe) vaccine. In some scenario where Trump had gotten re-elected in 2020, anti-vax stuff would have probably stayed as a left wing thing as Trump would have been the one rolling out the vaccine campaigns.

(My favourite example of this is a screenshot of someone who tweeted in the fall of 2020 that "he would never take the Trump vaccine!", and one year later tweeted a wish that anti-vaxxers be permanently excluded from society).

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

In North America, it's because our politics are all reaction-based and tribal-based.

In North America, opposition to lockdowns, mask mandates, vaccine mandates, etc was heavily associated with being right-wing and support for them was heavily associated with being left-wing. In Europe, that association was much weaker, and where it existed actually more often than not trended in the other direction.

I think it literally all comes down to the fact that Trump and his gang of misfits decided to back the anti-lockdown side so the left felt compelled to do the opposite in the spirit of tribal politics. In some alternate history scenario where Trump's response in spring 2020 had instead been to do the Australia thing with draconian lockdown measures to try and eradicate COVID entirely, the political affiliations would have ended as the exact opposite, and Canadian progressives would be flexing about how we don't do lockdowns because "we care about people here" while the right would be screaming about the need to "protect the elderly."

We saw a bit of this with vaccines, actually. This has kind of been forgotten in the whirlwind that was 2020-21, but Trump actually put a lot of federal money into vaccine development with "Operation Warp Speed" which is part of why we ended up with vaccines so quickly. At the time, during the summer and fall of 2020, there were a fair number of internet progressives who called the whole vaccine project a stupid excuse to avoid lockdowns and insinuated that Trump was trying to push corporate profits with a rushed (implied as unsafe) vaccine. In some scenario where Trump had gotten re-elected in 2020, anti-vax stuff would have probably stayed as a left wing thing as Trump would have been the one rolling out the vaccine campaigns.

(My favourite example of this is a screenshot of someone who tweeted in the fall of 2020 that "he would never take the Trump vaccine!", and one year later tweeted a wish that anti-vaxxers be permanently excluded from society).

This is all very accurate and surprisingly unsaid. I think it's mostly history now though for the vast majority of voters though 15% on each side are holding onto the fight.

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

PP was literally blaming Trudeau on the floor of the HoC while information was incomplete, especially for him.

It's stupid and shameful. He is becoming a caricature of himself. Next he will blame Trudeau for the poor performance of the Oilers this season.

It's pretty wild. Poilievre said today in a news conference that he got his information from a CTV article that said officials were looking at the Rainbow Bridge crash as terrorism, but that CTV article came out 20 minutes after he spoke in the HOC. Here's a Twitter thread with the receipts.

[Gresto]

Originally Posted by Marshsparrow

Does anyone subscribe to the social contract or common good anymore?

There are many, many good people out there, a healthy majority, I would posit; it's just that the detractors of the social contract - proudly loud, uninformed, and obnoxious as they are - get so much coverage these days that more and more of them come crawling out from under their rocks to join in tearing at the fraying fabric of social cohesion.

Originally Posted by O-tacular

They turned up in vast numbers at the hospital requiring intubation and tying up resources because of their refusal to take any form of precaution during the pandemic. The best stories being those of patients verbally abusing medical staff calling Covid fake right before they died.

Precisely. And how many responsible people (i.e. those who followed public-health strictures and exhortations, re: masking and vaccination) died because the waiting rooms and hospital beds were overflowing with solipsistic anti-everything "freedom" fighters stricken with Covid? At the height of the frenzy of the pandemic, it must have been terribly enticing for a bone-tired, distraught emergency crew to simply turn away these thoughtless assholes, but our society takes great pains to treat even - perhaps especially - the worst, lowest among us with care and consideration. Though I don't oppose this all-embracing attitude out of hand, I fear it might be our downfall as a species in the end. The cliche, "We're all in this together" is timelessly true, and at some point the misanthropes and saboteurs may have to be cast out of the fold.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

Canada went crazy on COVID-19. I am not talking about specific policies, but about how people were. It was spurred on by anxieties about populism, the Trump era in the US and Canada's attachment to a very 1990s, almost "Starfleet" kind of societal ideal, so compliance to nearly any image of scientific expertise was preferable to resembling the agitated, backwater outgroup in any way whatsoever.

When you are steered by your outgroup in that way, you will accept almost anything in order to remain their invert. Neil Ferguson's models were hysterical dogshit and so was all that stuff you were doing with panels of plexiglass in public. I can't believe it is still acceptable to suggest we should live as Canadians did during the pandemic.

As recently as August of this year, I got a message from a Canadian friend on WhatsApp: "so I tested positive". I actually didn't even think about the coronavirus until I called him, it sounded like something out of Angels in America.

My god was I glad to be living in Sweden for those years. The best thing Anders Tegnell said during early 2020 was that "we must remember that normalcy has a value".

I swear, you guys start seeing enough grubby Southern whites shouting down Scientology and you'll all start tithing to David Miscavige.

Were you in Canada at any time during the pandemic?

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

For shame, for heaven's sake, fuck this, fuck that. No wonder Canada was so hysterical if this is how even satisfied supporters who see no alternative sound at the end of 2023.

There is no way to avoid a purity spiral with this degree of high dudgeon.

Curfews in Montreal, little plastic booths in Wal-mart, cordoned off parts of Canadian Tire.

Canadians went mad. Swedes remained mostly sane. I saw them both side by side and that's how it was.

The curfews in Quebec were the one things that went WAY too far in my opinion. I'm in Ontario and felt that most of what was done here was reasonable until 2022 once everyone had a chance to be vaccinated.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

What does this even mean? I am not a stupid person, but must you always write in poetry? It obfuscates understanding, and it is a very pretentious manner of speaking, even if it impresses some people.

I've always thought the same thing.