Canadian 'dopers, how serious is all this about Justin Trudeau?

Great Debates
221

I was on the infection control committee for a Toronto area hospital during SARS. It turned my life upside down for six months. It was very scary - no one initially knew the most basic cause (a virus?) or how to best protect oneself. Half of people who got SARS ended up on ventilators in the ICU, 17% died - including 101 health care workers. I saw a SARS patient. I know a colleague who died.

The government response to SARS - putting negative pressure rooms and decontamination areas in all emergencies, providing PPE, investing in PPE stores, making N95 mask fitting and donning/doffing protocols, contact tracing all cases and quarantining 15,000 people in Toronto alone and coming up with a system for transferring people between hospitals (which initially stopped accepting transfers from small hospitals- with some tragic results) was both excellent and groundbreaking. Many of the deaths from SARS were, however, in nursing homes around Scarborough Grace.

This time around, the PPE stores were not kept up to date, then were destroyed. Surveillance teams in place were defunded. Contact tracing was never done systematically. Closing borders and travel is a big deal and I don’t blame the government for delays - they did it reasonably based on current information. Yes, it could have been better. There was no criminal intent.

The three biggest mistakes in my view were: 1) keep enough PPE, preferably made in Canada 2) don’t let Quebeckers go south to Florida and 3) do something about the nursing homes, which were problematic during SARS and have been for decades. But I can tolerate mistakes if lessons are learned. We did better than many. It is easy and unproductive to look back in anger.

222

Thank you for your dedication to your profession and your patients, Dr_Paprika.

223

Only the federal Cabinet can declare a state of emergency under the federal Emergencies Act. It has not done so. Nor has the federal government ordered a lockdown.

224

While I thank you for being so pedantic, this was not according to MacLean’s magazine article or anything else that I have read. Perhaps I should’ve use the word “recommended” would that be acceptable to you?

225

While I agree the closing borders is a big deal, I’m going to have to call you utter bullshit on your comment that “they did it reasonably, based on current information”.

First - how does that even fit with the fact that Canada was one of the very last countries in the world to institute any sort of border controls? Presumably you are saying that we had somehow very different “current information” than every other country in the world? Sorry, I can’t reconcile your opinion and the facts at all.

Second Trudeau’s own statements contradict this completely. He said they deliberately did not institute border controls of any kind so as to not “stigmatize Chinese travellers”. It had nothing to do with “current information”, unless you define current information as “the Chinese may get pissed off and not support me and my security council bid.”

To suggest (as Dr. Tam did, and you seem to be in agreement with) that Canada had only two choices: close the borders completely or do nothing is a complete false dichotomy. There is a massive range in between, which the government deliberately chose not to do.

We had close friends who live in China, they flew back in February days before China shut down. It was then the hottest Covid zone in the world. They fully expected to be isolated upon arrival, questionnaires, temperature screenings etc and go into 14 day mandatory quarantine. They were absolutely stunned and then furious when they arrived at Pearson and they (and everyone else on their flight) were told one thing: “Welcome back to Canada”. There were no temperature screenings no questions about symptoms, no suggestions to monitor for symptoms, literally not a single mention of Covid from anyone or even any signage. It was like it didn’t even exist. Plus no PPE of any kind on border staff or airport personnel. In fact, they used tissues to take their passports back when they saw the border control officer was handling every single passport without gloves.

Similarly, my neighbour’s brother returned on the second last flight out of Rome before Italy was shut down in MARCH. His experience was identical to our friends. At that point the world was 2 months into Covid and it was spreading like wildfire through various countries. He fully expected screening mandatory quarantining etc. He was also told “Welcome to Canada” and nothing else.

So are you seriously suggesting that the best “current information” in March as the world was shutting down, was do absolutely nothing at your borders"?

As far as “criminal intent” goes, no I do not believe there was criminal intent but there is no question that many thousands of Canadians are now dead because of deliberate government inaction. And that deliberate inaction resulting in deaths should be prosecuted.

226

I’m not saying the Canadian government did a great job with the borders. I agree the range of actions is more complex than fully open or fully closed. I do not recall Trudeau discussing “stigmatizing Chinese travellers” but if so, those words were particularly inapt.

Many people believe closing borders would prevent the spread of a contagious disease. But they are wrong, although it slows things down - and that is still relevant. Initially, even many academics felt closing the borders would not make much difference. There is research indicating this is so. But for Covid-19 - it probably does. They know more about it now than they did in February. One difference is that if you have too many cases, contact tracing becomes much more difficult. Still, I would ask for a cite saying Canada was one of the last countries to institute border controls.

I know people who travelled to Mexico in February. I too was surprised at the initial lack of warnings, isolation advice and temperature measurement. However, temperature measurement, helpful for SARS, is much less useful during the first week of Covid-19 symptoms and is an easy step but no panacea. I agree the government needs to do better with the borders next time, and hope they have learned the right lessons from this unprecedented crisis. But as a nation highly dependent on the US, and with tempestuous intergovernmental relations (hardly Trudeau’s fault) - these were difficult decisions. And unprecedented ones. Some delay is hard to avoid. Should the government have done more sooner? Probably. In February, even travel by railway was being disrupted. Doesn’t that seem like a long time ago?

This is where relying on information from the Chinese government instead of a previous early warning network was unhelpful. Ford wanted people to enjoy their reading weeks and March breaks too. He was trying to be reasonable and reassuring. The Quebec breaks, occurring in February, might be a cause of this province’s more severe conditions.

227

Again, what is the underlying criminal offence, the unlawful criminal act, that would support a criminal prosecution?

228

I’m afraid I disagree with your suggestion of pedantry. If you want to criticise the federal government for what they’ve done and not done, that’s your right. But on a board dedicated to fighting ignorance, the criticism should be on the facts.

First and most important, the suggestion that an unelected public servant could invoke the federal Emergencies Act is just plain wrong. Invoking the Act is a major political decision, which can only be done by the elected representatives in Cabinet.

Second, although there was discussion of invoking the federal Emergencies Act in April and March, the federal government never did so. Google “Trudeau Emergencies Act” and you’ll get the hits. If you can point to a news story that says the federal government has declared an emergency, I’d like to see it.

Third, invoking the Emergencies Act, the successor to the War Measures Act, would be a major political decision. A headline stating that the federal government has declared an emergency and is locking down the country is a major thing. It hasn’t happened. What the federal government has done is invoke the Quarantine Act, which gives it the authority to impose border controls. However, that’s quite different from invoking the Emergencies Act.

Fourth, the lockdowns, and the conditions of the lockdowns, have all been under provincial law. That’s why Ford and Legault have been in the news on the terms of the lockdowns.

229

And if you talk to the real strategists involved in this type of thing they admit, if you start in, too in advance of it actually arriving, people will have already grown bored with the warnings, assume you’re obviously over reacting etc. This is a real thing they consider, believe it or not, timing is actually key. In the scenario of a ‘too early‘ media blitz to alarm people into compliance, you leave room for the ‘they’re scaring you to take your rights!’ knuckleheads to gain great ground, and that’s a hard train to turn off the track once it’s barrelling along.

It isn’t always as easy as earlier is always better.

230

Speaking about the recent attacks in France, Trudeau says that freedom of expression has limits, making the comparison to yelling “fire!” in a crowded theatre. He also says that we shouldn’t arbitrarily do things that offend people. (Link in French from La Presse; it may have been reported in English-language media but I haven’t found it.)

So what do people think about this? Is publishing cartoons of Muhammad (and you may include projecting them on buildings if you want) comparable to yelling “fire!” in a crowded theatre? My personal opinion is that it isn’t. I also believe offending people (even voluntarily) should be protected.

Edit: Here’s an article in English.

231

Nah, it isn’t fire in a crowed theatre; not even close. However, I find it paradoxical if the measurement, exercise, or demonstration of freedom of speech is through public harassment of religious/ethnic minorities.

It makes me feel that I am being clearly manipulated by grifters cashing in on claiming to be saying unpopular opinions that target minorities in flattering service of the clear majority. “It might be un-popular to say it…but I’ll say it. Child rapists need to be in PRISON!” Sure; I gotcha. But as a cynical bastard I look for angles that people are playing.

232

Well, you’ve got me. You’ve run circles around me logically.

I was really surprised and stand corrected. I thought there were some directive from the Canadian government to go into a lockdown but clearly that was fake news.

I bow to your superior knowledge of the technical intricacies of the Canadian government. Touché. Trudeau did an amazing job, way better than the US.

Not only do we sit above Americans geographically, we sit above them in our smug superiority.

233

You realize no one brought that up, right? You were the one who said that people you talk to always bring that up (or the conversation ends that way), but you’re the only one who did. Just you. Twice. Are you sure you’re not projecting your throughts onto other people and then blaming for them for what “they” are clearly thinking?

234

It was either fake news from the sources you follow, or you misunderstood.

235

I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying. You’re completely correct, you don’t know what you don’t know and hindsight is always 100% correct.

The fundamental difference in our views is that (from everything that I have read) Trudeau and his team knew what was going on in the world and made a deliberate choice not to act so as to not anger China.

Because of that deliberate decision I squarely blame him for all the unnecessary deaths in Canada caused by his deliberate and wilful inaction.

236

The most significant source of covid-19 in Canada was not China. It was the US, as well as Europe. Remove all cases deriving from travel to and from China, and the course of the pandemic in Canada would look pretty much unchanged. Even in hindsight, the argument for a Chinese travel ban seems extremely weak, particularly considering all the other considerations re: the Meng Wanzhou extradition and various trade actions. The Chinese were never going to support our bid for the security council, and I’d be shocked if government ever thought they would. To the extent they’ve been tiptoeing around China it has to do with trying to get the two Michaels released, and mitigating the effects of the Chinese sanctions on various mostly agricultural exports.

This is not to say that the government couldn’t have done significantly better with their pandemic response than they have, but imo their failures have been mostly of the poor decision based on incomplete information type.

237

You may think cartoons of Muhammad are distasteful, but they’re not “harassment”. Part of living in a liberal country is being exposed to forceful criticism of our opinions and values. (And I’m not even sure cartoons of Muhammad qualify as “forceful criticism”. Some of them might be, but others are barely even critical of Islam and are only offensive to those who think blasphemy is offensive.)

Essentially, what Trudeau is doing is refusing to stand by an ally and friend that’s under attack. And the French government has already said that the country will remember its supposed “allies” who weren’t standing with them in this grave moment. This is bad, not only from a moral standpoint, but also from the standpoint of Canada-France bilateral relations.

238

At no point did I say that. Nor did I say the contrary, that Trudeau did a bad job. I said that you have a right to criticise our political leaders. I just think that discussions of our political leaders, and critiques, should be based on the facts.

There’s no doubt that the federal government has the power to shut down borders under the Quarantine Act, which they did. The question of timing of that shutdown is clearly something that can be discussed and analysed by Canadians. Did our government do it early enough? Did they delay it for good reasons or bad? That’s all fair game for any politician to be required to defend.

239

I thought this was an interesting article on the state of partisanship in Canada.

240

The articles you post show a degree of confusion in the federal government about which actions to take. In retrospect, isolating travellers returning from Wuhan would clearly have been better. Hajdu and Tam seem to have depended a little too heavily on advice from the WHO, but they were right in saying Italy closed its borders but still had a severe outbreak (but may have missed the cause). I did not see Trudeau directly saying he wanted to avoid stigmatizing Chinese travellers. A soft approach with China has done nothing to free the two Michaels. This might be a topic for another thread - I generally agree with arguments that Trudeau’s foreign policy is stuck in the 1990s and needs to be updated for digital threats, dictators and modern brinksmanship.

Here is an article written on March 16 discussing full and partial border closures.

It implies 27 countries had some degree of border control by March 16/20. Canada might have delayed too long or trusted the WHO too much. But claiming they were among the very last nations to act, or that the vast majority of nations had already done so, is hyperbolic. I agree that partial border controls, real airport monitoring, airport PPE and quarantining travellers have to be part of the plan next time shyte meets fan.