'THE PREMIER HAS FAILED AGAIN,' SAYS NOTLEY
Notley, Phillips blast new COVID measures, advocate for vaccine passports
Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley and Lethbridge-West MLA Shannon Phillips. (Lethbridge News Now)
By David Opinko/LethbridgeNewsNOW
Sep 3, 2021 | 4:34 PM
LETHBRIDGE, AB – Two prominent members of Alberta’s NDP are calling out Premier Jason Kenney and his announcements of new COVID-19 restrictions.
On Friday, Kenney announced the return of a face mask mandate, the early closure of liquor service, and a $100 incentive program for currently-unvaccinated Albertans to get their shots.
Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley and Lethbridge-West MLA Shannon Phillips were originally set to use a press conference at the Galt Museum to talk about a policy proposal aimed at protecting the Rocky Mountains from coal mining developments but felt this issue took precedence.
Notley says she was encouraged in the late spring and early summer when COVID-19 cases were dropping and more Albertans were getting immunized but believes that things have since gone in the opposite direction.
“After all the hard work and sacrifices Albertans have made, it is clear that Jason Kenney’s incompetence and inactions have erased this progresses, and now, we will go backwards: backwards to curfews, to restrictions, to masking for everyone, even those of us who have been vaccinated.”
The two took an especially sharp aim at the vaccine incentivization program.
According to the leader of the official opposition, Albertans who have chosen to not get vaccinated are hearing the message from the premier that they do not have to do their part until they get paid.
“The premier has failed again. He has brought Alberta to a place of imminent danger to our healthcare system. Jason Kenney is choosing to pay the angry mobs who are literally protesting outside of our hospitals, blocking ambulances, while cutting the wages of the nurses who are working inside of them.”
Notley remains optimistic that the reinstatement of a province-wide face mask mandate will help to curb the rise of COVID-19 cases somewhat, but she is concerned that the same is not true for schools.
Phillips says she has heard from many parents, including those in Lethbridge, that they are worried that some school districts in the province are not requiring staff or students to remain masked.
“I have heard from parents who are anxious – and they’re not the type of parents who normally are anxious – but they don’t know what to believe anymore, who to trust, and certainly, some school communities are doing really really well with, essentially, keeping the exact same situation they had last year. At some other school communities, because it’s not across the board, parents have questions, and just that lack of confidence coming from parents is something that I’ve heard a lot about since the first day of school.”
The NDP is pushing for what Notley calls a “simple, secure, and scannable vaccine passport” that would be mandatory for all non-essential businesses.
Under this proposal, in places like restaurants and entertainment centres, only those who are vaccinated would be able to attend. Grocery stores, hardware stores, and others would require people who are unvaccinated to wear a face mask.
She believes that this would allow people to go about their lives with minimal disruptions while keeping people safe.
While other provinces have instituted vaccine passport systems, there are currently none in Alberta.
A Canada-wide poll from Leger suggests that the majority of Canadians “strongly support” vaccine passports, but a survey from the Alberta Chambers of Commerce shows that two-thirds of business owners and operators are against the idea.
by David Opinko/LethbridgeNewsNOW
THE UCP SAYS THEY AREN’T, BUT HERE’S WHY VACCINE PASSPORTS ARE COMING TO ALBERTA
UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA INFECTIOUS DISEASES SPECIALIST DR. LYNORA SAXINGER (PHOTO: RADIO-CANADA).
Alberta Politics
DAVID CLIMENHAGA
POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 03, 2021,
Vaccine passports are coming to Alberta.
Not just yet, but they’ll be along soon enough.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr).
Not because they make sense. Opposition Leader Rachel Notley laid out that case pretty clearly yesterday: during a pandemic like the fourth wave of COVID-19 now battering our province, they can protect people, hospitals and the provincial economy.
“By providing Albertans with easy and secure access to their immunization records while establishing a verification standard for public settings, Albertans who are vaccinated can protect their neighbours and continue to do the things they love to do,” Ms. Notley explained.
Obviously, though, Jason Kenney’s government is pretty much impervious to that kind of reasoning. Even if they weren’t, the fact the NDP said it would make it pretty hard for them to adopt.
By now so many members of cabinet and the United Conservative Party Caucus have said so many times that Alberta will never adopt vaccine passports – because freedom! – that it would be pretty painful for them to walk it back.
Freedom, in this case, means freedom for anti-vaxxers, COVID deniers and great big grown-up men who are afraid of little tiny needles – and are willing to make their neighbours sick, and kill some of them, to have their way now that they’ve made defying common sense public health measures into a new front in the culture wars.
But certainly not freedom for the vast majority of Albertans who would actually like to get this pandemic behind us without killing a whole bunch of our friends, relatives and neighbours.
And not, as Ms. Notley argued, because other provinces are all going to adopt it, meaning Albertans would be the only fully vaccinated Canadians to have difficulty travelling to other parts of Canada, let alone abroad. In fact, one suspects the UCP would rather like the idea of making the rest of us stay at home with their anti-vaxx, anti-mask, anti-science base.
Former Alberta premier Rachel Notley, now the leader of the NDP Opposition (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).
None of that. The reason is because if the Kenney Government can’t put the pandemic behind us, it represents an existential threat. Not to Alberta, of course – although certainly to some Albertans. But to the United Conservative Party – as a government, and quite possibly as an entity.
Whether they like it or not, vaccine certification and the discipline it imposes on a vaccine-skeptical population is a key tool in suppressing this difficult and highly infectious disease. Ontario said yesterday that vaccination appointments doubled as soon as it announced it would be bringing in vaccine passports later this month for restaurants, theatres and gyms.
If Mr. Kenney and his cabinet cohorts stick to their guns and ensure we never are allowed to have access to one of the tools that will make our lives easier while it helps reduce the threat of COVID-19, it is going to end in tears, for them.
Here’s why:
Dr. Lynora Saxinger, an infectious diseases specialist in the Medicine Faculty at the University of Alberta, did some back-of-the-envelope calculations on Twitter about the rate at which the virus is now spreading in Alberta and the implications of that.
Now, I’m not an infectious disease expert, but I am going to assume she knows what she’s talking about, even if her forecasts are imperfect in the event the UCP sticks to the plan described by Caucus Chair Nathan Neudorf the other day. To wit, allow basically everyone who still isn’t vaccinated to be infected and thereby achieve herd immunity.
Postmedia political columnist Rick Bell (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).
Here’s the money quote from Dr. Saxinger: “How long before COVID ‘runs out’ of victims here? Quick n very dirty math perhaps 2 years 8 months at our current ball park 1000 cases daily. (During which the health care system would be incapacitated and little non COVID care would be viable.)”
Meanwhile, despite the pandemic, the political clock continues to run in Alberta.
Technically, an election needs to take place between March 1 and May 31, 2023 – although Premier Kenney could call it sooner, if he saw an opportunity to defeat the Opposition, which now leads in the polls. The latest an election can be held under the rules of the Canadian Constitution is April 2024.
Since according to Dr. Saxinger’s quick-and-dirty arithmetic, the pandemic could still be continuing in this province until the spring of 2024, that leaves the UCP no time between now and then it can declare the pandemic over and then call an election.
If the pandemic is still in progress when the election is called, most observers would agree the UCP is done for, and Mr. Kenney will probably go down in history as the worst Canadian premier ever.
Dr. Saxinger and others like her could be wrong about the timing, they could be wrong about the future infectiousness of COVID-19, or they could be wrong about everything. But can the UCP afford to take the chance?
Even Rick Bell, the premier’s favourite political columnist, basically agrees with this analysis.
“A lockdown would finish off the Kenney government,” the Postmedia political commentator wrote yesterday. “They know that and they say they aren’t going there. They’ve also (said) no to a provincial government vaccine passport, where the fully vaccinated would be allowed in places where those not fully vaccinated would not be allowed. But who knows?”
It must have pained Mr. Bell to write that. And upset Mr. Kenney. I admire Mr. Bell’s fortitude. But he’s basically right.
Which is why the UCP will bring in a vaccine passport eventually – although they won’t call it that.
They’ll also have to bring back tougher measures – more masking, more restrictions. So much for “open for good.” Mr. Kenney will insist it’s not a lockdown, and he’ll likely be right. When it comes to public health, the man’s the master of half measures.
Either that or he won’t. If they bet that experts like Dr. Saxinger are wrong, and it turns out they’re not, history will say the UCP burned up on re-entry.
There were 1,399 new COVID-19 cases reported in Alberta yesterday, bringing the active case total to 12,868 – the highest number in both categories in Canada. The positivity rate was 10.8 per cent.
UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA INFECTIOUS DISEASES SPECIALIST DR. LYNORA SAXINGER (PHOTO: RADIO-CANADA).
Alberta Politics
DAVID CLIMENHAGA
POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 03, 2021,
Vaccine passports are coming to Alberta.
Not just yet, but they’ll be along soon enough.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr).
Not because they make sense. Opposition Leader Rachel Notley laid out that case pretty clearly yesterday: during a pandemic like the fourth wave of COVID-19 now battering our province, they can protect people, hospitals and the provincial economy.
“By providing Albertans with easy and secure access to their immunization records while establishing a verification standard for public settings, Albertans who are vaccinated can protect their neighbours and continue to do the things they love to do,” Ms. Notley explained.
Obviously, though, Jason Kenney’s government is pretty much impervious to that kind of reasoning. Even if they weren’t, the fact the NDP said it would make it pretty hard for them to adopt.
By now so many members of cabinet and the United Conservative Party Caucus have said so many times that Alberta will never adopt vaccine passports – because freedom! – that it would be pretty painful for them to walk it back.
Freedom, in this case, means freedom for anti-vaxxers, COVID deniers and great big grown-up men who are afraid of little tiny needles – and are willing to make their neighbours sick, and kill some of them, to have their way now that they’ve made defying common sense public health measures into a new front in the culture wars.
But certainly not freedom for the vast majority of Albertans who would actually like to get this pandemic behind us without killing a whole bunch of our friends, relatives and neighbours.
And not, as Ms. Notley argued, because other provinces are all going to adopt it, meaning Albertans would be the only fully vaccinated Canadians to have difficulty travelling to other parts of Canada, let alone abroad. In fact, one suspects the UCP would rather like the idea of making the rest of us stay at home with their anti-vaxx, anti-mask, anti-science base.
Former Alberta premier Rachel Notley, now the leader of the NDP Opposition (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).
None of that. The reason is because if the Kenney Government can’t put the pandemic behind us, it represents an existential threat. Not to Alberta, of course – although certainly to some Albertans. But to the United Conservative Party – as a government, and quite possibly as an entity.
Whether they like it or not, vaccine certification and the discipline it imposes on a vaccine-skeptical population is a key tool in suppressing this difficult and highly infectious disease. Ontario said yesterday that vaccination appointments doubled as soon as it announced it would be bringing in vaccine passports later this month for restaurants, theatres and gyms.
If Mr. Kenney and his cabinet cohorts stick to their guns and ensure we never are allowed to have access to one of the tools that will make our lives easier while it helps reduce the threat of COVID-19, it is going to end in tears, for them.
Here’s why:
Dr. Lynora Saxinger, an infectious diseases specialist in the Medicine Faculty at the University of Alberta, did some back-of-the-envelope calculations on Twitter about the rate at which the virus is now spreading in Alberta and the implications of that.
Now, I’m not an infectious disease expert, but I am going to assume she knows what she’s talking about, even if her forecasts are imperfect in the event the UCP sticks to the plan described by Caucus Chair Nathan Neudorf the other day. To wit, allow basically everyone who still isn’t vaccinated to be infected and thereby achieve herd immunity.
Postmedia political columnist Rick Bell (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).
Here’s the money quote from Dr. Saxinger: “How long before COVID ‘runs out’ of victims here? Quick n very dirty math perhaps 2 years 8 months at our current ball park 1000 cases daily. (During which the health care system would be incapacitated and little non COVID care would be viable.)”
Meanwhile, despite the pandemic, the political clock continues to run in Alberta.
Technically, an election needs to take place between March 1 and May 31, 2023 – although Premier Kenney could call it sooner, if he saw an opportunity to defeat the Opposition, which now leads in the polls. The latest an election can be held under the rules of the Canadian Constitution is April 2024.
Since according to Dr. Saxinger’s quick-and-dirty arithmetic, the pandemic could still be continuing in this province until the spring of 2024, that leaves the UCP no time between now and then it can declare the pandemic over and then call an election.
If the pandemic is still in progress when the election is called, most observers would agree the UCP is done for, and Mr. Kenney will probably go down in history as the worst Canadian premier ever.
Dr. Saxinger and others like her could be wrong about the timing, they could be wrong about the future infectiousness of COVID-19, or they could be wrong about everything. But can the UCP afford to take the chance?
Even Rick Bell, the premier’s favourite political columnist, basically agrees with this analysis.
“A lockdown would finish off the Kenney government,” the Postmedia political commentator wrote yesterday. “They know that and they say they aren’t going there. They’ve also (said) no to a provincial government vaccine passport, where the fully vaccinated would be allowed in places where those not fully vaccinated would not be allowed. But who knows?”
It must have pained Mr. Bell to write that. And upset Mr. Kenney. I admire Mr. Bell’s fortitude. But he’s basically right.
Which is why the UCP will bring in a vaccine passport eventually – although they won’t call it that.
They’ll also have to bring back tougher measures – more masking, more restrictions. So much for “open for good.” Mr. Kenney will insist it’s not a lockdown, and he’ll likely be right. When it comes to public health, the man’s the master of half measures.
Either that or he won’t. If they bet that experts like Dr. Saxinger are wrong, and it turns out they’re not, history will say the UCP burned up on re-entry.
There were 1,399 new COVID-19 cases reported in Alberta yesterday, bringing the active case total to 12,868 – the highest number in both categories in Canada. The positivity rate was 10.8 per cent.
NDP calls for vaccine 'verification' plan as province reaches 70 per cent mark
Author of the article: Dylan Short
Publishing date:Sep 02, 2021
NDP leader Rachel Notley shows off her plan for a vaccine passport at a press conference in Calgary on Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021.
PHOTO BY SUPPLIED
Seventy per cent of eligible Albertans are now fully vaccinated, the province announced as 1,339 new cases of COVID-19 were recorded Thursday.
The milestone was announced Thursday afternoon, with 2.6 million Albertans having received two doses of COVID-19 vaccine. Additionally, a total of 78.2 per cent of people 12 years of age or older in the province have received at least one dose. Meanwhile, more than 1.1 million people have not received any COVID-19 vaccine, a number that includes children under the age of 12, who are not yet eligible.
Alberta continues to lag behind other populous provinces in vaccinations. In Ontario, 77 per cent of eligible people are fully vaccinated, while 79 per cent of eligible people in Quebec have had two jabs.
Seventy per cent of eligible Albertans are now fully vaccinated, the province announced as 1,339 new cases of COVID-19 were recorded Thursday.
The milestone was announced Thursday afternoon, with 2.6 million Albertans having received two doses of COVID-19 vaccine. Additionally, a total of 78.2 per cent of people 12 years of age or older in the province have received at least one dose. Meanwhile, more than 1.1 million people have not received any COVID-19 vaccine, a number that includes children under the age of 12, who are not yet eligible.
Alberta continues to lag behind other populous provinces in vaccinations. In Ontario, 77 per cent of eligible people are fully vaccinated, while 79 per cent of eligible people in Quebec have had two jabs.
Premier Jason Kenney, Health Minister Tyler Shandro and chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw once again urged Albertans to get their vaccinations in an emailed statement Thursday.
“The best way to protect all Albertans from COVID-19 is to get vaccinated. It is up to each and every one of us to do all we can to prevent the spread of this virus,” said Kenney. “Getting vaccinated with two doses is not only the right thing to do, but it protects the people, livelihoods and communities we care about.”
Meanwhile, the official Opposition NDP called on Kenney and his government to implement a vaccine mandate in the province that would see people needing to provide proof of vaccination to enter non-essential public spaces. Opposition Leader Rachel Notley said her party is proposing a secure and easily scanned proof of vaccination that would be needed to enter restaurants, bars, concert venues, sporting events and other large gathering sites.
“Let’s be clear, vaccine verification is coming to Alberta,” said Notley, speaking outside McMahon Stadium. “In just a few weeks, if you want to watch an NHL game in person, you will have to show proof.” Many professional sports organizations have decided to implement mandatory vaccination rules on their own.
Notley also noted that several large Alberta employers are requiring vaccinations. The federal government has also said that proof of vaccination will be needed to fly domestically or internationally this fall. Alberta Health Services announced earlier this week its employees will need to be vaccinated.
“This is coming and if we don’t act now, I fear we will reach a place where Albertans will be scrambling to catch up with the rest of the world and our health care and our economy will have been needlessly injured in the process,” said Notley.
Kenney and other provincial leaders have previously stated they are not in favour of mandating proof of vaccination. Shandro announced recently Albertans will have access to a convenient-sized card showing their vaccination status, but stated there would be no mandated vaccine passports in the province.
Ontario announced a vaccine requirement Wednesday while British Columbia, Quebec and Manitoba have all previously introduced similar policies. Christine Elliott, deputy premier and health minister of Ontario, announced on Twitter Thursday that the number of people signing up to get vaccinated in that province doubled in the 24 hours after the province announced its vaccine mandate.
Quebec and British Columbia have reported similar increases in the wake of their policy announcements.
On Thursday, as Alberta recorded 1,339 new cases of COVID-19, it brought the number of active cases up to 12,868.
There are 487 people being treated for the illness in hospital, including 114 of whom are in intensive care units. The province reported five new deaths, bringing the total number of fatalities with COVID-19 as a contributing factor to 2,388.
Of those patients in hospital, 79 per cent are unvaccinated, three per cent are partially vaccinated and 17 per cent are fully vaccinated. There are 2.9 million people in the province who are fully vaccinated, compared to about 300,000 who have only had one shot.
Unvaccinated people account for 71.8 per cent of all active cases in Alberta, according to provincial numbers.
The province also announced Thursday night Calgarian Amie Gee has won the second of three $1-million prizes for receiving her vaccinations. A news release said her name was drawn from 1.85 million entries. There were also 42 winners for a suite of travel-related prizes.
The third $1-million draw in the vaccination lottery will take place this month, with registrations closing on Sept. 23.
dshort@postmedia.com
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