Sunday, October 03, 2021

Braid: Alberta needs Saskatchewan-style straight talk on COVID-19

Calling a terrible thing by its name, instead of wrapping it in bureaucratic garble, is the essence of great crisis leadership

Author of the article:Don Braid • Calgary Herald
Publishing date:Sep 30, 2021 •
Saskatchewan's provincial chief medical health officer Dr. Saqib Shahab speaks during an update on COVID-19 at the Legislative Building in Regina, Wednesday, March 11, 2020. 
PHOTO BY THE CANADIAN PRESS/MICHAEL BELL

Many Albertans want a new government. How about Saskatchewan’s?

Premier Scott Moe’s province has a COVID-19 problem nearly as dangerous as Alberta’s.

But there is a clarity of purpose in Saskatchewan, a readiness to speak plain that’s entirely unlike the muffled, overblown messages we get from Premier Jason Kenney and the UCP.

By straining to respect each tic of opinion on everything from vaccines to masks, the UCP ends up leading nobody. Many Albertans have simply stopped trusting and believing.

Saskatchewan folks can be ornery on vaccines but generally have their heads screwed on straight, no surprise from Canada’s most underrated and overachieving province.

Moe has just accepted the resignation of a caucus member because she purported to be vaccinated when she wasn’t.


His Saskatchewan Party, which is conservative in the Brad Wall tradition, presents a solid front on vaccination to show the public they really believe in it.

So, out went MLA Nadine Wilson, who had earlier worn a sticker saying “I got my COVID-19 vaccine.”

In Alberta, we have no idea of the vaccination count in Kenney’s caucus. Vaccination is a personal choice to be respected, they say, a privacy and freedom thing.

Yet their government daily begs people to get the shots. The behaviour belies the messages. A Nadine Wilson might get high fives from those people.


Our chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, is taking a few days off. So, let us turn to the Saskatchewan CMOH for more straight talk.


“We will not only not have Thanksgiving at this rate,” said Dr. Saqib Shahab. “We will likely not have Christmas and New Year at this rate.

“It will be a fall and winter of misery at the current rate.”

That is an appalling message nobody wants to hear. It makes your heart sink. That could very well be our future, too.

But his message, although frightening and likely true, is so powerful that it could actually change behaviour.

Shahab added that Saskatchewan will face an “untenable situation” if health measures and vaccination don’t curb rising infections.

“We are having a mass casualty event every day now for the foreseeable future.”

Thirty-four Albertans died of COVID on Tuesday, another 20 on Wednesday. That really is a mass casualty event. But it was barely recognized here as another signpost of singular tragedy.


Calling a terrible thing by its name, instead of wrapping it in bureaucratic garble, is the essence of great crisis leadership.


I’ve watched Hinshaw for many months now, and once admired her calm guidance.

But she made a terrible mistake by endorsing Open for Summer. She might regain some authority now by sounding more like Dr. Shahab, and less like a spokeswoman for the all-powerful, entirely secret cabinet committee that makes the decisions

.
Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta chief medical officer of health, leaves her final regularly scheduled COVID-19 update during a press conference at the Federal Building in Edmonton, on Tuesday, June 29, 2021. 
PHOTO BY IAN KUCERAK/POSTMEDIA

This whole problem — the abrupt shifts, the ambiguity, the defence of “rights” that can properly be suspended in genuine crisis — goes right to the core of the UCP.

Tracy Allard, the ex-minister ejected by Kenney for her Hawaii travels, reflected much of this in a long, heartfelt letter to her northern constituents.

While vigorously urging people to get their shots, she does so “while respecting the individual’s right to choose.”

People do have that right in law, no question. But their choice in this crisis is not worthy of government respect when the unvaccinated are depriving others of essential non-COVID hospital care.

On Thursday, the government announced that all public service employees will have to be vaccinated by the end of November.

The premier talked at length about how other provinces and countries have had problems as bad as Alberta’s.

One good move, another ambiguous message. We need a straight talk injection from Saskatchewan.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald

Twitter: @DonBraid

Facebook: Don Braid Politics

No comments: