‘BEST SUMMER EVER’ TAKES ITS TOLL ON JASON KENNEY AS ALBERTA PREMIER’S APPROVAL RATING TUMBLES
ALBERTA PREMIER JASON KENNEY IN A RECENT, MORE OPTIMISTIC, MOMENT
(PHOTO: CHRIS SCHWARZ, GOVERNMENT OF ALBERTA).
Alberta Politics
DAVID CLIMENHAGA
POSTED ON OCTOBER 05, 2021, 1:28 AM
All of political Alberta was agog yesterday at the revelation 77 per cent of adult Albertans disapprove of Premier Jason Kenney’s leadership according to a recent online survey by ThinkHQ Public Affairs Inc.
The premier’s approval rating, which the Calgary-based polling company characterized as tumbling, has now reached 22 per cent, said ThinkHQ President Marc Henry, prompting the pollster to comment in the spirit of the pandemic moment that “Jason Kenney is a leader on life-support, and his prognosis is not good.”
ThinkHQ President Marc Henry (Photo: calgarycvo.org).
Indeed, the pandemic has plenty to do with it. “There is no doubt that COVID-19 is the origin of much of Kenney’s troubles,” Mr. Henry added, noting accurately that “in many respects, he has been the architect of his own misfortune.”
“The political gamble that was ‘The Best Summer Ever’ is now taking a punishing toll both politically for the leader and in real human costs for Albertans and the health care system,” Mr. Henry went on, to which one can only add a hearty, No Kidding!
“We have not seen a sitting premier with numbers this low in almost a decade,” Mr. Henry observed grimly on his company’s website. “Alison Redford resigned the day it was revealed her approval at the time had dropped to 18 per cent. That’s a ‘margin of error’ difference from Kenney’s results today.”
So there you have it, folks. It’s at least semi-official. Premier Kenney is now down there in Alison Redford territory and you can almost hear the whistle of the axe heading for his neck.
But at 22 per cent, I have to say I was surprised that many Albertans still approve of Mr. Kenney.
I’m not kidding. Matt Wolf and all the other United Conservative Party “issues managers” using a variety of aliases must be members of the Angus Reid Forum panel Mr. Henry used to get a number that high!
I’d bet you money the UCP’s own polling is considerably worse – at least, if they’re not so depressed they’ve stopped polling altogether.
Alberta Opposition NDP Leader and former premier Rachel Notley (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).
Indeed, a Sept. 20-27 survey by EKOS pegged support for Mr. Kenney’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic at 11 per cent.
Now, you can argue that the two polls measure apples and oranges – approval of Mr. Kenney’s overall governing (very low) and approval of his efforts on the pandemic file (even lower) – but if you ask me, at this point the two questions are all but one and the same in the minds of most Albertans.
You don’t need a pollster to tell you Mr. Kenney isn’t very popular any more. All you have to do to is join a socially distanced line up for a grocery store cashier or a bank machine almost anywhere in Alberta to hear what folks have to say about our premier – which can be characterized as deep and abiding contempt.
Mr. Kenney was never an overwhelmingly popular premier, Mr. Henry noted in his commentary on the poll, which used a 1,116-member online panel and was in the field for three days from Wednesday to Friday last week.
Well, he’s even less so now. It’s worth noting that according to ThinkHQ, 61 per cent of the respondents were in the strongly disapprove category.
Perhaps worse, from the UCP perspective, Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley seems to be doing much better. “Kenney’s chief political rival … has seen public appraisals of her performance notch up slightly since July, currently sitting at 50 per cent approval (32 per cent strong approval) vs. 47 per cent disapproval (39 per cent strong).”
Former Alberta Conservative premier Alison Redford (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).
And there’s no safe demographic for Mr. Kenney. City and country … Edmonton and Calgary … women and men … oldsters and young people … rich and poor … nobody much likes the guy, according to ThinkHQ.
Well, these kind of numbers add up to existential-threat territory for the UCP, so despite the fragile truce Mr. Kenney cobbled together on Sept. 22 to keep his job, various factions of the disunited party will be sharpening their knives in hopes of saving their own hides.
Unfortunately for them, what might save an MLA’s skin in vaccine-refusenik rural Alberta isn’t necessarily the same thing as what could work in vaccine-affirming Calgary.
“The UCP is an electoral creature, sewn together from two rival conservative parties primarily to unseat the NDP government,” Mr. Henry observed in his commentary. “In the face of this prolonged and punishing pandemic, the creature is tearing itself apart at the stitches.”
Indeed, it is easy to conclude that the re-animation of the Wildrose Party as a well-funded right-wing threat to the Progressive Conservatives after the 2008 provincial election has created a permanent rift in Alberta’s conservative movement never really went away.
With the NDP increasingly established in the minds of so many Albertans as the party of the sensible centre and the cautious and competent Rachel Notley still at the helm, that could be very bad news for the parties of the right.
Alberta Politics
DAVID CLIMENHAGA
POSTED ON OCTOBER 05, 2021, 1:28 AM
All of political Alberta was agog yesterday at the revelation 77 per cent of adult Albertans disapprove of Premier Jason Kenney’s leadership according to a recent online survey by ThinkHQ Public Affairs Inc.
The premier’s approval rating, which the Calgary-based polling company characterized as tumbling, has now reached 22 per cent, said ThinkHQ President Marc Henry, prompting the pollster to comment in the spirit of the pandemic moment that “Jason Kenney is a leader on life-support, and his prognosis is not good.”
ThinkHQ President Marc Henry (Photo: calgarycvo.org).
Indeed, the pandemic has plenty to do with it. “There is no doubt that COVID-19 is the origin of much of Kenney’s troubles,” Mr. Henry added, noting accurately that “in many respects, he has been the architect of his own misfortune.”
“The political gamble that was ‘The Best Summer Ever’ is now taking a punishing toll both politically for the leader and in real human costs for Albertans and the health care system,” Mr. Henry went on, to which one can only add a hearty, No Kidding!
“We have not seen a sitting premier with numbers this low in almost a decade,” Mr. Henry observed grimly on his company’s website. “Alison Redford resigned the day it was revealed her approval at the time had dropped to 18 per cent. That’s a ‘margin of error’ difference from Kenney’s results today.”
So there you have it, folks. It’s at least semi-official. Premier Kenney is now down there in Alison Redford territory and you can almost hear the whistle of the axe heading for his neck.
But at 22 per cent, I have to say I was surprised that many Albertans still approve of Mr. Kenney.
I’m not kidding. Matt Wolf and all the other United Conservative Party “issues managers” using a variety of aliases must be members of the Angus Reid Forum panel Mr. Henry used to get a number that high!
I’d bet you money the UCP’s own polling is considerably worse – at least, if they’re not so depressed they’ve stopped polling altogether.
Alberta Opposition NDP Leader and former premier Rachel Notley (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).
Indeed, a Sept. 20-27 survey by EKOS pegged support for Mr. Kenney’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic at 11 per cent.
Now, you can argue that the two polls measure apples and oranges – approval of Mr. Kenney’s overall governing (very low) and approval of his efforts on the pandemic file (even lower) – but if you ask me, at this point the two questions are all but one and the same in the minds of most Albertans.
You don’t need a pollster to tell you Mr. Kenney isn’t very popular any more. All you have to do to is join a socially distanced line up for a grocery store cashier or a bank machine almost anywhere in Alberta to hear what folks have to say about our premier – which can be characterized as deep and abiding contempt.
Mr. Kenney was never an overwhelmingly popular premier, Mr. Henry noted in his commentary on the poll, which used a 1,116-member online panel and was in the field for three days from Wednesday to Friday last week.
Well, he’s even less so now. It’s worth noting that according to ThinkHQ, 61 per cent of the respondents were in the strongly disapprove category.
Perhaps worse, from the UCP perspective, Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley seems to be doing much better. “Kenney’s chief political rival … has seen public appraisals of her performance notch up slightly since July, currently sitting at 50 per cent approval (32 per cent strong approval) vs. 47 per cent disapproval (39 per cent strong).”
Former Alberta Conservative premier Alison Redford (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).
And there’s no safe demographic for Mr. Kenney. City and country … Edmonton and Calgary … women and men … oldsters and young people … rich and poor … nobody much likes the guy, according to ThinkHQ.
Well, these kind of numbers add up to existential-threat territory for the UCP, so despite the fragile truce Mr. Kenney cobbled together on Sept. 22 to keep his job, various factions of the disunited party will be sharpening their knives in hopes of saving their own hides.
Unfortunately for them, what might save an MLA’s skin in vaccine-refusenik rural Alberta isn’t necessarily the same thing as what could work in vaccine-affirming Calgary.
“The UCP is an electoral creature, sewn together from two rival conservative parties primarily to unseat the NDP government,” Mr. Henry observed in his commentary. “In the face of this prolonged and punishing pandemic, the creature is tearing itself apart at the stitches.”
Indeed, it is easy to conclude that the re-animation of the Wildrose Party as a well-funded right-wing threat to the Progressive Conservatives after the 2008 provincial election has created a permanent rift in Alberta’s conservative movement never really went away.
With the NDP increasingly established in the minds of so many Albertans as the party of the sensible centre and the cautious and competent Rachel Notley still at the helm, that could be very bad news for the parties of the right.
Bell: Kenney at 22%, Alberta premier sinks in COVID quicksand
Author of the article: Rick Bell
CALGARY SUN
Publishing date: Oct 05, 2021
Publishing date: Oct 05, 2021
Premier Jason Kenney provided an update on COVID-19 and the ongoing work to protect public health at the McDougall Centre in Calgary on Tuesday, September 28, 2021.
PHOTO BY DARREN MAKOWICHUK/POSTMEDIA
Article content
The nosecount is ugly.
Uglier than the previous ugly. The kind of ugly where you can’t talk your way out of the ugliness.
Back-against-the-wall ugly. Four-letter word ugly.
If the latest fresh-off-the-press poll by the well-respected ThinkHQ Public Affairs outfit is anything to go by, and it mirrors what a lot of folks are hearing these days, Jason Kenney is in more hurt than anybody who has had his job in the past and didn’t lose it.
Only 22% of Albertans show any approval for the premier. Only 6% show strong approval. Shortly before being frog-marched to the exit door former premier Alison Redford was at 18%.
Here are some numbers.
The Edmonton area? The approval for Kenney is 19%.
But watch this one. The Calgary area? The Calgary area, where the UCP romped in the last election, sits at 19% as well. Yikes.
The smaller cities? 25%. Northern Alberta? 24%.
It goes on. It’s painful.
Nowhere in Alberta does the man get more than 30%.
Men don’t like him. Women don’t like him. Young people don’t like him. Older people like him a little more but it’s so bad a little more is only one out of four of them.
It doesn’t seem to matter how much dough you make or much schooling you have, there is scant consolation in the arithmetic for a premier who refuses to take advice from those who might actually feel the pulse of the public better than he does.
You have to wonder what Kenney’s polls are telling him. Unless up is down and down is up on their graphs, the truth is the truth.
Or is Kenney convinced this is just a bump in the road, a big bump, but one day when COVID settles down he will emerge, leading his party to a wonderful victory?
No doubt there are the usual ring kissers and bootlickers bowing and scraping to the bossman, telling him what he wants to hear.
In the real world, disapproval of Kenney is quite the thing to see. You want strong disapproval of Kenney. That’s six out of 10 Albertans. STRONG disapproval.
You want to see more. Of course you do. Everybody wants a look at the trainwreck.
Among those who voted for Kenney’s United Conservative Party in the last election, only four in 10 back the premier’s performance.
NDP leader Rachel Notley has 3% more people approve of her than disapprove of her. That’s plus 3. 50% approve, 47% don’t.
Kenney is minus 55. Just 22% approve and 77% disapprove of him. One percentage point of those counted aren’t sure.
And how did it get this ugly?
The premier soldiering on and not even thinking he had to have a Plan B when his dream of the Best Summer Ever started turning into a nightmare and his government was missing in action.
This drove the nails deeper into his political coffin.
Article content
The nosecount is ugly.
Uglier than the previous ugly. The kind of ugly where you can’t talk your way out of the ugliness.
Back-against-the-wall ugly. Four-letter word ugly.
If the latest fresh-off-the-press poll by the well-respected ThinkHQ Public Affairs outfit is anything to go by, and it mirrors what a lot of folks are hearing these days, Jason Kenney is in more hurt than anybody who has had his job in the past and didn’t lose it.
Only 22% of Albertans show any approval for the premier. Only 6% show strong approval. Shortly before being frog-marched to the exit door former premier Alison Redford was at 18%.
Here are some numbers.
The Edmonton area? The approval for Kenney is 19%.
But watch this one. The Calgary area? The Calgary area, where the UCP romped in the last election, sits at 19% as well. Yikes.
The smaller cities? 25%. Northern Alberta? 24%.
It goes on. It’s painful.
Nowhere in Alberta does the man get more than 30%.
Men don’t like him. Women don’t like him. Young people don’t like him. Older people like him a little more but it’s so bad a little more is only one out of four of them.
It doesn’t seem to matter how much dough you make or much schooling you have, there is scant consolation in the arithmetic for a premier who refuses to take advice from those who might actually feel the pulse of the public better than he does.
You have to wonder what Kenney’s polls are telling him. Unless up is down and down is up on their graphs, the truth is the truth.
Or is Kenney convinced this is just a bump in the road, a big bump, but one day when COVID settles down he will emerge, leading his party to a wonderful victory?
No doubt there are the usual ring kissers and bootlickers bowing and scraping to the bossman, telling him what he wants to hear.
In the real world, disapproval of Kenney is quite the thing to see. You want strong disapproval of Kenney. That’s six out of 10 Albertans. STRONG disapproval.
You want to see more. Of course you do. Everybody wants a look at the trainwreck.
Among those who voted for Kenney’s United Conservative Party in the last election, only four in 10 back the premier’s performance.
NDP leader Rachel Notley has 3% more people approve of her than disapprove of her. That’s plus 3. 50% approve, 47% don’t.
Kenney is minus 55. Just 22% approve and 77% disapprove of him. One percentage point of those counted aren’t sure.
And how did it get this ugly?
The premier soldiering on and not even thinking he had to have a Plan B when his dream of the Best Summer Ever started turning into a nightmare and his government was missing in action.
This drove the nails deeper into his political coffin.
.
Premier Jason Kenney keeps a sharp eye on the prize as he shows off his pancake flipping skills at the annual Premier’s Stampede Breakfast in downtown Calgary on Monday, July 12, 2021.
PHOTO BY GAVIN YOUNG/POSTMEDIA
There was a seven-point bump from April to July when COVID numbers were looking good and we were told we would be open for good.
Then it all came crashing down as Kenney fiddled and fumbled in the face of the virus. Approval dropped 16 points.
And let’s be honest. Even with all the promise of Best Summer Ever, Kenney still had only the backing of 38%.
The least popular premier. The least popular handling of COVID. Take a bow.
Yes, Kenney’s United Conservative Party was a marriage of convenience to defeat the NDP.
Mission accomplished.
Now the marriage shows signs of breaking apart and Kenney clings to power trying to put this Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Kenney was never real popular. But this is one hell of a fall from whatever grace he once may have enjoyed.
Can he ever come back?
“Jason Kenney is a leader on life support and his prognosis is not good,” says ThinkHQ’s Marc Henry.
“There is no doubt COVID is the origin of much of Kenney’s troubles but, in many respects, he has been the architect of his own misfortune.”
The full steam ahead Best Summer Ever gamble, the mixed messages on COVID, the man touted as a great leader but often not leading with confidence.
It is often said Kenney admires the British war prime minister Winston Churchill.
But, on this day and in this place and in this midst of this crisis, reality is confirmed.
It is an understatement to say he is no Winston Churchill.
rbell@postmedia.com
There was a seven-point bump from April to July when COVID numbers were looking good and we were told we would be open for good.
Then it all came crashing down as Kenney fiddled and fumbled in the face of the virus. Approval dropped 16 points.
And let’s be honest. Even with all the promise of Best Summer Ever, Kenney still had only the backing of 38%.
The least popular premier. The least popular handling of COVID. Take a bow.
Yes, Kenney’s United Conservative Party was a marriage of convenience to defeat the NDP.
Mission accomplished.
Now the marriage shows signs of breaking apart and Kenney clings to power trying to put this Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Kenney was never real popular. But this is one hell of a fall from whatever grace he once may have enjoyed.
Can he ever come back?
“Jason Kenney is a leader on life support and his prognosis is not good,” says ThinkHQ’s Marc Henry.
“There is no doubt COVID is the origin of much of Kenney’s troubles but, in many respects, he has been the architect of his own misfortune.”
The full steam ahead Best Summer Ever gamble, the mixed messages on COVID, the man touted as a great leader but often not leading with confidence.
It is often said Kenney admires the British war prime minister Winston Churchill.
But, on this day and in this place and in this midst of this crisis, reality is confirmed.
It is an understatement to say he is no Winston Churchill.
rbell@postmedia.com
Author of the article: Ricky Leong
CALGARY SUN
Publishing date:Oct 05, 2021
Publishing date:Oct 05, 2021
Premier Jason Kenney speaks at the daily COVID-19 update with Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, on March 13, 2020.
PHOTO BY ED KAISER /Postmedia file
Through much of the COVID-19 pandemic, Alberta officials have touted policies said to balance the need to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus against the need to promote our overall physical and mental health.
From the end of the first wave of widespread infections, provincial politicians from Premier Jason Kenney on down have made a big deal about how Alberta has been among the freest jurisdictions in the country
They’ve continually reminded us of the United Conservative government’s light hand in its attempts to keep a lid on COVID-19, and instead pushed the need for personal responsibility.
Even Alberta’s top medical official, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, would often refer to the importance of our whole health in her public remarks when asked to justify policies that sometimes seemed insufficient given the circumstances of the time.
To a degree, I understand.
It was nice to find anything resembling normalcy after the various restrictions through the first couple of waves of COVID-19.
And this year, once we started getting vaccines into people’s arms, it was a huge relief to finally worry a little less about the potential risk of being exposed to the virus and falling ill.
But now, Alberta confronts the fourth wave of COVID-19 that’s filled our hospitals and intensive-care units in a way we’ve never experienced before — and in a way that isn’t really being experienced in many other parts of the country.
This unwelcome turn of events was completely preventable, the result of the government’s continual lack of promptness in instituting useful and meaningful public health measures to minimize the spread of the coronavirus.
This will, for some, come at the expense of our general health and well-being, despite our leaders’ claims to the contrary.
The UCP government’s conspicuous absence in August, as coronavirus infections began to mount and send people to the hospital in greater numbers, was just the latest and most acute instance of their mismanagement.
Whether because of an inflexible dedication to ideology, a need to pander to a political base, a leadership vacuum, or some combination of those things, the people in charge missed the opportunity to impose even modest measures to counteract COVID-19 and prevent the world of hurt we are in now.
By the time September rolled around, the government reinstated some public health measures but insisted it would not implement a COVID-19 vaccine passport program as an extra layer of protection for non-essential businesses.
As we all know, it eventually relented and did just that — but don’t you dare call it a vaccine passport. It’s a Restrictions Exemption Program.
And the government never took the time to prepare for it, either.
Other large provinces have had fully functional proof of vaccination programs for weeks and months as part of their successful efforts to keep COVID-19 at bay.
Meanwhile, in Alberta, we went from nothing, to easily forged vaccine certificates, to QR codes with no ability to scan them.
All the while, business owners are going through the unnecessary stress of having to keep up with a government that can’t keep up with the virus.
Parents are worried about younger kids tracking COVID-19 home from school while the government isn’t tracking COVID-19 in schools at all.
People needing medical care for what would normally be urgent issues must wait as the system makes room for people who’ve become severely ill but, ultimately, wouldn’t have become sick at all had the right government policies been in place.
And the government dares to tell us their COVID-19 decisions were to preserve our mental health and general well-being?
It’s just one more excuse to add to the heap of unbelievable justifications for the government’s inaction.
rleong@postmedia.com
Through much of the COVID-19 pandemic, Alberta officials have touted policies said to balance the need to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus against the need to promote our overall physical and mental health.
From the end of the first wave of widespread infections, provincial politicians from Premier Jason Kenney on down have made a big deal about how Alberta has been among the freest jurisdictions in the country
They’ve continually reminded us of the United Conservative government’s light hand in its attempts to keep a lid on COVID-19, and instead pushed the need for personal responsibility.
Even Alberta’s top medical official, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, would often refer to the importance of our whole health in her public remarks when asked to justify policies that sometimes seemed insufficient given the circumstances of the time.
To a degree, I understand.
It was nice to find anything resembling normalcy after the various restrictions through the first couple of waves of COVID-19.
And this year, once we started getting vaccines into people’s arms, it was a huge relief to finally worry a little less about the potential risk of being exposed to the virus and falling ill.
But now, Alberta confronts the fourth wave of COVID-19 that’s filled our hospitals and intensive-care units in a way we’ve never experienced before — and in a way that isn’t really being experienced in many other parts of the country.
This unwelcome turn of events was completely preventable, the result of the government’s continual lack of promptness in instituting useful and meaningful public health measures to minimize the spread of the coronavirus.
This will, for some, come at the expense of our general health and well-being, despite our leaders’ claims to the contrary.
The UCP government’s conspicuous absence in August, as coronavirus infections began to mount and send people to the hospital in greater numbers, was just the latest and most acute instance of their mismanagement.
Whether because of an inflexible dedication to ideology, a need to pander to a political base, a leadership vacuum, or some combination of those things, the people in charge missed the opportunity to impose even modest measures to counteract COVID-19 and prevent the world of hurt we are in now.
By the time September rolled around, the government reinstated some public health measures but insisted it would not implement a COVID-19 vaccine passport program as an extra layer of protection for non-essential businesses.
As we all know, it eventually relented and did just that — but don’t you dare call it a vaccine passport. It’s a Restrictions Exemption Program.
And the government never took the time to prepare for it, either.
Other large provinces have had fully functional proof of vaccination programs for weeks and months as part of their successful efforts to keep COVID-19 at bay.
Meanwhile, in Alberta, we went from nothing, to easily forged vaccine certificates, to QR codes with no ability to scan them.
All the while, business owners are going through the unnecessary stress of having to keep up with a government that can’t keep up with the virus.
Parents are worried about younger kids tracking COVID-19 home from school while the government isn’t tracking COVID-19 in schools at all.
People needing medical care for what would normally be urgent issues must wait as the system makes room for people who’ve become severely ill but, ultimately, wouldn’t have become sick at all had the right government policies been in place.
And the government dares to tell us their COVID-19 decisions were to preserve our mental health and general well-being?
It’s just one more excuse to add to the heap of unbelievable justifications for the government’s inaction.
rleong@postmedia.com
His decisions have led to hundreds of deaths. Who will hold him accountable?
Andrew Nikiforuk 1 Oct 2021 | TheTyee.ca
Tyee contributing editor Andrew Nikiforuk is an award-winning journalist whose books and articles focus on epidemics, the energy industry, nature and more.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney: Do his COVID-19 policies meet the test of ‘wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of other persons’? Photo via Wikimedia.
In the last two weeks, the political decisions of the Kenney government have helped kill 192 Albertans with the Delta variant.
That’s more deaths than Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Manitoba, Ontario and the Northwest Territories combined.
In just two days last week, the Kenney government contributed to the deaths of 64 citizens in Alberta’s overwhelmed hospitals.
If the pace continues, that’s the equivalent of four Humboldt bus crashes every two days.
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In the last month, the Kenney government’s laissez-faire policies saw 307 people buried compared to 24 COVID deaths last September.
For the record, this September was the third deadliest month of a pandemic in Alberta. Worse is on its way.
Since the province lifted all public health measures (everything from contract tracing to masks and school reporting), those decisions by Kenney have led to the deaths of nearly 500 people.
Alberta, along with Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan, now own COVID-19 death rates (4.5 a day) that are three times greater than the rest of the country (1.5 a day).
Let me describe for a moment what this process looks like in graphic terms.
It begins with struggling for air. As the body’s oxygen level plummets, the patient enters the ICU for ventilation. Next comes intubation, a Foley catheter and rectal tube. Then the kidneys fail as the body swells with fluids. Blood clots and skin sloughing come next. The lucky get to say goodbye to their loved ones by cell phone. The whole horrific process may take six weeks.
But deaths only capture a fraction of the scale of the disaster. Thousands of Albertans with Long COVID; thousands of surgeries cancelled; thousands of burned-out health-care workers; thousands of infected children and overflowing pediatric wards.
And the entirely preventable horror goes on and on.
There is only one reason for the province’s new Death Advantage: the choices made by Premier Jason Kenney, his cabinet and chief medical officer of health.
Kenney, a fast-talking ideologue, has followed the same “personal freedom” path played by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Last July that notorious Republican politician removed all public health measures for ideological reasons. By doing so he turned Florida’s hospital system, like Alberta’s, into a battlefield.
Since then, DeSantis ideology of slamming mask and vaccine mandates and trivializing the pandemic has killed more than 1,000 people a day.
Bestselling author Don Winslow was so appalled by Desantis’s disastrous leadership, he made a video on the public slaughter.
The video went viral. It explains that the Vietnam War killed 58,000 soldiers. But thanks to the neglect of DeSantis, COVID-19 will kill more people than that in Florida.
Alberta is not as populated as Florida, but Kenney’s decisions are having a Desantis-like impact. They may well destroy the province’s public health-care system.
Canada’s Criminal Code defines criminal negligence as anybody, who in discharging or failing to do their duties imposed by law, shows wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of other persons.
In my view, that’s what Kenney, his cabinet and chief medical officer Deena Hinshaw have repeatedly done since July 1.
On that date they withdrew all public health measures too rapidly in the province with the nation’s lowest vaccination rates as the Delta variant began to surge.
Experts warned that the province was building a fourth wave.
Kenney ignored the best evidence on Delta transmission rates; denied the vulnerable state of unvaccinated children; neglected the importance of good ventilation in schools and workplaces; and downgraded the importance of masks.
He recklessly declared the pandemic over.
His government then attacked critics of its horrendously misguided policies including public health experts such as Amir Attaran, Joe Vipond and Lorian Hardcastle.
Every time Kenney now appears before the media, he engages in a reprehensible game of manipulation. He repeatedly blames, for example, the province’s full ICU units on the unvaccinated. Yet the premier and Hinshaw had three months to address the province’s low vaccination rates in central and northern Alberta. They patently ignored that sociological and anthropological challenge.
Instead, they pretended that “personal responsibility” and “choice” was a public health measure. It isn’t, and never will be.
“In a time of crisis — war, depression, natural disaster, health pandemic — an ideology that emphasizes the individual, the market and small government does not work,” is the reality recently acknowledged by political scientist Duane Bratt of Calgary’s Mount Royal University.
Yet Hinshaw said it was time to live with the virus while the premier vanished, apparently to Europe.
As a direct and immediate consequence, Kenney’s government abetted exponential viral growth. It made inevitable a fourth wave turned tsunami.
That predictable explosion has now killed hundreds of people, exhausted health-care workers and placed Albertans with cancer and other medical conditions in harm’s way. I call that criminal negligence.
To understand what removing all the public health measures really meant last July, consider this blunt analogy. A murderous drug cartel threatens a peaceful community.
The police do their job, make arrests and protect public safety. But then along comes Kenney. He removes the police, the courts and community helpers all in one fell swoop, promising “the best summer ever.” And then the killing begins.
And yet Kenney recently compared Alberta’s woes to COVID peaks in other provinces as just normal routine stuff.
“It is important to note that we are not the only province to have gone through such a challenging period during COVID,” he said.
Rubbish. Those peaks, also the product of negligent conservative governments, occurred long before the vaccines arrived.
Now Kenney is again getting the best advice — and rejecting it. He says he won’t introduce a “circuit breaker” lockdown to slow down transmission of the virus, as recommended by the Canadian Medical Association, because 20 per cent of the population won’t follow the rules.
Sorry, Not Sorry! Jason Kenney’s COVID-19 Disaster
In the last two weeks, the political decisions of the Kenney government have helped kill 192 Albertans with the Delta variant.
That’s more deaths than Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Manitoba, Ontario and the Northwest Territories combined.
In just two days last week, the Kenney government contributed to the deaths of 64 citizens in Alberta’s overwhelmed hospitals.
If the pace continues, that’s the equivalent of four Humboldt bus crashes every two days.
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In the last month, the Kenney government’s laissez-faire policies saw 307 people buried compared to 24 COVID deaths last September.
For the record, this September was the third deadliest month of a pandemic in Alberta. Worse is on its way.
Since the province lifted all public health measures (everything from contract tracing to masks and school reporting), those decisions by Kenney have led to the deaths of nearly 500 people.
Alberta, along with Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan, now own COVID-19 death rates (4.5 a day) that are three times greater than the rest of the country (1.5 a day).
Let me describe for a moment what this process looks like in graphic terms.
It begins with struggling for air. As the body’s oxygen level plummets, the patient enters the ICU for ventilation. Next comes intubation, a Foley catheter and rectal tube. Then the kidneys fail as the body swells with fluids. Blood clots and skin sloughing come next. The lucky get to say goodbye to their loved ones by cell phone. The whole horrific process may take six weeks.
But deaths only capture a fraction of the scale of the disaster. Thousands of Albertans with Long COVID; thousands of surgeries cancelled; thousands of burned-out health-care workers; thousands of infected children and overflowing pediatric wards.
And the entirely preventable horror goes on and on.
There is only one reason for the province’s new Death Advantage: the choices made by Premier Jason Kenney, his cabinet and chief medical officer of health.
Kenney, a fast-talking ideologue, has followed the same “personal freedom” path played by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Last July that notorious Republican politician removed all public health measures for ideological reasons. By doing so he turned Florida’s hospital system, like Alberta’s, into a battlefield.
Since then, DeSantis ideology of slamming mask and vaccine mandates and trivializing the pandemic has killed more than 1,000 people a day.
Bestselling author Don Winslow was so appalled by Desantis’s disastrous leadership, he made a video on the public slaughter.
The video went viral. It explains that the Vietnam War killed 58,000 soldiers. But thanks to the neglect of DeSantis, COVID-19 will kill more people than that in Florida.
Alberta is not as populated as Florida, but Kenney’s decisions are having a Desantis-like impact. They may well destroy the province’s public health-care system.
Canada’s Criminal Code defines criminal negligence as anybody, who in discharging or failing to do their duties imposed by law, shows wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of other persons.
In my view, that’s what Kenney, his cabinet and chief medical officer Deena Hinshaw have repeatedly done since July 1.
On that date they withdrew all public health measures too rapidly in the province with the nation’s lowest vaccination rates as the Delta variant began to surge.
Experts warned that the province was building a fourth wave.
Kenney ignored the best evidence on Delta transmission rates; denied the vulnerable state of unvaccinated children; neglected the importance of good ventilation in schools and workplaces; and downgraded the importance of masks.
He recklessly declared the pandemic over.
His government then attacked critics of its horrendously misguided policies including public health experts such as Amir Attaran, Joe Vipond and Lorian Hardcastle.
Every time Kenney now appears before the media, he engages in a reprehensible game of manipulation. He repeatedly blames, for example, the province’s full ICU units on the unvaccinated. Yet the premier and Hinshaw had three months to address the province’s low vaccination rates in central and northern Alberta. They patently ignored that sociological and anthropological challenge.
Instead, they pretended that “personal responsibility” and “choice” was a public health measure. It isn’t, and never will be.
“In a time of crisis — war, depression, natural disaster, health pandemic — an ideology that emphasizes the individual, the market and small government does not work,” is the reality recently acknowledged by political scientist Duane Bratt of Calgary’s Mount Royal University.
Yet Hinshaw said it was time to live with the virus while the premier vanished, apparently to Europe.
As a direct and immediate consequence, Kenney’s government abetted exponential viral growth. It made inevitable a fourth wave turned tsunami.
That predictable explosion has now killed hundreds of people, exhausted health-care workers and placed Albertans with cancer and other medical conditions in harm’s way. I call that criminal negligence.
To understand what removing all the public health measures really meant last July, consider this blunt analogy. A murderous drug cartel threatens a peaceful community.
The police do their job, make arrests and protect public safety. But then along comes Kenney. He removes the police, the courts and community helpers all in one fell swoop, promising “the best summer ever.” And then the killing begins.
And yet Kenney recently compared Alberta’s woes to COVID peaks in other provinces as just normal routine stuff.
“It is important to note that we are not the only province to have gone through such a challenging period during COVID,” he said.
Rubbish. Those peaks, also the product of negligent conservative governments, occurred long before the vaccines arrived.
Now Kenney is again getting the best advice — and rejecting it. He says he won’t introduce a “circuit breaker” lockdown to slow down transmission of the virus, as recommended by the Canadian Medical Association, because 20 per cent of the population won’t follow the rules.
Sorry, Not Sorry! Jason Kenney’s COVID-19 Disaster
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That’s like saying we won’t have laws against homicide because a percentage of the population won’t follow them.
In normal times, a premier that has failed his people and province so spectacularly would resign. Not in today’s Alberta.
Kenney has refused to step down.
Nor does Kenney’s cowered and complicit party have the guts or courage to force the bully out.
Nor does the province’s sheepish media. They belatedly express shock at the rising toll but fail to demand Kenney pay for his actions. Their pulled punches make them accomplices. (Some notable exceptions include Markham Hislop, Robson Fletcher and Graham Thomson.)
That leaves the hard work to Albertans. They have two choices. They can serve as accomplices to the destruction of their province, or they can exercise their civic duties and daily call for the resignation of Jason Kenney.
The dying won’t stop, and the pandemic won’t end until the chaos maker goes.
That’s like saying we won’t have laws against homicide because a percentage of the population won’t follow them.
In normal times, a premier that has failed his people and province so spectacularly would resign. Not in today’s Alberta.
Kenney has refused to step down.
Nor does Kenney’s cowered and complicit party have the guts or courage to force the bully out.
Nor does the province’s sheepish media. They belatedly express shock at the rising toll but fail to demand Kenney pay for his actions. Their pulled punches make them accomplices. (Some notable exceptions include Markham Hislop, Robson Fletcher and Graham Thomson.)
That leaves the hard work to Albertans. They have two choices. They can serve as accomplices to the destruction of their province, or they can exercise their civic duties and daily call for the resignation of Jason Kenney.
The dying won’t stop, and the pandemic won’t end until the chaos maker goes.
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