Capping off One Hell of a Summer
ARTIFACT: Hats off to Jason Kenney’s marketers for this baldly ironic memento.

David Beers 1 Sep 2021 | TheTyee.ca
David Beers is founding editor of The Tyee.

As one person tweeted, ‘If this was truly Alberta’s Best Summer Ever, then this is the worst hangover ever.’


The United Conservative Party of Alberta invites you to purchase the item above for $40.

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For the record, Alberta’s summer of 2021 saw...

More than 1,100 wildfires scorching the province since spring...

Plummeting employment among young men...

A brain drain of “young talent” exiting the province...

And Alberta’s job economy rejected as too retro. Consider: The province has Canada’s worst jobless rate. Yet employers scrape for workers. The Business Council of Alberta diagnosed in July “a mismatch of skills coupled with increased interest in career changes among workers.”


Kenney’s COVID Fantasies Are Leading Alberta into Disaster

READ MORE

The golden rays of summer just kept shining. An Aug. 10 report noted Alberta’s opioid overdose deaths were streaking for a new record.

And right on cue, as Premier Jason Kenney lifted health precautions, the Delta variant doffed its cap. Since June, Alberta has seen 132 deaths due to COVID-19 and now has over 1,000 cases daily.

On Tuesday, an emergency doctor warned hospitals were filling up with unvaccinated patients due to fear and misinformation.

Where was Kenney to speak life-saving truth to his citizens? No one seems to know, as he hasn’t been seen or heard from in weeks. Apparently he’s spending Alberta’s Best Summer Ever somewhere else.

Into the vacuum have stepped volunteer health pros who issue their own COVID-19 updates, tabulating the misery Kenney dumped on their unprotected heads.

Time is running out, Kenney’s party agrees. Specifically, those Best Summer Ever Alberta 2021 caps are available for a “Limited Time Only!” exhorts the UCP website.

Then again, if you do miss out, there are plenty of these still to be had. Perfect wear in Alberta, any season

.

Read more: Politics, Coronavirus

Delta variant means we need to change pandemic response tactics: expert

Sun., September 19, 2021

Canadians need to reach at least 85 per cent vaccination rates to contest with the highly contagious delta variant, explains microbiologist and germ expert Jason Tetro. (Dave Macintosh/CBC - image credit)

When the delta variant came into play in Canada in the spring, leaders didn't take sufficient notice, Jason Tetro, a microbiologist and author of The Germ Files, said. Now, they really need to start.

"I really think … you have to separate this pandemic into two stages: you've got the delta era, and the pre-delta era and now we're in the delta era," Tetro told Peter Mills on CBC's Saskatchewan Weekend.

In Saskatchewan, about one in five cases are variants of concern, the province's COVID-19 dashboard said. Of those about 10,825 have been sequenced and identified.

As of Sunday, about 30 per cent of those, or 3,298, were the delta variant, the Saskatchewan government's dashboard showed. It stopped testing for variant type on Sept. 13 to support overall COVID-19 testing.

"If we don't shift gears soon and thankfully many provinces ... are starting to do that, the last 18 months are going to look pretty mild to what we're about to go through," Tetro said.

Tetro had previously predicted a 40 per cent vaccination rate would fend off the earlier variants of the virus. But, the delta variant is much stronger and transmissible than its predecessors. He said that it transmits in a way comparable to the common cold.

"When delta showed up … we did not take that into consideration when it came to figuring out how we should be doing the reopening," Tetro said.

"When we … in Alberta, hit the 70 per cent [of people vaccinated with one dose], we all of a sudden opened up absolutely everything. And, now we realize that's probably not what we should have done."

Saskatchewan has been nearing or breaking records for cases and hospitalizations. On Sunday, there were 543 new cases in the province—the highest number yet.

The delta variant can cause more severe illness and makes up to 1,000 times more of the virus than the original COVID-19 virus, studies suggest. He expects the country will need to vaccinate 85 per cent of people to contest with this most concerning variant.

In Saskatchewan, about 72 per cent of eligible people have been fully vaccinated and 80 per cent have received at least one dose, according to CBC's vaccine tracker. When looking at the entire provincial population, including those ineligible, rates drop to 61 and 68 per cent, respectively.

In contrast, 69 per cent of all Canadians are fully vaccinated and 79 per cent of eligible Canadians are as well.

How we ought to respond

Tetro believes that government responses needs to adapt to the delta variant, something that didn't happen over the summer. In Saskatchewan, the public health order that mandated masks in public settings and limited business hours among other things, was lifted in July. Since then, cases have risen exponentially to early 2021 levels.

Government response now, he argues, should include vaccination measures, like passports, and masking—some of which has been recently announced in Saskatchewan and Alberta.

"I can be pretty confident, and remember I was already wrong once (about the virus increase), that this will probably be the last wave for this particular virus — delta variant," he said.

"But again we do need to get to that 85 per cent vaccination rate and that really is where we need to be focused."

Lockdowns, however, may not be as effective if they were to be enforced again, he said.

"You can only get away with lockdowns once or twice or maybe three times and then people start to get angry, people start to get tired … and then all of a sudden what happens is that lockdowns are just avoided," Tetro said.

Yahoo Finance Canada Videos

How Kenney's "Best Summer Ever" may have affected vaccine rates

Fri., September 17, 2021

In the face of a fourth wave that has overwhelmed the healthcare system, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney this week declared a state of public health emergency, reintroducing some of the restrictions that were lifted in the summer and unveiling a proof of vaccination system that he previously resisted due to privacy concerns. It’s a stark, 180-degree change from July, when the Premier proclaimed the province was “open for summer” and the United Conservative Party was selling hats declaring “Best Summer Ever.”

On this episode of Crisis Management, Alicja Siekierska and the Public Policy Forum’s Sean Speer discuss the COVID-19 situation in Alberta, how the province got to where it is today, and what impact the Premier’s “Best Summer Ever” plan may have had on the province’s vaccination rate.

For more exclusive content from the show, download the Crisis Management podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Jason Kenney's Best Summer Ever about to be musically roasted by Grindstone crew

Author of the article:Fish Griwkowsky
Publishing date:Nov 04, 2021 • 

Donovan Workun and Abby Vanderberghe

 as Premier Jason Kenney and Dr. Deena Hinshaw. 

PHOTO BY SUPPLIED /Postmedia

In the midst of a global pandemic with a rising Delta variant, you could almost hear the collective eyeroll scraping province-wide when Premier Jason Kenney boldly declared 2021 would be the “Best Summer Ever.”

And we all certainly, tragically witnessed how that act of questionable branding played out — Alberta reliably leading the country in COVID-19 infection stats as numbers inevitably continued an upward trend, and with it the premier’s approval rating dropping to 22 per cent in October, the lowest of all Canadian premiers.

A feeling of mass frustration and helplessness was — and clearly is — widespread. But after a series of hilarious, biting parody videos of Kenney and Dr. Deena Hinshaw’s once-frequent online updates, which culminated in a streaming Christmas special last year, a number of the brighter minds over at Grinsdtone Theatre have turned this awful backdrop into — what else — comedy theatre.

Specifically, as a musical, no less.

Starting Nov. 10, and running most nights at 7 p.m. through Nov. 21, Jason Kenney’s Hot Boy Summer the Musical will play at Campus Saint-Jean over in Bonnie Doon.

Directed by Byron Martin, who co-wrote the play with Simon Abbott, the premier is played by Donovan Workun as its hard-done-by main character. He’s backed by Abby Vanderberghe as Hinshaw, Stephanie Wolfe as Rachel Notley and Malachi Wilkins as Justin Trudeau who happens to be Notley’s boyfriend in this Kenney-centric college summer world.

“They’re all in summer semester at Alberta University,” explains Martin, “and Kenney’s just won student union president. And he promises his frat the best party ever.”

Martin assures audiences of a number of things, including the material being fresh.

“We did 90 per cent of the writing in the last six weeks — we turned this around in a crazy fast amount of time,” he explains. “People are going to come and see, basically, a classic frat movie, so it’s kind of interesting because everything we wrote had to kind of fit into that world.”

Rounding out the cast are Kathleen Sera, Mark Sinongco, Tyre Banda and Sarah Dowling playing various roles including Tyler Shandro in the ‘80s frat party song cycle about Kenney trying to throw this perfect party, despite scolding opposition from his various buzzkills including, you know, the earth-wide plague.

And, speaking of which, proof of vaccination is absolutely required to get in.

Kenney is very much the hero of the play; Notley and Trudeau the villains.

“It’s pretty heavy satire,” Martin notes. “It’s kind of like this is the play he wrote with the ‘War Room’ when he disappeared for all those weeks.”

Asked if he hopes the premier shows up, Martin laughs, “I’m kind of terrified he will. I kind of hope so. I don’t know, it depends if he has a sense of humour.

“I’m also nervous for Notley to see it, because we don’t actually see her as a villain.

“Malika is so funny as Justin Trudeau, he’s been killing me. And so, if you’re a conservative who complains about Trudeau all the time like people I know? They’re going to love it.”

Songs in the cycle include Kenney singing about a rodeo, Trudeau trying to woo Notley to Ottawa and a theatre version of former municipal affairs minister Tracy Allard singing a number called Aloha.

Tickets are $30, available at grindstonetheatre.ca, and keep an eye out for our a review in the Journal next week.

fgriwkowsky@postmedia.com

@fisheyefoto

How we got here: A timeline of Alberta’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic

By Richie Assaly

Toronto Star
Thu., Sept. 16, 2021

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has declared a state of public health emergency and announced a broad range of new measures, including the introduction of vaccine passports and far-reaching public health restrictions.

The announcement — which comes as Alberta battles a deadly fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic that has threatened to overwhelm the province’s hospitals — marks a major reversal for Kenney’s United Conservative Party, which for months had resisted further restrictions and pushed back against the idea of vaccine mandates.

All that changed on Wednesday, just hours after Alberta Health Services reported that 24 people had died from the virus in a single day. The new measures are a culmination of a tumultuous few months since Kenney declared the province “open for summer” on July 1.

Here’s a look back at how the Alberta government has dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic since its arrival in March last year.

March 17, 2020

Premier Jason Kenney declares a public state of health emergency to combat the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic. Several restrictions and social distancing rules are introduced, including a ban on organized gatherings of more than 50 people.

March 27, 2020


As the number of cases in the province surpasses 500, Kenney introduces more restrictions, limiting outdoor and indoor events to 15 people. Some non-essential businesses are closed.

April 20, 2020

As the first wave continues to grow, the Cargill meat processing plant in High River, Alta., temporarily closes after the operation is linked to more than 350 cases of COVID-19.



Spring/summer 2020

Though some restrictions are lifted following the peak of the first wave on April 30, all mass gatherings and events are called off for the remainder of the spring and summer. The Calgary Stampede is cancelled for the first time in a century.

Aug. 21, 2020

Teachers, parents and students across the province hold rallies to protest the UCP’s school re-entry plan, which does not include funding to reduce class sizes. Concerns also grow around topics such as ventilation, sanitation and staffing.


Sept. 1, 2020

Kenney says his government has accepted that COVID-19 infections in schools are inevitable and don’t warrant closing down all classrooms: “It’s time to go back to some kind of normal.”

November 2020

New restrictions, including limits on indoor and outdoor gatherings, are introduced as the second wave arrives. Grades 7 to 12 move to online learning.

December 2020

Through December, more than 1,000 Alberta schools report at least one case of the virus, including more than 300 where in-school transmission was suspected, according to the Calgary Herald.

Dec. 8, 2020

Kenney introduces strict lockdown measures to combat the rapidly growing second wave. The lockdown includes a ban on indoor and outdoor gatherings, the shuttering of non-essential businesses, and mandatory mask mandates. By mid-December, Alberta has the highest rate of active COVID-19 cases in the country.

January to March 2021

As cases slowly subside from a peak in mid-December, the Alberta government introduces a step-by-step framework to ease restrictions contingent on hospitalization rates.

April 6, 2021

Citing widespread rule-breaking and new COVID-19 variants, Kenney announces that Alberta is in a third wave of the pandemic, as the province averages 1,000 new cases each day. The government announces it will return to “Step 1” of its reopening framework, introducing new restrictions on dining, gyms and other non-essential businesses.

April 7, 2021

Fifteen UCP MLAs release a public letter criticizing new measures, despite the fact Alberta has the highest case counts and some of the loosest public health restrictions in the country.

May 4, 2021

After months of resisting the type of stay-at-home orders seen in Ontario, Kenney reverses course with a suite of new pandemic restrictions. This includes online learning for students, closing indoor dining and new limits on gatherings.

Mid-May 2021

Alberta makes national headlines as its case rate rises to one of the highest in North America. The third wave was “unrivalled in Canada, and propelled by what experts argue is a miasma of lacklustre policy, political unwillingness to alienate the province’s libertarian fringes, and dependency on a flagging oil industry that was struggling even before the pandemic,” wrote the Star’s Alex Boyd and Omar Mosleh.

May 26, 2021

The Alberta government announces a new reopening plan, replacing the “Path Forward” framework with a plan aimed to make the province “open for summer.” Tied to both vaccination rates and hospitalizations, the plan aims to drop all restrictions by July.

July 1, 2021

Alberta becomes the first Canadian jurisdiction to drop all restrictions after hitting the government’s goal of getting a first dose into 70 per cent of the eligible population. “Don’t live in fear,” Kenney told Albertans, before promising the “best summer ever.”

July 9, 2021

The Calgary Stampede returns, marking the first major event in Canada since the start of the pandemic. Kenney, who was spotted tossing pancakes at a traditional Stampede breakfast, tells reporters that Alberta will not have a vaccine passport.



July 28, 2021

Despite rising case counts and a vaccination rate that lags other parts of the country, Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw announces that by Aug. 16, masks will no longer be required in taxis or on transit in Alberta; that children won’t be required to wear masks in schools; and that there will no longer be a legally required isolation period should someone test positive for COVID-19.

Aug. 9, 2021

As concerns about the highly infectious Delta variant grow, the Alberta Medical Association section of pediatrics pens a letter to Kenney expressing grave concern over Alberta’s decision to eliminate COVID-19 testing and tracing, and its plan to end mandated isolation for positive cases.

Aug. 13, 2021

Following weeks of pressure, the Alberta government reverses course, extending remaining public health restrictions for six more weeks. “We are not going backwards. We are pausing to monitor and assess before taking a step forward,” Hinshaw said.

Late August 2021

Doctors begin to raise the alarm as Alberta’ fourth wave continues to grow. By late August, the province had about 34 per cent of the total active cases in Canada, with just 11 per cent of the country’s population.



Sept. 1, 2021

Kenney addresses Albertans for the first time since Aug. 9, after modelling from a team of independent pandemic researchers suggests a health crisis is unavoidable unless there is strong action. It is later confirmed that Kenney took a two-week vacation in Europe in late August.

Sept. 3, 2021

Kenney offers $100 gift cards to Albertans who aren’t vaccinated to try to curb the fourth wave. “For the love of God, please get vaccinated now,” Kenney told the media. “If you are unvaccinated, it is urgent that you protect yourself.”


Early September

Alberta Health Services announces it is postponing elective surgeries and outpatient procedures in an effort to create “sufficient ICU and in-patient capacity.” By Sept. 13, access to surgery decreased by up to 70 per cent in the Edmonton Zone.

Sept. 7, 2021

Twelve Alberta mayors call for Kenney to bring in provincewide COVID-19 vaccine passport rules.

Sept. 13, 2021

Hinshaw admits lifting all public health restrictions in July was the wrong move. “The expectations did not match the reality,” she said.



Hinshaw says she looked at evidence, consulted with colleagues and watched modelling in early summer — all which led her to recommend that Alberta move toward “endemic” at the outset of summer.

“Clearly, the move to endemics was too early,” she said.

Sept. 15, 2021

Kenney declares a state of public health emergency and introduces a slate of new measures, including the introduction of vaccine passports and wide-ranging public health restrictions.

Kenney defends his decision to lift restrictions during the summer, but says he is sorry for being “too enthusiastic” that the province would be open for good and for underestimating the virus.

Kenney also announces a number of new measures regarding social distancing as recommended by provincial health authorities, including a ban on any organized gatherings of more than 50 people.

Despite having promised for weeks that the province would not do so, Kenney told the news conference a vaccine passport system will be brought in for some businesses beginning on Sept. 20. These include restaurants, some events and non-essential businesses.

Eligible businesses and events that agree to require proof of vaccination or proof of a negative test will be exempt from other public health restrictions being brought in on Sept. 20.

Sept. 16, 2021

At least eight post-secondary schools in Alberta temporarily cancel in-person classes as they work to adapt to a new range of provincial COVID-19 health restrictions.

--------------

Richie Assaly is a Toronto-based digital producer for the Star. Reach him via email: rassaly@thestar.ca

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‘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.

Bell: Kenney at 22%, Alberta premier sinks in COVID quicksand

Author of the article: Rick Bell

 CALGARY SUN
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.

.

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

Leong: Alberta government offers unbelievable justification for COVID-19 inaction

Author of the article: Ricky Leong

CALGARY SUN
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

Jason Kenney’s Lethal Negligence
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

READ MORE

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.

NO MEDIA WELCOME: JASON KENNEY REAPPEARS, VIRTUALLY, ANSWERING CURATED QUESTIONS VIA FACEBOOK LIVE

ALBERTA PREMIER JASON KENNEY DURING HIS RE-EMERGENCE ON FACEBOOK YESTERDAY (PHOTO: SCREENSHOT OF FACEBOOK VIDEO).

Alberta Politics


DAVID CLIMENHAGA
POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 02, 2021, 1:49 AM

Having been spotted out for shawarma in Calgary Tuesday night, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney cautiously emerged back into the artificial light of political life yesterday.

Rather than making an actual public appearance and risking having to answer rude questions by the province’s media, uncharacteristically uncooperative after Mr. Kenney’s two-week vacation ran to 23 days during which the province drifted leaderless through the fourth wave of the pandemic, Mr. Kenney settled for an hourlong Facebook Live audience with Alberta’s digitized commoners.


Please stand by, the premier of Alberta will be with you in a moment (Photo: Jason Kenney/Facebook).

Beamed from his Calgary office, the premier shrugged, grimaced and gesticulated, offering rambling, often uninformative and occasionally incoherent responses to questions typed into their devices by supposedly random Albertans.

Clearly this is a man in love with the sound of his own voice, and untroubled by the lack of anyone else’s.

The effect of the premier’s surreality TV production was mildly disconcerting and sometimes comedic in a Monty Pythonesque manner, as when he favourably compared how his United Conservative Party Government has handled the COVID-19 pandemic to the way the Alberta NDP didn’t deal with it when it wasn’t in power.

But if it had been, Mr. Kenney explained earnestly, it would have been “just massively devastating. … Misery, and depression, mental-health crisis, addictions crisis, bankruptcies, financial collapse, would be incalculable.” Plus obesity, childhood obesity, he added moments later.

Well, nothing like that happened on his watch, did it?

Having dispensed with what the NDP didn’t do, Mr. Kenney moved along to a variety of other topics, imparting little news.

Missing premier reported sighted in Calgary – if it’s really Jason Kenney, he’s got some ’splainin’ to do! - Alberta Politics

Alberta UCP 'evasive', faking public accessibility with premier's Facebook Live: expert


BY NEWS STAFF
Posted Sep 3, 2021

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney poses for a photo as he hosts the Premier's annual Stampede breakfast in Calgary, Alta., Monday, July 12, 2021.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

CALGARY – Premier Jason Kenney’s approach to addressing the public through Facebook Live after weeks of silence may not have been the best way to address the COVID-19 situation, according to one expert.

The premier said during his live event on Wednesday that his decision to go on vacation was made in part because August is usually a quieter time for politics.

READ MORE: Premier Kenney breaks silence, answers questions on Facebook Live

But that’s not the most concerning part, says Associate Professor of Policy Studies at Mount Royal University Lori Williams.

She says it’s worrisome that other officials were not around to address the public health crisis unfolding in the province during Kenney’s absence.

“It looks evasive. It looks like they don’t want to answer questions because they don’t have the answers to provide it,” Williams said.

“It doesn’t look like the government knows how it wants to respond to this fourth wave, this crisis that Alberta faces in a worse way than any other province.”

Wiliams adds the fact that Kenney’s first public address was during a Facebook Live event–and not one where people could truly ask questions–adds to the evasive look.

“Those who watched, saw the premier choose which questions he wants to answer. He also read the question, so you heard the question as read by the premier. There were no follow-up questions,” she explained.

“That isn’t full public accessibility.”

She says this is an example of the UCP once again breaking public trust, which will create an uphill battle for the party to regain confidence.

Bell: UCP COVID hide-and-seek … and then Kenney appears

Author of the article:  Rick Bell
Publishing date:Sep 02, 2021 • 

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney speaks at the annual Premier's Stampede Breakfast in downtown Calgary on Monday, July 12, 2021. Gavin Young/Postmedia

Alberta’s Best Summer Ever is over.

Boy, is it over.

Bet nobody in the government of Premier Jason Kenney looked into their crystal ball and saw the current nastiness with a virus not behaving according to plan.

Still, you’d have to think somebody in the Kenney government surely had something significant to say about the fact the happy news, the clear sailing storyline of a couple of months ago is not turning out the way it was sold.

Somehow we would see some direction on where the Kenney government is now going.

But what do we get as the clock ticks.

Crickets.

And crickets are seen by some as cowardice, by others as confusion. By still others, the word ostrich comes to mind.

Are the Kenney people figuring, hoping, praying, crossing their fingers COVID riding the wave would turn around on its own in short order?

People talked about this state of affairs happening during summer holiday time. Hold your horses. You’ll get your answers.

Yes, politicians deserve holidays, but is no one around to mind the store especially when Albertans want some idea of what the authorities have in mind, if anything?

The numbers in hospital go up, worse than ever expected by the Kenney government experts.

The story quickly descends into farce.

Newshounds ask questions.

Where is Kenney? Where is Health Minister Tyler Shandro?

Where is Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s top public health doc?

We get reports, alleged sightings of the premier. Hide and seek.

Who is he, Jason Bourne or Jason Kenney?

As Aristotle, one of the premier’s favourite philosophers, said: Nature abhors a vacuum.

While the cat’s away others begin filling in the blanks, doing their own thing.

Edmonton city council brings back masks indoors.

On Friday, Calgary city council will start a chinwag on their next move against COVID and politicians of all political stripes take aim at the premier and his people.

When Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi and Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra are schooling the premier, you know it’s trouble.

NDP Leader Rachel Notley is said to be preparing to weigh in on the situation Thursday

The official opposition has been having a field day on this one. It’s like watching a soccer game where one team is behind because of own goals, scoring on themselves.

The rumour mill churns.

Talk of Shandro appearing Thursday. Ditto for Hinshaw. Long overdue. No notification at press time.

Minister of Health Tyler Shandro and Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw provided, from Edmonton on March 22, 2021, an update on COVID-19. PHOTO BY CHRIS SCHWARZ/GOVERNMENT OF ALBERTA

There was noise about Hinshaw heading for the exit and this is said to be not true. But what pops into my inbox at 8:05 p.m. Wednesday? The rumour again.

There is talk of a big gabfest of the Kenney government’s COVID inner circle Wednesday. This much is coming from many sources but it’s not coming from any official on the premier’s team.

A provincial wear-your-mask law is reported to be on the agenda.

So are restrictions around gatherings.

It sounds like the smart money believes those trial balloons won’t fly, at least not yet.

The status quo is the odds-on bet at the $2 window. For now.

Will the Kenney crowd pass the buck and let the cities do the heavy lifting on the mask issue, maintaining their politics pure?

Is their modelling, their government projections of where COVID could go, ready to be released?

Again there is unofficial chatter.

Could the projections show the likely scenario is somewhere between where we are now and where we were last Christmas?

Could the worst-case scenario show it could be as bad as last Christmas, the season of the lockdown?

A lockdown would finish off the Kenney government. They know that and they say they aren’t going there.

They’ve also say 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?

We’re only the people.

Jeromy Farkas is a Calgary councillor running for mayor who backed Kenney’s Open For Summer plan because it was supported by Hinshaw.

Here’s what he says Wednesday on the hide and seek game.

“It’s impossible to say listen to the doctor’s advice if her lips are sealed. If the good doctor is quiet, people will look to others.

“People are scared. The province dropped the ball and others are picking up that ball and running with it.”

Stop … hold the presses.

With little fanfare, Kenney appears live on his Facebook page taking select questions confirming he talked to Hinshaw Wednesday. He is reportedly vague. He thinks he is being accountable.

One thing is certain. Once again he is not leading the parade but following it.

Nenshi says he's 'lost any faith' in province's COVID action as council prepares to talk pandemic

'I hate that the city has to step in in areas of provincial jurisdiction, but if we have to keep people safe, we'll figure out how'

Author of the article: Madeline Smith
Publishing date:Sep 02, 2021 • 

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi was photographed outside council chambers during a break in debate on when to lift mandatory masking bylaws on Monday, June 21, 2021. PHOTO BY GAVIN YOUNG/POSTMEDIA

The province announced Thursday that 70 per cent of Albertans are now fully vaccinated, as Calgary city officials got ready to debate whether or not additional municipal measures need to be implemented to combat COVID-19.

Restoring Calgary’s mask bylaw and mandating proof of vaccination in city-owned facilities are among the issues that will be on the table at city hall when council’s emergency management committee meets Friday afternoon.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi said he’s “lost any faith in the ability of the province to do anything” about the rising fourth wave of COVID, as city council is set to weigh whether to take steps themselves.

If there’s a push for the city to take action to address the pandemic, a special meeting could quickly be called to get the measures in place.

Nenshi blasted the UCP government’s lack of action Thursday, as active COVID cases increased to nearly 13,000 province-wide, with 487 people in hospital — more than double the number of hospitalizations in Alberta less than two weeks ago.

“People are getting sick and dying, and this is not time for amateur hour. Ultimately, I hate that the city has to step in in areas of provincial jurisdiction, but if we have to keep people safe, we’ll figure out how,” he said. “I still remain hopeful that the province will step up to the plate and actually do its job.”

The province, meanwhile, issued a news release Thursday encouraging Albertans to get vaccinated with two shots.

“Vaccines take significant pressure off of our health system by reducing the severity of symptoms for the vast majority of people who are fully immunized,” Minister of Health Tyler Shandro said in the news release.

Earlier this summer on July 5, council quashed the bylaw requiring face coverings across Calgary’s public indoor spaces at a time when fewer than 1,000 active COVID cases existed across Alberta and daily case counts numbered dozens, not hundreds.

Nenshi said there has been more appetite among council members lately to restore the mandate, especially if the province doesn’t reinstitute mask rules.

Coun. Diane Colley-Urquhart wrote on Twitter this week that “hundreds and hundreds” of Calgarians have emailed her asking for the mask bylaw to return. And at least one other councillor who voted in favour of lifting the mandate two months ago signalled support for its return.

Coun. Jeff Davison said he’s been hearing “panic” from the public around COVID-19, and it’s time for council to discuss how to protect Calgarians, including potentially following Edmonton’s lead and restoring a mask bylaw.

Coun. George Chahal was among the four councillors who voted against lifting mask rules in July. At the time, he said he wanted to ensure Calgarians who were still waiting had a chance to get their first and second doses of a COVID vaccine.

“I’m hoping that we’ll have a conversation (Friday) and bring back the bylaw to ensure the health and safety of all Calgarians,” he said Thursday.

Face coverings are still currently required in any city-operated facilities, including recreation centres.

Provincial rules require masks on public transit, in taxicabs and in ride-hailing vehicles.
Vaccinations

Some, including mayoral candidate Jan Damery, have been calling for the city to impose its own city-wide proof of vaccination policy in the absence of a provincial “vaccine passport” system like ones that have been rolled out in Manitoba, Ontario, B.C and Quebec.

But Nenshi said while council has the authority to require Calgarians be immunized against COVID to access city facilities, broadening that mandate to private businesses is trickier territory. Plus, the city would have to purchase an app or create its own system for verifying vaccination status.

Another topic the committee will tackle Friday is requiring vaccination for city employees.

Officials are currently working on a system for regular, mandatory rapid tests for unvaccinated employees. But the City of Calgary hasn’t gone as far as some municipalities like Toronto, which now requires employees to be fully vaccinated or face discipline, including dismissal.

Calgary also has the option of returning to a state of local emergency. The city ended the previous state of emergency in mid-June after more than six months — by far the longest in Calgary’s history.

Nenshi said the enhanced co-ordination provided by a state of local emergency is essentially already happening, after 19 months of coping with the pandemic. Still, it’s a lever the city could choose to pull.

For now, he said regardless of any possible council decisions, he encourages Calgarians to wear masks in public spaces to help stem the spread of COVID-19.

“Whether or not there is a law, do the right thing for your own safety and the safety of those around you and wear a mask.”

Bell: Kenney's UCP, the COVID tire fire and a decision on masks

Author of the article:Rick Bell
Publishing date:Sep 03, 2021 • 

Premier Jason Kenney and Health Minister Tyler Shandro reveal the Open for Summer Plan as Alberta crosses the 70 percent first dose COVID-19 vaccine uptake on June 18, 2021. PHOTO BY SHAUGHN BUTTS /Postmedia

Get out those masks. Wash them good. Best be prepared.

Now nothing is certain with the government of Premier Jason Kenney until top public health doc Deena Hinshaw and/or Health Minister Tyler Shandro and/or the big man himself gives the official pronouncement from on high.

But it is said bringing back the provincial must-wear-a-mask-indoors law made the final cut, a.k.a. the shortlist of options for Kenney and his crew of COVID-19 decision-makers to chew over.

We will see where it lands when the dust settles.

You see, there was a long and drawn-out gabfest of United Conservative members of the legislature Thursday.

I know. I sat outside Calgary’s MacDougall Centre, the government’s southern Alberta HQ, the better part of Thursday afternoon hoping someone would come out and say something.

I went back to the keyboard empty-handed.

In person and by computer, the UCP politicians wrangled over what to do about COVID.

They jawed over it. They pushed and pulled and wrestled not only with the virus but with the politics of the situation.

We are a little more than a couple months and a universe away from Kenney’s proclamation of Best Summer Ever, when almost all restrictions were sent packing, the worst was thought to be over, far better times were ahead and the Best Autumn Ever and the Best Winter Ever would follow.

All that was missing was the Mission Accomplished sign.

For some in the Kenney ranks, sad, shocked, disheartened, gut-punched, it now feels closer to Mission Impossible.

Overall, Alberta’s COVID numbers are the worst in the country. The number of people in hospital with COVID is going up, along with the number of people in intensive care.

It is also known Alberta Health Services has told the Kenney government the capacity for hospitals to handle another wave of COVID is considerably less than we were told in the past.

It has shrunk

.

Dr. Heather Patterson was photographed outside the Foothills Hospital ER where she works on March 15, 2021. Gavin Young/Postmedia

The Red Zone, where the doo-doo hits the fan and it’s crunch time in the hospitals, is closer than previously thought.

Maybe the white flag would have to be raised over Kenney’s best-laid plans. If not a surrender, there would need to be a retreat.

It would be a bitter pill to swallow.

One wag painted Thursday’s UCP political huddle as a real tire fire, plenty of heat generated. Tire fires are hard to control, tough to extinguish and toxic.

Some people will be real steamed if we go back to masks, including individuals among the seven out of 10 eligible Albertans fully vaccinated who have done what they were told and hoped for better.

Others will speak of freedom.

No one is expecting Kenney’s government to roll out a vaccine passport as the other big provinces have done, where only the fully vaccinated can go to bars, restaurants, concerts and the like.

The fully vaccinated will wear masks like everyone else, if that’s how the ball bounces.

The final choices are reported to have got the once-over by Kenney and his crew of COVID decision-makers Thursday. But more discussion with his inner circle is expected Friday morning.

We await the final verdict on what is known as Take Out The Trash Day, the time to deliver bad news when fewer souls are paying attention, the Friday before a long weekend.

Among other things getting a serious look apparently include asking the unvaccinated to limit their socializing.

Also, putting in an earlier last call on booze service in bars and restaurants.

Those look like they’re getting a green light. But again, no confirmation from those who wield the thumbs up or down.

One trial balloon is thought to have been shot down: Paying people to get the jab.

Was $50 the amount of the payout? Was $100 considered?

Anyway, that brainwave bit the dust as of press time.

On Friday, we may also see what’s in the crystal ball for where COVID-19 could be headed in this province

.

NDP leader Rachel Notley shows off her plan for a vaccine passport at a press conference in Calgary, Alberta. PHOTO BY DAVE DEGAGNE & BRAD GIBBONS /jpg

Meanwhile at Calgary’s McMahon Stadium, where you’ll need to be fully vaccinated to see the Stamps through this football season, NDP Leader Rachel Notley backs a vaccine passport.

Notley says it is almost beyond the ability of words to describe how the Kenney government went missing as COVID ramped up.

She says Kenney is perfectly entitled to take time off but somebody should have been in charge.

The NDP leader fails to mention with this government, Kenney is the all-knowing ventriloquist.

And, as you know, when the ventriloquist is away, no dummy can speak.

rbell@postmedia.com

NEW YORK TIMES

CANADA LETTER

Alberta’s ‘Best Summer Ever’ Ends With an Overwhelmed Medical System

A surge of Covid-19 cases has forced the province to ask for military assistance in airlifting patients to hospitals across the country.

By Ian Austen
Sept. 24, 2021

Premier Jason Kenney was roundly criticized by public health experts in June when he declared victory over the coronavirus and made Alberta the first province to largely lift pandemic restrictions.

Jason Kenney, the premier of Alberta, in his office in Calgary

.Credit...Amber Bracken for The New York Times


“We finally have the upper hand on this virus and can safely open up our province,” Mr. Kenney said at a podium with a sign declaring the province was “open for summer.” Over at his United Conservative Party’s website, supporters could buy caps embroidered with the slogan: “Best Summer Ever, Alberta 2021.”

Last week, Mr. Kenney was back with a less triumphal message: the declaration of a public health emergency, while reimposing more restrictions for the second time this month, and appointing a new health minister.

As of Thursday, Alberta had 20,180 active Covid cases, nearly half of all cases in Canada, straining intensive care units at hospitals to the point that the provincial government has asked for military assistance to fly patients thousand of miles to be treated in other provinces. Since Mr. Kenney lifted restrictions on Canada Day, Covid has killed 308 people in Alberta.

“I know that we had all hoped this summer that we could put Covid behind us once and for all; that was certainly my hope,” Mr. Kenney said on Sept. 16. “It is now clear that we were wrong, and for that I apologize.”

Many members of Alberta’s medical community bluntly dismissed Mr. Kenney’s comments for coming, in their view, weeks too late to stem the crisis, and said that his new public health measures were far short of what was needed.

“We’re already at the point where our health care system has functionally collapsed,” Dr. Ilan Schwartz, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Alberta, told me on Friday. “Yet we have a society continuing as if nothing is awry.”

Those opposed to Covid-19-related public health measures protested this month at the Foothills Medical Center in Calgary.

Credit...Jeff Mcintosh/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press


Dr. Schwartz is among many in the province’s medical community who began raising the alarm during the summer, as the Delta variant combined with Alberta’s comparatively low vaccination rates prompted a rise in infections and hospital admissions. (With just 61.9 percent of Albertans fully vaccinated compared with the national rate of 69.7 percent, the province is second only to Saskatchewan for having the lowest rate of vaccine take-up.)

At the beginning of September, Alberta introduced some pandemic control measures. But Dr. Schwartz said that they were inadequate and often ineffective.

“As if an alcohol curfew of 10 p.m. could ward off the virus,” he said. Rather than keeping crowds from packing nightclubs, Dr. Schwartz added, the measure only meant that “people were just going out to party earlier.”

On the day of Mr. Kenney’s apology, his government announced a variety of renewed restrictions and rules, including those involving masks. But given the level of severity of the situation, Dr. Schwartz said that the new safety measures would not be nearly enough to prevent the health care system from being overwhelmed. Alberta, in his view, needed to introduce a “hard lockdown” where most things other than essential retail and services would be closed.

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He particularly noted, with disapproval, the plans to allow N.H.L. games to take place in front of tens of thousands of fans in Calgary and Edmonton. While fans will need proof of vaccination or a recent negative test result to enter, several news outlets have reported that Alberta’s vaccine document, like Ontario’s, can be easily edited or faked using only minimal computer skills.

“We really have no option but to go into a hard lockdown, what we’re calling a firebreak,” he said. “Basically, we have a raging forest fire — Albertans are familiar with the imagery. We’re calling for removing some of the combustible elements, in this case people, out of the way.”

Instead, Mr. Kenney’s government has mostly promised to give more resources to hospitals. However, Dr. Schwartz said that such extra resources were impossible to provide because of shortages of trained medical staff.

He did not foresee Alberta’s situation improving until the government shut the province down.

“I never would have imagined that this could happen in Canada,” Dr. Schwartz said. “We’re at such a desperate point. It’s extremely demoralizing to health care workers. It’s terrifying to patients and to individuals who are chronically ill. That the government hasn’t implemented a meaningful hard lockdown at this point, while perhaps politically unpopular, it boggles my mind.”

Where We Left Off

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, with his wife Sophie Grégoire and their children Ella-Grace and Xavier, on election night in Montreal.

Credit...Christinne Muschi/Reuters

In an election that somehow seemed both interminable and yet over in a flash, Canada now finds itself with a Liberal minority government in a Parliament that looks pretty much like the one that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had dissolved to allow a vote.

Our coverage included an analysis I wrote with Dan Bilefsky of how Canada got back to where it began. You can find The Times’s Election Day article here, and here’s our Election Day briefing.

For those of you who missed it, I offered four takeaways from the campaign in a special edition of this newsletter. And my political profile of Mr. Trudeau appeared shortly before Monday’s vote.


Trans Canada

Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei, leaving her home in Vancouver on Friday.

Credit...Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press, via Associated Press


After more than 1,000 days, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, the two Canadians jailed by China in apparent retaliation for the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the Chinese telecom executive, were on their way home Friday night after a day of developments. First Ms. Meng, the chief financial officer at Huawei, appeared virtually in an American court to settle a fraud case against her by admitting some wrongdoing. She then went to a court in Vancouver, where it was announced that the United States had dropped its extradition request related to those fraud charges, which had led to her arrest at that city’s airport in 2018. Ms. Meng left Vancouver for China at about the same time that Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor were released by the Chinese authorities and boarded a flight for Canada.


Manohla Dargis, a New York Times film critic, wrote that after attending the Toronto International Film Festival, where screenings were held in largely empty cinemas because of the pandemic, “I was reminded that a film festival isn’t simply a series of back-to-back new movies. It’s also people, joined together, and ordinarily jammed together, as one under the cinematic groove.”

A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for the past 16 years. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten.