Doug Ford and the Children

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Ontario Premier Doug Ford, 9:00 a.m. Monday November 7, 2022:

“As a gesture of good faith our government is willing to rescind the legislation, are willing to rescind section 33, but only if CUPE agrees to show a similar gesture of good faith by stopping their strike, and letting our kids back into their classrooms.”

 

The following Q & A is a satire of the press conference that followed that statement ….

Q: Premier Ford, have you changed your position on your use of the notwithstanding clause because of the threat of a general strike across Ontario?

A: No, no, not at all. The only thing I ever wanted was to keep kids in the classroom so that their parents could get back to work to Make Ontario Great Again. Those poor kids, their little psyches scarred from staying at home, their marks falling, my popularity plummeting. Look it’s all about caring for the little children, getting them back in the classroom. (soft weeping sound)  I do it all for the kids.

Q: Premier Ford, is it true that you were receiving pressure from business and labour leaders across the country that your use of the notwithstanding clause was a really, really bad idea?

A: No, no, not at all. The only thing I ever wanted was to keep kids in the classroom so that their parents could get back to work to Make Ontario Great Again. Those poor kids, their little psyches scarred from staying at home, their marks falling, my popularity plummeting. Look it’s all about caring for the little children, getting them back in the classroom. (soft weeping sound)  I do it all for the kids.

Q: Premier Ford, has pressure from this political protest, coupled with the public outcry over your broken promise to never open the Greenbelt to developers, placed your leadership in jeopardy?

A: No, no, not at all. All these little children I love will need homes one day once they graduate, or drop out like I did. The only thing I ever wanted was to keep kids in the classroom so that their parents could get back to work to Make Ontario Great Again. These kids will get jobs and buy homes in the former Greenbelt one day. Look it’s all about caring for the little children, getting them back in the classroom. (soft weeping sound)  I do it all for the kids.

Q: Premier Ford, are the developers who want to build homes in the former Greenbelt under pressure from their labour unions to get you to reverse your stance on the ill-advised use of the notwithstanding clause.

A: No, no,not at all. The construction guys and gals love me. The only thing I ever wanted was to keep kids in the classroom so that their parents could get back to work to Make Ontario Great Again. Those poor kids, their little psyches scarred from staying at home, their marks falling, my popularity plummeting. Look it’s all about caring for the little children, getting them back in the classroom. (soft weeping sound)  I do it all for the kids.

Q: Premier Ford, some have criticized the content and tone of your speech this morning as insincere. What is your comment on that observation.

A: Hey, it worked during the last Ontario election, We’ll just keep numbing and dumbing Ontario down until we win another majority. My marketing team can take toxic manure and spin it into sentimental mush faster than you can drain a wetland. Once we shift all the blame for this disruption to CUPE, the public will be back on our side. Those poor children, those suffering parents. After this great speech, everyone’s gonna believe that I do it all for the kids. Really.

***

UPDATE: Within hours of the Premier’s announcement, CUPE announced that their workers will be back in the classrooms on Tuesday. Now let’s see how long “as soon as possible’ is for the Ford government to repeal Bill 28 in its entirety, as promised.

Skid Crease, Caledon

 

Prolonging the Pandemic

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We are nearing the end of the second year of the Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. COVID-19 is the disease that is caused by this coronavirus. First identified in December of 2019, it has swept around the globe, leaving death and disruption in its wake.

In order to protect our communities from overwhelming COVID-19 infections we initiated protocols for individual isolation and quarantine; we asked our populations to wear masks, stay 2m apart, and wash up with hand sanitizer before and after we went out for groceries;  as communities we had slowdowns, partial shut-downs and total lockdowns. We waited for the CDC and Health Canada to issue emergency approval for newly developed vaccines.

Our national and local Medical Officers of Health, and politicians, kept us apprised of the necessary health measures and coronavirus case counts. The choice was simple: follow the guidelines and get the pandemic under control, or don’t and suffer the consequences. Politicians played Russian roulette with our public schools as stressed parents coped with online learning at home. Businesses began to shut down and frustrated owners and staff put pressure on their local elected officials to get things re-opened. So we rushed into “shopping mall therapy” as soon as infections hit a low point.

Every time we get a drop in infections we “open up the economy” again. In Doug Ford’s Ontario that means strip clubs, bars, restaurants, and packed sports stadiums. We do it “for the people” and inevitably see a spike in infections shortly thereafter. We call them “waves” but they are really just indicators of our collective consumptive stupidity.

Medical science told us that if we stayed masked, distanced, hand-washed and fully vaccinated that we would have a chance to hold this pandemic at bay. But we just couldn’t wait to get “back to normal” and now there is no normal. Once again we re-opened and our case count is rising. Thanks to the number of people now vaccinated this bump is not as severe as April of this year when we peaked at 4500 cases.

The rise to 711 cases on Thursday, November 18, 2021 pushed Ontario’s seven day average to 600 cases and talk of modifying the re-opening guidelines bubbled up from the Science Advisory Table cauldron once again. Dear Doug and friends, please try to get it right for once. 10,000 Ontarians have already died from this coronavirus, including 4,000 from Long Term Care facilities. You are acting like immediate gratification “one marshmallow” children. In 1972, Stanford University psychology professor Walter Mischel conducted a study on delayed gratification. In this study, a child was offered a choice between one small but immediate reward (either a marshmallow or a pretzel stick), or two small rewards if they waited for a period of time. During this time, the researcher left the room for about 15 minutes and then returned.

Some of the children had immediately gone for the one small reward, but a smaller group had waited to double their pleasure. In follow-up studies, the researchers found that the children who were able to wait longer for the preferred rewards tended to have better life outcomes in everything from educational attainment to healthy body mass index. Our politicians and their advisers are playing to the immediate gratification crew.  I would prefer to wait until we have this pandemic under control before asking for my second small reward. I suspect most Ontarians who prefer a healthy life over death from COVID-19 would want the same.

The way I see it.

***

Skid Crease, Caledon

UPDATE Friday, November 19,2021 – Ontario’s COVID-19 case count 793 : “Today’s case count comes after officials logged 711 new cases on Thursday, 512 new cases on Wednesday and 481 new cases on Tuesday. Ontario’s rolling seven-day average now stands at 625, up from 537 at this point last week.”  You do the graph.

Reported by Abby Neufeld, multi platform writer for CTV News Toronto

@abbyjneufeld

 

Shocking and Confusing

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Yes,  “shocking and confusing” was how Ontario’s reopening plan was described by Ontario Hospital Association CEO Anthony Dale on February 12, 2021. He added that the move is a “huge gamble” given the scientific modelling presented the day before that predicted a “third wave” of infections driven by the new virus variants .

The plan was cleverly released by Premier Doug Ford and Doctor David Williams, Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer, on the Friday before the long Family Day weekend. Both Ford and Williams were harshly criticized by Ontario’s Auditor General Bonnie Lysak in her AG’s report last year. That report stated that Dr. David Williams “did not fully exercise his powers under the Health Protections and Promotions Act, did not issue directives to local medical officers of health to ensure a consistent response, and did not issue directives on their behalf to Ontarians.”

In short, the doctor who was scheduled to retire from his post as Interim Medical Officer of Health last February simply “did not lead” the province’s response to COVID-19. Yet Premier Ford keeps him on the government’s so-called “Science Advisory Board” where today he is backing Ford’s “shocking and confusing” reopening plan. It begins to appear that Dr. Williams is a bit of a “Yes Man” for Ford’s Ontario is Open for Business mantra.

Follow the money, Ontarians. The “Science Advisory Board” is a front that looks like Pandemic Health Protection for the “good people of Ontario”  but acts like Ford’s own Chamber of Commerce. Shocking and confusing, and dangerous to our health.

The way I see it.

***

Skid Crease, Caledon

 

*image from princegeorgecitizen.com