Time will tell if Albertans determine Danielle Smith should be premier
By Lethbridge Herald on November 11, 2022.
Editor:
I will grant Ms. Smith, our premier-in-waiting, one thing and that is following through on promises made before and during the leadership race.
Specifically, her intention of overhauling the health care system and mandating, yes mandating, the non-wearing of masks in schools.
Given her dubious assertion that the dangers of mask wearing are “well understood” and are in fact “detrimental” to children, it is no wonder that those who actually work in the industry such as Dr. Louis Francescutti (emergency room doctor and a professor in public health), are not amused by such a blatant disregard for scientific evidence emanating from a powerful political figure.
She is not alone though – some politicians municipally, provincially and federally espouse similar views.
Her blame-game for the lockdowns and other mandates in the earlier stages of the pandemic, ignore the fact that without those admittedly uncomfortable but necessary measures, the health care system would have collapsed, largely because of overcapacity hospitalizations and even more overworked, stressed out health professionals.
Vaccines now thankfully (and hopefully) negate a return to such drastic restrictions and yet she is also striving to create a “protected class” for those choosing to remain unvaccinated (Remember her odious suggestion that such persons were the most discriminated of any group in her life time?).
Still, we are a democracy and she was elected leader but it remains to be seen whether Albertans at large will accept these extraordinary days of libertarian rhetoric over human health. We’ll find out in May 2023!
John P Nightingale
Lethbridge
11-10
The lunatics are winning and it’s mainly our fellow seniors, young Albertans aren’t bothering to vote, we are told. Seniors who have blindly supported these fake conservatives, Reformers. Smith who has a horrific track of being fired and defeated in conservative elections should never have been elected. Ignoring what she is promising to do to us is just plain stupid, but that’s what they did. We doubt doctors and nurses will stay in Alberta under this fool, why would they. B.C. has promised to provide them with the dignity and respect they so rightly deserve, so why stay in Alberta. She doesn’t care what they have been put through, or care who has died from covid, she wants to kill more. She wants to kick out the RCMP at a huge cost to taxpayers and doesn’t give a damn about how Ottawa has helped Albertan and our oil industry through this pandemic by giving us an extra $30 billion. She is still using the REFORM PARTY BLAME GAME TACTICS that Reformers are so famous for, our problem is all Trudeau’s fault when we know its’ these Reformers, starting with Ralph Klein. As the lawyers state let’s hope these fools that elected her have deep pockets, they are going to need them. Sadly they have taken all of us with them .Unlike Rachael Notley she has never once suggested that we get back to the Lougheed days of collecting proper royalties and corporate taxes, like he did. Helping the rich steal our wealth and using the peoples wealth to try to buy votes is all these Reformers care about. They don’t care about the massive debt they are creating, or the $260 billion orphan well cleanup mess they created, let the stupid Albertans pay for it, is their attitude.
Now watch these senior morons attack me for being a lot smarter than them. Lawyers are right we should be suing them, don’t you think?
Hoping our newly elected girl starts plugging tax loopholes for these under-taxed seniors. Just a crime how little they pay in taxes! Eh FC? All they do is get breaks and government handouts at every turn! If she turns the screws in on them even a full turn that should be enough to ramp-up the funding into the healthcare system.
Hoping you have your blood-pressure pills close by after reading the above lol.
You have an interesting statement here.
That’s what’s happening in Alberta right now, the populist libertarian that is our Premier right now is replacing the leadership of AHS with people proven to spread health misinformation.
Can you please provide the links to your assertion and the locations of these “moles” being placed. Thanks.
She is off and running Johnny boy! And if she does indeed keep her promises and keep the authoritarian Trudope government in their lane that could only spell good things for our province and should be a slam-dunk for her May re-election aspirations.
“protected class for those choosing to remain unvaccinated”: as though the unvaxed deserve to lose their rights? how do intelligent people get so turned around. the most primary and fundamental right is that of each to our body. when that is compromised freedom is done. protection: if you think vaccination is the answer, there they be – take ’em, and off the public purse, no less. you have that freedom. that is the protection – and, make no mistake, each vaxes for themself, to protect self. one can spin the action, but the truth is that vaxing is not about others.
how easy it was to create a privileged class with the propaganda soundbite that we vax for others. since when do the masses do much of anything for others? we pay taxes, mostly because they are taken from us at source, or because if we do not pay we face considerable issues (unless, of course, one is rich enough to work around the system). now, i am entirely in favour of evening the playing field, and i oppose the massive disparities in income and standard of living in our society. hence, my point that it is utter bs that people really are vaxing for others: you are vaxing in the hope of self preservation. if we did things for others as a primary motivation, there would be little disparity in living standards among the working. we would also take great care about sustainability, knowing that we pass on our planet to our children. hardly the case, though, is it. but, alas, so many stand tall and proud, hero-like, that they have vaxed for others. that is how easy it is to create a privileged class, and a disenfranchised class. so easy to create a superior class, and the scapegoats. history and present times are full of that crap.
as for our healthcare system, that was under siege, systematically, for decades already, mostly thanks to govts that wished to help the greediest make a bundle off illness and misfortune. the relative handful of people that had bad bouts with covid sadly exposed the incredible shortcomings in our health care systems. we are talking nths of our population that required icu care, nths. btw: the very idea of using our healthcare system to manipulate and control rights and freedoms should be shocking to any that believe in rights and freedoms.
as for the heroes that vaxed, how many among you heroes did not fly abroad, and bring back mutations to us, that further burdened our heaving health care system. how many spoke out about the insanity that was govts allowing people to fly internationally, bringing us mutations far faster than would be “normal.” and, let’s acknowledge as much, the virus gets here only because of int’l travel, and the mutations only came as quick because of int’l travel. might it have not spared our heaving health care system to have stopped int’l travel for a time? is the right to int’l travel more of a right than the right to be final arbiter over one’s body?
finally, it needs to be said, again, that we each must have every right to our body, and to our moral conscience. your rights stop at the body of the other. you do not get to force, coerce, or expect that another must take something or not take something because that is want. you do not get to suppose that someone not vaxed is contagious, and use that as a basis for forced vaxing. if someone is sick, then yes, the contagious person must isolate. moreover, the very idea of torturing animals – by the millions – so as to create drugs is disgusting; and, to be so smug and gross so as to force that toxic nastiness on others is among the low points of our society today.
Biff, I have always respected your contributions but for the most part in this case, I must disagree.
Let me say to begin that your concern about animal welfare is admirable and it is indeed a dark part of medical pharmaceutical interventions. But that is a discussion for another day.
You state that vaccination is “not about others”, but it is about the rest of society. Herd immunity is a recognized tool in controlling or preventing disease, be it animal or us humans. Eradication of smallpox was in part due to shots in arms of millions of people worldwide. Rinderpest, a fatal disease seen in Asian, African and some European cattle and buffalo,, was almost eliminated using movement restriction and other measures including widespread vaccination. Sporadic wars led to decreasing vaccinations and increasing cases, but the disease was finally eradicated in 2011.
Consider measles outbreaks. It is no surprise that on-going outbreaks occur in areas that , usually because of religious bias, frown upon vaccination. Scare mongering by people such as the now disgraced Andrew Wakefield and conspiracy theories circulating by the hundreds, contribute to yet another predictable rise in COVID cases. This and other respiratory infections are now leading to increasing hospitalization, staff shortages and school closures.
I stand by my reference to the “no mask mandates” and would also say (or ask) where is the leadership from our MOH in these times of increasing public health concerns?
You also speak of international travel and seem to forget that travel was severely restricted during the early stages especially from China. Not 100 % for sure, but if you had visited an international airport during early 2020 as I did (for domestic travel), they were like morgues. This virus being air-born would have arrived on our shores sooner or later , airport closures or not. Viruses mutate all the time, some more than others and COVID is especially good at this!
Masking was mandated , correctly so, though some consider this a symptom of government overreach, hence the birth and rise of the “freedom movement”.
The current situation demands in my view, a return to masking indoors which would help in controlling a rapidly increasing public health emergency once again . Even though vaccination uptake has now diminished and the spread of mutated viral strains is of concern, herd immunity is still quite significant – due in part to vaccine induced immunity. Extreme lock down measures are neither welcome nor necessary at this stage.
Many consider government intervention at any level to be one of dictatorship . I would argue it makes sound medical sense. Inconvenient? Sure . But the evolving virus and the lack of standardized , informed direction by our so called leaders is at the very least , contributing to an overloaded health care system and more suffering.
To repeat, where is the MOH?
As I stated at the beginning, I welcome your thoughts and respect your concerns!
john, i appreciate your intelligence and your ability to express your thoughts so very well. i do not dispute your letter or the points in your reply to my post, other than to continue to say that no one gets to decide what we each will take into our body. the state nor any third party may have that right if we are to have a free society. and, the moment we give over to exceptions to that standard is the moment that the state ultimately owns one’s body. you may be ok with that; i am not. so, while we may not agree, i will continue to take my stand for what i believe. i care about others, i may even choose to lay my body down for another should such a situation arise in my life, but i will be making that choice, not govt or some other third party.
as for herd immunity, i cannot dispute that vaccines appear to help with process. that said, those that take effective vaccines are protected, and do not need another to vaccinate in order to have their protection. i was vaccinated for a number of things as a youth, and throughout my life never was concerned about getting what another had – friends had measles…i never got them, for example. i am not much convinced that vaxes are very effective with regard to viruses that mutate, such as flu, and covid. i have never got in the way of people taking these vaxes off the public purse, though. if one feels they want them, go and get ’em. for myself, and for the others not vaxed for flu and covid, we are “at risk” to one another, and even then, hardly so. those that succumb to flu and covid are indeed but a very tiny fraction. should people that do not vax for flu and covid be permitted hospital care? that is another discussion. but then, we may also need to discuss whether people should then be permitted hospital care should they choose to eat added sugar, make poor food choices, do not exercise, do high risk activities such as rock climbing, downhill skiing, contact sports…. i have already stated in this forum, several times, sorry, that i do not at all support using the health system as a means to controlling choices. that said, perhaps it is time to revisit what it is that we can expect health care to be able to provide for us.
finally, there remains the issue of the nasty use of sentient life to create drugs and numerous too may to mention other things (“safety devices and the like”…you know, slamming primate heads about to be sure the helmet is good), including covid vaxes. we are not talking about simple observation and the study of creatures via noninterference here: we are talking about actual inflicting on sentient life the likes of pain, misery, illness, toxic substances, violent actions, death… (until, one supposes, the substances are less toxic such that humans can consume them). i do my best to uphold the universal law of noninterference. again, i will continue to stand for what i choose, and will not give away to govt or third party my divine right to my conscience and to my body. that said, i fully get that my rights stop at the body of another – and, that is why i understand that i cannot expect anyone to take or to do anything simply because i feel it benefits me.
btw – to be clear, i am not a fan of smith nor what she and the ucp seem to stand for…save for the idea that we each own our body. as they are the only party that sees this as an essential tenet of freedom, i find myself in a quandary: i am a believer in sustainability, reducing our footprint, being far more needs based than wants based, socially liberal and liberally social (that is to say little difference in living standards between working people), respect for the living planet and that we hold it in trust for future generations… the ucp do not promote those values.
curious it is that there are those of the “right” who support that we each have the right to our body, but who will also not support a woman’s right to choose entirely. that said, there are those of the “left” that support forced vaxing and/or the sanctioning of those who do not wish to covid vax, that also support a woman’s right to choose.
i appreciate you, john, as i see your good heart shine in this forum. i wish you continued growth and the very best as you journey through this life.
Thank you Biff. Take good care in your life’s journey as well.
I wish premier Smith success in making ALL Albertans lives better. I do that with every government elected both provincially and federal. There have been successes and failures along the way, hopefully the good results outnumber the bad. Premier Kenney surprised me during the covid outbreak taking the majority of advice from professionals seriously. It could have been worse, much worse. So premier Smith consider this your 6 month probation, it’s yours to rise to the challenge and prove that you should be there.
How many times have you heard that lie by these Reformers. Kenney promised you the same thing. Kicking out the RCMP will cost you a bundle and provide less protection and of course driving out doctors and nurses will put seniors lives at risk, but Smith doesn’t care. She shows no respect for those who have died of covid and tries to blame it on highly respected Dr. Deena Hinshaw for trying to stop it. In other words wants to kill off more.
Not sure we should we give Danielle Smith the benefit of doubt — she didn’t even earn the support of 50% of her party’s total membership.
Considering last nights announcements and more announcements today it may change your mind.