During the Covid years, overreach by governments and authorities caused significant harm to many Canadians. The next federal government will have to take the lead in redressing these grievances.
INSPIRATION
One of the Canadians that I admire greatly is Dr. Kulwinder Kaur. While our views are generally aligned, when they aren’t, it is because she is right. More than often, this is because whereas I see issues primarily through the prism of political strategy, her gaze is firmly focused on principles. The latest instance of this happened recently (December 31), when I saw her post on X, in which commented on the latest video from the Conservative Party of Canada. Dr. Kaur’s criticism centered on the fact that the video, in which Prime Minister Trudeau’s government was criticized for a wide range of issues, did not even mention the Covid-related lockdowns and mandates that have harmed millions of Canadians.
In response, I offered that the exclusion / omission was likely because in the election of 2021, PM Trudeau & the Liberal Party had made vaccination mandate into a central (if not THE) issue, and this strategy had helped them win a second minority mandate, so perhaps the current CPC leader Pierre Poilievre and his party were reluctant to touch the issue, lest it give leverage to their opponents.
Dr. Kaur’s reply to this was quick and clear: (a) Mr. Poilievre did support the B.C. Conservatives in the recent provincial election there & it is known that the B.C. Conservatives were opposed to vaccination mandates, and (b) in the US, president-elect Trump has appointed opponents of lockdowns / mandates (I assume that she meant Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who was among the most prominent detractors – although maybe there are others as well). Dr. Kaur’s contention – with which I agree fully – was that there must be full transparency and accountability for the injustices caused by the lockdowns / mandates.
LOOKING BACK & AHEAD
Beginning in April 2020, I wrote 31 articles on the multiple conditions that we faced on account of Covid-19. I am giving the links to all these articles, in chronological order, at the bottom of this article. However, as the issue of Covid-19 receded into the past, and particularly as I was consumed throughout 2024 by the issue of mass immigration, the points that I had advanced in my articles on Covid had become a bit dusty. Following my brief interaction with Dr. Kaur, I thought it would be fruitful for me to re-read my articles and, where necessary, provide a brief update on each aspect of the overall issue.
As we head into the next federal election (which could happen as soon as in March of this year), I believe this review will be useful, both in terms of taking stock of the current situation as well as to prepare grounds for the policy of the next federal government which, by all indications, will be headed by Mr. Poilievre.
FLIPPING HEROES
At the start of the Covid era, with everyone in a panic, complete lockdowns and no vaccine on the horizon, people in certain occupations were lauded as ‘heroes’: doctors, nurses, retail workers, first responders, garbage collectors et al. As time passed, this view changed. The doctors who opposed the lockdowns and other measures (‘Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions’, or NPI’s in official lingo) faced the wrath of their regulatory bodies and employers. On the flip side, those doctors (the overwhelming majority) who went along with the measures – whether wholeheartedly or otherwise – fell in the eyes of many in the public. This latter phenomenon was exacerbated by politicians hiding behind the mantra of “We are listening to the experts” or “We are following the science”, which yielded the neologism ‘doctatorship’.
Of particular note here is the case of nurses in British Columbia, who were fired because they did not take the Covid-19 vaccine, going from ‘hero’ to ‘villain’ at the stroke of a key. Apart from the insanity of insisting on vaccination that ceased to be current long ago, this has also exacerbated the healthcare crisis in that province. Of course, the current dispensation in Ottawa will have zero inclination to opine on the matter, but I think the next government will absolutely need to address this glaring piece of nonsense.
CULINARY SHORTCUTS
The MAIN takeaway from the Covid era is that the kind of governmental / institutional overreach that we saw must never be allowed to happen again. I don’t know what legal or political / legislative processes would get us there, but it will be imperative to start an open public debate on this (which was conspicuously suppressed for Covid). The next federal government will have a pivotal role to play in this exercise. If we fail to do this, the precedents from the Covid era will loom as a grave threat to personal liberties. The recipe book for stifling individuals’ rights needs to be consigned to the trash bin of history.
We will also have to work on our food security, especially when it comes to fresh produce, much of which is imported from the US or Mexico. In the event of a future breakdown in the (very long) supply chains, we should be better prepared via domestic production. On a side note, I don’t think I have seen a comparative analysis of the CO2 emissions of importing produce versus that of growing it in green houses in Canada. We need federal policy to prioritize more local production of fresh produce.
TORN FABRIC
At the societal level, the biggest loss of the Covid era was the loss of cohesion in Canadian society; people turned against one another and started seeing as enemies those who differed from the official line and diktats (and vice versa). For a long time, I have been talking about what I saw as the hyper-tribalism (along political lines) in Canadian society, but the divide that came about due to Covid was orders of magnitude worse.
This divide also allowed financial accountability to be thrown out the window, resulting in the waste of hundreds of millions of dollars per contract being awarded. Tribalists running interference for such plunder of people’s hard-earned money cannot augur well for Canada.
And finally, WFH (Working From Home) has led to a situation where public servants are likely to end with cushier working conditions than most workers in Canada. The perception of unfair advantage is bound to rankle with most Canadians who don’t benefit from WFH, causing lasting rifts in society.
SACRIFICIAL LAMBS
It was reported that the incidence of Covid was particularly high among ‘immigrant communities’. Considering that face-to-face interactions were happening mainly in the retail sector, this high incidence had a direct connection to our immigration policy. Subsequently, immigration was jacked up substantially, and the resulting influx of mainly unskilled migrants has caused major ruptures in our societal fabric. The official line, that all these workers were urgently needed and that getting them to Canada and working ‘helped us avoid two recessions’ is laughable; inflation-adjusted per capita GDP has declined for nearly two years. My opinion is that BOTH existing Canadians and newcomers were used as sacrificial lambs in pursuits of an ideological goal which was itself hijacked by special interest groups. Government policy in the future must be insulated against such wayward excesses.
HOLISTIC APPROACH
The defining failure of governments in the Covid era was that their policies and decisions did not benefit from a holistic approach: everything was seen and adjudged through the very narrow (one can say ‘blinkered’ if one wants to be uncharitable) view of one single virus. Naturally, this has had huge negative consequences for a lot of people, in that their overall well-being was compromised in pursuit of a narrow goal. This applies especially to children, whose schooling was continually interrupted and whose developmental phase in life was needlessly sacrificed. The obsession with reaching ‘zero Covid’ caused much harm, and this will have to be addressed by the next government.
THE WRONG KIND OF DELEGATION
The idea to limit Canadians’ movements via vaccination passports was deeply undemocratic. To make things worse, there were proposals to download the enforcement of ‘vaccination passports’ to individual businesses. The negative consequences on societal cohesion were blithely ignored. The unvaccinated were villainized, creating a class of ‘new untouchables’. In the meantime, politicians and people in positions of power (or within the orbits of power) were found to have violated the same restrictions that they wanted everyone else to obey unquestioningly. Not only that, but the goalposts of when the restrictions would be eased were getting moved every time we reached close. As if this wasn’t enough, there was much support for depriving unvaccinated people from not only their jobs but also the Employment Insurance that they had paid into and were eligible for. Repeated reintroduction of restrictions served to add to the already high stress. In Quebec, the provincial government talked about imposing extra tax on the unvaccinated, while across Canada, there was talk of denying them healthcare altogether.
As can be expected when ideas are favoured based on ideology rather than logic or workability, there was much self-contradiction on display – sometimes to hilarious effect. For example, an idea was floating around that the unvaccinated should be imprisoned, while at the same time, prisoners were supposed to be let out so as to prevent the risk of Covid infection spreading in jails.
Mainstream media was a huge letdown; instead of informing the public, most became propaganda arms of the government. For example, several journalists claimed falsely that vaccination against several diseases if mandatory for children attending public schools. Most of them played fast -and-loose with the English lexicon by adopting words like ;insurrectionists’, ‘occupying forces’ and ‘siege’ in relation to the truckers’ convoy in Ottawa. They became advocates of using the State’s force against peaceful civilians.
The invocation of the Emergencies Act (which was later found by court to have been unjustified) and the resulting ‘debanking’ of ordinary civilians was, I believe, the ultimate act of rupturing whatever remained of cohesion in Canadian society by that point. A prominent media Pundit even tried to justify it by calling the vaccination mandate a ‘minor imposition’.
LOOKING AHEAD
The next federal government will have the mother of all uphill climbs, on multiple fronts, from the economy and law & order to foreign relations and national defense. It could, therefore, be tempting to deprioritize attending to the issues that were caused (and that continue to smolder under the surface) by the policies and ideas that came about in the wake of Covid.
However, in the long-term interests of society, I think it is imperative that they do attend to these issues. People have suffered greatly, be their suffering economic / career related, or the children’s education and development, or health related (physical or mental). Of equal importance is the loss of Canadians’ trust in their governments and institutions. It will, therefore, also be in the government’s own interest to attend to the great harms caused on account of Covid-19.
List of Darshan’s articles on Covid-19:
- Our Hated Heroes, published on April 06, 2020.
- Reheated Leftovers, published on April 13, 2020.
- Conjuring Tricks, published on April 20, 2020.
- Spies Like US, published on April 27, 2020.
- Un-making The Omelette, published on May 01, 2020.
- Pre-authorized Plunder, published on August 11, 2020.
- Rules For Thee, published on October 30, 2020.
- The Class Of 2020, published on November 20, 2020.
- Missing Direction, published on January 13, 2021.
- Seeing Everything Twice, published on March 18, 2021.
- End Of The Line, published on April 05, 2021.
- Being Eaten Alive, published on April 07, 2021.
- Lost Childhoods, published on April 16, 2021.
- True Colours, published on May 12, 2021.
- Flying Horses, published on May 20, 2021.
- Searching For Zero, published on June 24, 2021.
- Heads, I win, published on July 13, 2021.
- Why Vaccine Passports Are A Bad Idea, published on July 26, 2021.
- Consequences Be Damned, published on July 27, 2021.
- Our New Untouchables, published on August 03, 2021.
- Honour Among Thieves, published on August 06, 2021.
- Goalposts On Wheels, published on August 10, 2021.
- Boosting Danger, November 28, 2021.
- The Covid Carousel, published on January 03, 2022.
- ‘Jizya’ Tax On The Unvaxxed, published on January 13, 2022.
- Unfunny Comedy, published on January 20, 2022.
- Groundhog Day, published on January 30, 2022.
- Loose Lexicon, published on February 05, 2022.
- Armchair Armies, published on February 12, 2022.
- Rotting Bananas, published on February 23, 2022.
- Medical Mandates, published on February 27, 2022.
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