No Shock that Jason Kenney Lied to Albertans and is Mandating Masks Again

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, Health Minister Tyler Shandro, and Chief Medical Officer just a few weeks ago were absolutely right when they explained that we need to learn to live with COVID-19 and that the goal some tout to have zero COVID is unrealistic. Regardless, in politics, people rarely stay on the right side of an issue for long, so Kenney has dropped Albertans back into a mask-mandate and the Alberta government is now offering unvaccinated people $100 to get vaccinated.

Kenney claimed that he had to mandate masks again (masks people reuse for days at a time and put in their pockets) and start offering to pay people who didn’t feel the need to get the vaccine to get vaccinated because Alberta’s hospitals are being overwhelmed.

In particular it has been claimed that 95 percent of Alberta’s ICU beds are currently filled which seems rather odd since only 118 COVID-19 patients are in ICU in a province of 4.3 million people.

The National Telegraph was told by a former AHS regional director that the ICU capacity figure is nonsense and that it only shows how many ICU beds were arbitrarily earmarked for COVID-19 patients and that regular acute care beds can be easily converted into ICU beds. 

Kenney himself admitted back in April of 2020 that AHS could expand ICU capacity to over 1,000+ beds in the province, which raises the question of why that was not already done at least partially a long time ago? 

If Alberta or any province in Canada is going to do the right thing and learn to live with COVID a good first step would be to actually have the proper resources available to deal with the sudden and temporary spikes of infections. Kenney would seemingly rather claim we are in a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” and sidestep the issue of bureaucratic incompetence that keeps standing flat-footed when cases begin to rise.

The reinstatement of the mask mandate has nothing to do with solving the ICU capacity problem or getting people vaccinated, that’s really just more healthcare theatre to make Kenney look as if he is doing something.

COVID-19 is no longer the problem. American states like Florida and Texas have proved that you can easily keep a healthcare system afloat while having no public health restrictions in place because their healthcare providers actually planned ahead.

Kenney lied to Albertans about being able to live with COVID, while for more than a year he failed to increase Alberta’s ICU capacity while destroying Alberta’s small business community through his interminable lockdowns. Those who are having their surgeries and medical treatments postponed have Kenney to blame, not the unvaccinated.

We can and should learn to live with COVID but it is difficult when politicians like Kenney would rather use it to score political points and scapegoat unvaccinated Albertans for his failures to adapt the medical system.

Jason Kenney seems poised to throw back the province to Rachel Notely and the NDP next election if some political alternative doesn’t become viable fast, or if Kenney isn’t replaced with a stronger Conservative.