Doug Ford’s Power-Hungry Government Cannot Be Trusted to Let Go

The big news in Ontario this week, not to anyone’s surprise, is that Doug Ford has announced yet another extension to the stay-at-home order. The order was set to expire on May 20th just before Victoria Day long weekend, which was said to be a factor in the making of this decision, along with the fact that the stay-at-home order simply hasn’t had the effect our officials are looking for.

Canada’s cases currently stand at around 2500 cases per day, whereas they sat at around 3000 cases per day in April, prior to the decision by the Ford government to bring in the stay-at-home orders. The lockdown has now been extended by 2 weeks to end on June 2nd, but how much faith we can have in this new end date? One need only look back at this past year.

In March of 2020, when the government first introduced its official restrictions in response to Covid-19, we were told 2 weeks to flatten the curve and make sure the hospitals are prepared and don’t get overwhelmed. Already, at that time, there were those Canadians shouting at the top of their lungs that this was simply a push toward totalitarianism; a group that has only grown with each extension.

Most Canadians simply laughed this off, our media branded such people “conspiracy theorists”, or “covidiots”; suggesting that people who could even think of such a thing happening in Canada are nothing but crackpots with their hair on fire. In some instances even branding those who show so-called “anti-government” sentiment as “extremists” and “white nationalists”. 

The fear-mongering from our public officials, as well as the media, surrounding this virus and those who oppose the government crackdown on its citizens as a response, has permeated the populace and created a breed of hateful, scared, and resentful Canadians who turn on each other; only leaving the government with more power and all the more reason and support to abuse such powers.

Meanwhile, other nations are starting to open up, with some even removing masks and social distancing mandates, and have significantly better metrics than we do. For example, Florida is currently open for business having lifted all restrictions. Despite all the doom and gloom from those saying the cases would spike massively, this did not happen. In fact states such as Florida and Texas have seen a decline in cases since reopening.

Florida currently sits at a 7-day average of about 3200 cases per day, whereas Texas sees only around 2200, giving them a per-capita rate of 14.8 and 7.5 cases, per 100 thousand, respectively. Meanwhile, in Canada, our restrictions are currently some of the tightest in the world yet Ontario sees a rate of 17.2, and Alberta is sitting at 34.3, cases per 100 thousand; far higher than that of our American counterparts. This is not to mention that the population density, one of the main factors in the transmission of the virus, is much higher in the United States than it is in Canada.

Many are now stating that the United States is in a better position to open up due to far more widespread vaccination of the population, as well as immunity for the greater proportion of the population that did catch the virus during the pandemic. It appears that, as many experts warned us from the start, lockdowns do not really impact the percentage of the population that will contract the virus, but rather simply controls the flow of such, allowing for the medical system to keep up.

The issue is that Canada’s medical system was already stretched thin prior to the pandemic and that our leaders took no steps whatsoever to mitigate this issue as the pandemic raged across the nation. Even refusing to do so, stating cost as the reason, despite the large economic and social toll that the pandemic has had on Canadians.

It is clear that what we are doing isn’t working, and that from the beginning the plan should have been entirely different. Recently the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) has changed their recommendations to mention that the major mode of transmission from Covid-19 is not in fact from the larger respiratory droplets in the air, or on surfaces, but that the disease is in fact aerosolized. The information which was clear to many much earlier, from the way the virus seemed to spread, even being previously acknowledged by the CDC in 2020 already. 

This means that the government should have allowed, even encouraged, outdoor activities, meetings, and get-togethers while focusing more on the proper ventilation of indoor spaces; rather than simply focusing on masks and distancing. Another thing that should have been a greater priority is the fit of the masks and the way in which the air may be filtered through.

Doug Ford, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to recognize this, still focusing on outdoor spaces and gatherings. Due to this, the Ford government has even drawn criticism from its own health experts. Dr. Isaac Bogoch, who sits on the province’s vaccine distribution task force, made the following statement regarding the newly introduced measures, “Outdoor activities are vital for mental and physical health, especially with stay-at-home orders… [The] Science is clear: Outdoor COVID transmission is extremely rare.”

Ford has mentioned that he is happy to see the case count once again come under control, but that Ontarians will need to do better and keep it up if they want their most basic freedoms back. The question now is, what reason do any of us have to trust this man?