Revenge of the anti-vax continues in Alberta

Malice: the intention or desire to do ill-will.

The day Danielle Smith was sworn in as Premier of Alberta, she claimed she would seek redress for the pandemic-era vaccine mandates of her predecessor, UCP leader and Premier Jason Kenney due to her belief that the unvaccinated are the most discriminated group in (her) lifetime.” Ms. Smith apologized upon being reminded there were people who had faced historic and continued discrimination for immutable qualities not of their own choices.

Prior to her election as party leader and Premier, Danielle Smith had maintained support from one of the more vocal minority groups in the province by lending a sympathetic ear to those who refused the “experimental” mRNA vaccine and faced work suspensions, death, or saw mean things online. In one exceptionally offensive response, Ms. Smith claimed people who sought the Covid-19 vaccine were equivalent to followers of Hitler. She was so upset by the thought she put in her own head that she was considering not observing Remembrance Day with the Canadian tradition of donning a red poppy.

It was only one of many ridiculous positions she took over the issue but that particular swipe at science, health, history, our country, military personnel, and veterans was met with near-universal condemnation by conservatives outside of her small — and disturbingly misinformed — fan base. Ms. Smith apologized, saying that the pandemic was “painful” for many and that she hoped they could all “move on”. If she meant painful to watch bad faith actors misdirect the fear and anger of others for their own benefit, we’d be on the same page.

Ms. Smith promised to remove Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, as well as revamp Alberta Health Services by taking away decision-making capabilities from trained professionals and putting more public health decisions into the hands of elected officials with zero requirements to have, obtain, or maintain the skill and knowledge required to do so. Promises she has kept with a zealous disregard for the impact to public health in the province.

That zealous disregard goes beyond simply ignoring public health, unfortunately. Her caucus members have gone out of their way to promote vaccine hesitancy, her governing party has been accused of muzzling the appointed CMOH who left his role in May before actively speaking about the measles outbreak that is running through the province. Former Health Minister Adriana LaGrange claimed her appearance on the front page of the Edmonton Journal (not even close to an area that has been seriously impacted by the outbreaks) was evidence of the UCP’s address to Albertans on the matter. Meanwhile, Alberta itself is quickly gaining on the entire number of infections in the whole of the United States.

While I don’t think parents should be able to let their kids die of preventable diseases, I’m not going to debate their decision to gamble with their own child’s life. As a new grandmother of a five-month old who wouldn’t normally be eligible for her first MMR vaccine for another seven months — but will be eligible for an early dose in one month due to the rate of current spread where they live — I’m not at all okay with them being able to gamble with my granddaughter’s. Widespread vaccination helps protect those who cannot get vaccinated; those who have allergies, are otherwise immuno-compromised, or simply not of the age to get the vaccine.

I know we’ve allowed ourselves to be conned into thinking government doesn’t do anything good by morons who don’t want to be held accountable, but if they took their jobs seriously, they’d realize that government has the obligation to protect those who cannot protect themselves, or at the very least advocate for things like vaccination that will help protect them.

Sadly, that’s not a consideration for this government, who has more sympathy for adults who don’t take their responsibilities seriously than for newborns who are forced to rely on said adults. I digress.

Sitting on their thumbs while measles runs through communities in the province is more of a symptom than a cause. The cause of this government’s rejection of science is rooted in the pandemic, during which time the Premier — who was then just a prolific opinion-spewer in search of alternative theories to medical opinion — chose to seek opinions from those who knew less, not more, than she did.

Despite some claims I’ve seen, Ms. Smith was not — during the early days of Covid — siding with anti-vaccination proponents necessarily. She accepted the skepticism around mRNA vaccines from the skeptics she purposely chose to platform on her radio show, but did claim she sought the Janssen vaccine while on a visit to the U.S.. Her advocacy for vaccine choice did have an impact as then-Premier Jason Kenney afterwards announced that the province would also offer the Janssen vaccine.

Ms. Smith’s anti-vaccine mandate stance has only hardened since she said she hoped we could all “move on”. People she listens to are still angry and they have yet to see everyone else suffer as much as they did by being asked to help reduce spread by not holding or attending large in-person gatherings, or the health system by protecting themselves from severe illness.

Vengeance, they say, is a dish best served cold.

If you want to get back at people who not only supported a vaccine that was, through more than a billion doses, proven to not be as “experimental” as you’d hoped, you can apply the conservative measure of forcing people to pay to protect their health in order to deny them the opportunity to do so. It’s precisely what Danielle Smith had her government announce late Friday afternoon: the UCP would allow Covid vaccinations to be made available to Albertans but at a cost of somewhere around $110.

They said it would cost about $49 million to supply access. That’s always going to be a fun number because it serves as a reminder that the UCP paid $70 million for garbage medicine we couldn’t use and either the middle-middleman, Sam Mraiche, or the supplier he chose, Atabay Pharmaceuticals, stiffed us for $49 million.

It’s a rounding error in the government’s $87 billion budget, to be sure, but it’s a veritable easter egg to remind us which Albertans the UCP supports as well as those it does not.

Even without that, creating a financial barrier to access Covid vaccines is their way of reminding Albertans that some people weren’t nice to the anti-vaxxers who spread misinformation and fear. It’s a way of reminding the pro-vaccine crowd that people who refused to protect themselves faced consequences that impacted their livelihoods.

It’s a way for them to exact some revenge.

I try to be charitable but Danielle Smith has been crystal clear whose interests she has in mind since she was elected. It wasn’t the public, and it wasn’t public health; it was a very small group of people who are angry their freedom was impacted by governments who had to make decisions for everyone while healthcare workers and facilities were brought to the brink of collapse again, and again, and again. They weren’t afforded a “choice”.

In return for their sacrifices, the UCP has attacked and dismantled health, replaced medical expertise with ideological loyalty, and is now moving to enact barriers to preventative care.

They say it’s folly to attribute malice when incompetence is the most likely explanation but when the provincial leader has clearly signaled her intention to support the mis and disinformed over everyone else, malice seems to be the only explanation that makes sense.

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