Women of ABpoli: Hot Flashes - Issue #7
This week in AB
Back-to-school supplies are on the shelves but not all parents are excited to say "Bye, Felicia"
You may recall that Alberta's Chief Medical Officer of Health recommended we stop testing close contacts, tracing outside of care homes, and requiring isolation for positive cases as of August 16, 2021.
As Dr. Hinshaw put it, “vaccines work”.
Yes, a majority of Albertans clearly have faith in vaccines but what about children under 12 who cannot yet get vaccinated?
I am not a medical professional, and I do not work in the healthcare industry, but I am a super fan-girl of logic.
We have no idea how our kids can be affected by the Delta variant, and we have no idea of the potential long-term issues for them if they are infected. That’s a fact.
Yet, the Alberta government wants us to believe that they have all the evidence they need to tell us our kids will be fine with no precautions whatsoever.
I don’t think I know more than Dr. Deena Hinshaw when it comes to public health, but I do know that if no one else knows for sure what the Delta will do to our kids, I don’t trust for a second that our government has figured it out.
Speaking of Covid…
Despite repeated assurances from Premier Jason Kenney (not a doctor) about Dr. Hinshaw’s plan to stop collecting Covid data on August 16th, Dr. Hinshaw walked back that plan – a little.
On Friday, Dr. Hinshaw and Education Minister Adriana LaGrange held a press conference to announce that some precautions, like testing, tracing, and mandatory isolation for positive cases, will remain in place until September 27.
While media, doctors and researchers in the province faced more than a month's worth of denigration from the Premier and his band of “issues managers”, Hinshaw’s “plan” was repeatedly panned by the Canadian Pediatric Society, the federal Health Minister, Alberta pediatricians, the Alberta College of Family Physicians, and the Alberta Medical Association.
School boards, however, are on their own.
The guidance released Friday tells a story of schools making decisions based on not actually knowing.
Staff, students, and parents can voluntarily tell the school if they or their child test positive but it is not mandatory. AHS will no longer update schools of positive cases but schools are encouraged to let AHS know if absenteeism reaches 10 per cent or higher for reasons of respiratory illness that literally no one has to share with them.
It truly boggles the mind.
Speaking of vaccinations…
I’ve been saying for a while that the last word on vaccine passports lies with businesses, regardless of what our Premier says.
The Calgary Chamber of Commerce is asking the government to implement vaccine passports. Manitoba is doing this (BLUE BOMBERS – if you get it, you get it), and so is Quebec.
The reality is that businesses have little recourse if the government doesn’t get on board, with, let’s say, requiring employees to be vaccinated.
Where have all the oil and gas rallies gone?
This is a question I ask myself, once in a while, when I think about how Alberta went from rallies supporting oil and gas workers almost every other weekend with UCP MLAs and candidates on the stage, to absolute crickets – even though oil and gas jobs didn’t magically appear on April 17th, 2019.
I think about it when Calgary has a higher unemployment rate today – 9.2 per cent in June 2021 – than at any time during the NDP’s term, and oil and gas companies are pumping out more product than ever.
It’s just something I think about, every so often, and I wonder who those rallies were really trying to help.
Partisanship for the loss
Confession: I have donated to the NDP and the Alberta Party. I have a membership in almost every party and when I attend their policy conventions as a paying member, I vote as I would like to see the party act on my behalf. I sat on the Alberta Party board for five months, worked a phone bank, and I volunteered to door-knock with Derek Fildebrandt. I’ve attended fundraisers for almost every party, and I’ve rubbed shoulders with UCP insiders and MLAs.
I would like to add that I think partisanship sucks.
So, when Rick Bell went after Jeff Davison, a Calgary mayoral candidate, for attending the campaign launch of a friend - George Chahal, who is running for the federal Liberal Party in Calgary-Skyview – it reeked of the purity test that is sacred to partisans, baffling to average voters, and ludicrous to people who support candidates for a variety of other reasons.
The responses Bell received from the conservative suspects at City Hall, however, do shed light on a particular issue in general – they don’t believe that a person can remain true to themselves and represent a political party. Insightful, indeed.
Canada
A federal election call is still coming
We’ve known since the spring that a federal election would be called this year and it sounds like we’re finally going to hear the words from the government itself… soon-ish.
I can’t believe it’s not misogyny
Out in Saskatchabush, a 12-year-old girl was banned from playing hockey on a co-ed team because “hockey association volunteers feared ‘compromising situation’ among fully-dressed boys and girls” (since the female player was changing in a broom closet or wherever was handy before joining the boys in the “main” dressing room).
To me, this boils down to actually having to enforce an expectation that players would not be ignorant shits to one another, on the ice, in the dressing room, or on social media, as outlined in the code of conduct.
Adults – actual effing adults – took a teachable moment with impressionable kids and said “we don’t want to have to deal with a potential problem, so take the girl out”.
Absolute garbage from parents and supposed role models who claim that the most important goal of the game is “having fun”.
World
Anti-vax nurse may have injected over 8,000 people in Germany with saline instead of a vaccine
“Holy F! ⬇️ https://t.co/524ejG4T2F”
This story is utterly wild and makes a very strong case against prioritizing “conscience rights” in the medical industry.
Laundry List: GoA Press Releases
Indigenous Relations Minister Rick Wilson issued a statement on the International Day of Indigenous Peoples. If you, like me, first saw it here and nowhere else, you understand why that’s a problem.
The province is spending around $26 million to create work to upgrade infrastructure for Calgary courts, remand centre, and corrections centres. Approximately $10 million will come from the federal government, for a total of $36 million.
Albertans in need of affordable housing can ask their friends and family who can afford $120/mo for internet (or $140/mo for a smart phone with data) to search for openings online.
LaCrete will be getting a new maternity and community health centre that may or may not have staff.
Finance Minister Travis Toews says nursing staff must bear the brunt of his government’s poor spending decisions. Vivian Krause, leading UCP expert on pet project spending, can’t get the results needed to support the UCP lines.
President Biden asks OPEC to increase production to bring oil prices back down, Minister Savage blames Biden for not buying more Alberta oil. Biden doesn’t notice, and neither does OPEC, for that matter. Old people yell at clouds.
Alberta government admits it had no evidence to back up a repeal of testing tracing and isolating.
The province gets to take credit for creating infrastructure jobs in municipalities since they cut municipal capital funding in Budget 2021 and are the only ones who still have money to spend at the local level.
Rinse and Repeat
As announced last week, the Alberta summer games will be held in Okotoks in 2023; this time with more quotes.
AHS will offer in-school clinics for COVID-19 vaccinations as they offer in-school vaccinations every year for convenience and will still require parental consent, as they do every year.
Finance Minister Travis Toews asks for “good faith” negotiations in a process his government has been absolutely clear will reject anything but cuts.
Delicates
Former Assistant Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Lisa Sadownik named Deputy Minister of Seniors and Housing; referendum questions re: equalization and daylight savings time set in legislation.
Lehigh Hanson Materials Ltd, a subsidiary of German-owned parent company Heidelberg Cement AG, receives exemptions from Foreign Ownership of Land regulations for the purpose of mining; and ‘tis the season of board appointments, apparently: Minister of Advanced Education Demetrios Nickolaides appoints Adrian Stimson, Lana Daniels, and Mike Medelman, reappoints Kelly Philipp and Karen Reid; Minister of Health Tyler Shandro appoints Rick Pankiw, Jason West, Elizabeth Goldie, Kenton Dueck, Alexandra Zabal, Scarlett Crockatt, and Melanie Beckevich, and; Finance Minister Travis Toews appoint Ross Prokopy.
Last Load
August 10th marks the beginning of Islamic New Year.
Alberta MLAs to join Pacific NorthWest Economic Region summit with U.S. legislators in support of $12 billion in bilateral trade, $10 billion in exports.