Women of ABpoli: Hot Flashes - Issue #13
This Week in AB
Covid - still
Few people are trying to understand the opposition to a viral free-for-all – you either get why doctors and healthcare workers are screaming for a reprieve or it doesn’t affect you personally and you’re not going to concern yourself until it does.
For those who believe there are less economic costs to allowing the healthcare system to be overrun with people who are critically ill, we’ve just done what Alberta always does – kick the problem down the road.
What do you call a doctor who tries to balance lives and livelihoods with your children’s health? Presumably, you’d call another one.
34 children have been hospitalized in September alone and cases among five to 11-year-olds have been rising the fastest throughout the month.
Strangely enough, Kenney seems to be contemplating mandatory vaccination for political staff. On Thursday, Public Service Commissioner Tim Grant, attended a press conference to announce new rules on proof of vaccination in the public service (around 125,000), will be in effect by the end of November. The deadline for AHS staff is the end of October. Neither Yiu nor Grant had numbers available but estimate that the amount of hesitancy is probably similar to that of the general population.
Cripes.
Kenney also said he’s been hearing, anecdotally of course, that people who have been doing their own research want the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. So, non-anecdotally, Kenney asked the feds to buy 20,000 doses.
But then you see that the woman formerly known as potential Premier material took a trip to Arizona to get her first dose of the J&J and it starts to make as much sense as is possible with that one.
Line 3 is finally complete
Kenney and Energy Minister Sonya Savage were bursting with joy at the news that Line 3 would be in-service as of October 1. However, “thousands of energy workers” don’t benefit when projects are completed – they become unemployed when projects are completed.
Chances are that there were very few Canadians still working on Line 3 because the majority of the pipe to be completed was in the United States (where Enbridge faced a number of delays and court battles), but I stand by my comment.
The Canadian Energy Centre: Lost in New York
No, the CEC didn’t actually go anywhere, they’ve just been flying under the radar - as all good PR firms do.
This week, the CEC purchased space in Times Square for their latest ad steal, Choose Friendly Oil (formerly a Co-Op ad with coins instead of maple leaves flowing from the pump handle). Ostensibly, the ads will encourage citizens in one of the largest cities where people don’t own cars to lobby for “friendly energy” over Russian and OPEC options.
Alberta hasn’t exactly managed the best oil sands PR in the U.S., most notably when the Government of Alberta thought it would be a good idea to send one of the monstrous mining dump trucks down for a Smithsonian exhibition in 2006.
The stunt brought Alberta a whole lot of attention from environmental interests that eventually spurred a $3 million-dollar waste of time and money that was Kenney’s Alberta Inquiry. After a year and a half, the one-person investigation into foreign-funded attacks against the energy industry failed to prove American environmental interests were to blame for shackling oil producers with around $3 billion in profits so far this year.
UCP MLA says stupid shit, apologizes for being partisan twat
“Apology from UCP MLA Shane Gerson for two incidents. #ABleg #ABpoli”
Shane Getson, Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland, decided now might be a good time to go after Dr. Verna Yiu’s salary because she’s a highly credentialed, and highly paid, CEO and President of AHS. AHS is currently running ICU at 143% normal capacity while the governing party sits on their gawd damned thumbs.
Not content with just being an ignorant fuckwit, Getson responded to a constituent’s question about Getson’s vaccination status with a question of his own: “do you have HIV?”
Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon retort amongst unvaccinated partisan twats. They honestly do not understand how these questions differ. They also don’t understand that the viruses, and how they’re transmitted, differ either. I’ve had this “conversation” before with other partisan twats and they honestly believe it’s a good comparison.
The spread of stupid is the other pandemic we need to be worried about.
Canada
September 30: National Day of Truth and Reconciliation
“100 books from Indigenous authors to spoonfeed white people on September 30”
If this tweet makes you uncomfortable, I am pleased to announce we can change that! Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action, books and more books, TRC reports, TRC on twitter, talk to your kids, a free course from the University of Alberta.
Federal court upholds tribunal decision, dismisses government appeals
The TL;DR version is that the federal government has obligations to First Nations People. They agreed to meet those obligations a long time ago. They are being held to account for not living up to their obligations. Remember, it’s not “calls to make a half-assed effort”, it’s “calls to action”.
World
New York healthcare workers found out
“Now that’s teeth 🦷🦷🦷🦷🦷 https://t.co/kW2n3wqiO1”
On Monday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced the suspension of “hundreds” of healthcare staff who had yet to be vaccinated as per the mandatory vaccination order. Hochul made the announcement on September 27, the deadline given for employees to have at least one dose.
Laundry List: GoA press releases
Spin Cycle
After refusing to ask for federal assistance with Alberta’s healthcare crisis until the election was over, then asking, then turning down offers of help, the UCP decided to balance lives and livelihoods by accepting enough help to staff around six ICU beds.
Alberta Public Service will have a proof of vaccination policy in place by the end of November. Kenney says they’re working to get MLA consensus on a policy for political staff as well but no one is counting any chickens just yet… oh wait…
September 30 is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, and a federal holiday, everywhere but Alberta.
Public-Private Partnerships save money, except when they cost more, but we're becoming quite accustomed to Kenney giving our money to job creators.
Apparently, we now get read outs of lame conversations between Kenney and Trudeau. The feds do this as well, so, read both, read neither - it’s simply an exercise in political spin.
The new Health Minister, Jason Copping, is reaping the mixed messaging the Premier and his band of numpties have been sowing. In terms of content and links to actual evidence, it’s a well-done response to anti-vax fearmongering that no one who needs to will actually read.
Hospitals have been added to the UCP’s Critical Infrastructure Act because when they first wrote it, they were only worried about people protesting oil. To be fair, who could have possibly imagined that people would be stupid enough to protest hospitals for – checks notes – trying to save Covid patients?
The Alberta government has spent $16.3 million on “advertising, research and other communication costs for COVID-19 and vaccine promotion” since the pandemic hit. And all it took to get us to a fourth wave was a paying for this governing party to undermine all of it every chance they got.
Rinse and Repeat
The final LottoVaxx draw has been made.
Delicates
A walk to raise awareness of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples will occur on Highways 2 and 3 from October 1-4.
Alberta has a new Artist in Residence, Zach Polis from St. Albert.
Nursing degrees will now be offered in Wainwright.
Last Load
September 26 is Police and Peace Officers’ Memorial Day.
September 28 is Right to Know Day. By the way, I never did get that FOIP information I paid for in 2020.
September 29 is Concussion Awareness Day.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Child Abuse Prevention Month, Dyslexia Awareness Month, Islamic Heritage Month, Women’s History Month (wonder if they’ll thank men for that too?), and Disability Employment Awareness Month
October 1 is the Day of Older Persons in Alberta.
cover photo: @abpressrelease