lockdown

Thursday February 18, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday February 18, 2021

Doug Ford facing online backlash after visiting Hazel McCallion on her birthday

Premier Doug Ford is facing some online backlash for going against his own message of asking people to stay home on Family Day.

Ford visited former Mississauga mayor Hazel McCallion as she celebrated her 100th birthday over the weekend.

Photos of Ford’s visit appeared on social media.

One person writing on Twitter, “Ford’s never-ending hypocrisy is infuriating.”

Another tweeting, “so what does the stay at home order mean and who does it apply to?”

November 5, 2020

Most of the province remained under a stay-at-home order over the weekend with 27 health units lifting the order as of Tuesday.

The order states every person shall stay in their residence unless leaving is necessary for a permitted purpose, which includes but is not limited to:

• working or volunteering (if cannot be done from home)

• attending school

• obtaining child care

• obtaining food, beverages and personal care items

• obtaining financial, government, social or health care services

• necessary maintenance for household or business

• exercise for oneself or one’s animal

• obtaining food or necessary goods/services necessary for the health/safety of an animal

• to support or provide assistance to someone that requires it

• attending a gathering for a funeral, wedding or religious services permitted under the Reopening Act

Young Doug Ford: The Series

Toronto, Peel Region, York Region and North Bay Parry Sound are set to remain under the stay-at-home order until at least Feb. 22.

This isn’t the first time Ford has faced criticism for failing to follow his own advice.

Last April, after telling people not to visit their cottages during the first wave of the pandemic, the premier’s office confirmed that Ford went to his family cottage on Easter Sunday.

In September, Ford called on police to crack down on large gatherings, as he faced some criticism for attending an MPP’s wedding. (CityNews) 

 

Saturday February 13, 2021

February 13, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday February 13, 2021

Lovers in dangerous times: Valentine’s Day winners, losers in pandemic

When it comes to romance in the age of the coronavirus, COVID-19 hasn’t entirely clobbered Cupid.

March 28, 2020

This Sunday will be the first Valentine’s Day since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic last March.

If you’re thinking of making the time-honoured romantic gesture of sending your beloved roses or a bouquet, you will have plenty of company.

“Since COVID, the flower industry has just gone through the ceiling,” said Sarah Watkin, a veteran of the floral industry who works at Jim Anderson Flowers.

While the retail side of flower shops has dried up, the delivery facet is blooming because the floral industry was already set up for pandemic conditions, even before the arrival of the coronavirus. “The flower business has always been very close to 70 per cent on the phone anyways,” she said.

“There’s been very little pivoting for the flower industry, let me tell you.”

Jackie Bell-Jones, who owns Burke Flowers, confirms it was “not a huge shift” to adapt her operation to the new reality. The majority of her business was already not done in person.

“Business is up (on the delivery side),” she said, although wedding orders have fallen off.

Watkin said over the years, her customers have had less need to make their orders at the counter.

Plus, competitors such as drug stores that stock a few flowers ahead of Feb. 14 don’t have the same delivery infrastructure as her shop. “This year, we don’t have them stealing our thunder,” she said.

November 28, 2020

If you are in the habit of wooing your love over a romantic meal on Valentine’s Day, you’ll have to supply the ambience yourself because restaurants haven’t been able to open their dining rooms. It will be Tuesday before the gradual reopening of the economy arrives in Middlesex-London and restaurant owners find out in which colour zone the city will be placed.

Tony Elenis, head of the Ontario Restaurant Hotel and Motel Association, said Valentine’s Day — although not as important as Mother’s Day or Father’s Day for eateries — was still a big one in pre-pandemic times.

“Valentine’s Day is a busy day, absolutely,” he said. “Valentine’s is a day that restaurants are spotlighted.”

Marty Novak, marketing and communications manager for Palasad Social Bowl, said this year’s Valentine’s Day will be a “missed opportunity” for his facility that draws a lot of the first-date crowd and even prospective grooms proposing in the place’s escape rooms.

February 14, 2020

“We actually go all out for Valentine’s Day, Valentine’s Day is a fantastic day for us,” he said, but that won’t be the case this year, although staff are gearing up for the reopening a few days later.

“We would have gone completely all out for it” if restrictions had been lifted before Valentine’s Day, Novak said, with features such as live music.

Elenis points out you can still enjoy a romantic meal on Sunday — you’ll just have to have it delivered or pick it up yourself.

“It’s not even (just) the little guys. Even the big guys are hurting,” he said of the restaurant industry. (London Free Press) 

 

Wednesday January 13, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday January 13, 2021

With new stay-at-home order, Ontario admits previous COVID-19 lockdown was too weak

The Ontario government is ordering everyone in the province to stay at home except for essential reasons, while also allowing non-essential businesses to keep operating.

2020 Gallery – Ontario

For anyone struggling to reconcile this, Premier Doug Ford has a blunt message. 

“There’s no confusion. It’s very simple,” Ford said Wednesday. “Stay. Home. Stay home. If you’re questioning, ‘Should I go out,’ you got the answer: stay home.” 

And then, in case Ontario’s hundreds of thousands of francophones failed to comprehend, Ford glanced down at his notes and said: “Restez à la maison.”

Since the second wave of COVID-19 began building in Ontario in September, this is the clearest Ford has been in telling people what they must do to rein in the pandemic. 

It makes you wonder: if he’d said this a month or more ago and imposed a stay-at-home order and new state of emergency then, how different would things be now? 

November 12, 2020

The wording of the order was published Wednesday evening, more than five days after the news conference in which Ford promised that new restrictions were on the way. 

During that news conference last Friday, Ford said the latest modelling for the pandemic was so grim “you’ll fall off your chair.”

Many health experts are questioning why Ford needed that modelling to see the tsunami of COVID-19 cases hitting Ontario, threatening to fill intensive care units beyond capacity. 

The government can’t say it wasn’t warned — repeatedly — about what was coming unless tougher restrictions kicked in. 

Modelling in late November from the province’s COVID-19 science advisory table projected the province would see an average of 2,000 cases per day sometime in December. Ontario crossed that threshold Dec. 17. 

November 5, 2020

Modelling made public on Dec. 10 warned the province would surpass 300 COVID-19 patients in intensive care later in the month and approach 400 in early January. ICU occupancy passed the 300 mark just after Christmas and hit 400 on Jan. 9, according to the official daily reports by Critical Care Services Ontario.  

The real kick-in-the-teeth modelling was published on Dec. 19. It presented evidence that “soft lockdowns” were failing to slow the pandemic in many jurisdictions, including Ontario. 

The government’s own scientific advisers said by imposing what they called a “hard lockdown” immediately, Ontario could start to bend the pandemic curve within a week and prevent many thousands of new cases. 

At the same time, Ontario’s hospitals were calling for stronger lockdowns in all public health units with high rates of transmissions. 

October 3, 2020

Instead, even as the province was reporting more than 2,000 new cases of COVID-19 every day, the Ford government delayed imposing any new measures until Boxing Day. 

The advance notice of the lockdown softened the sense of urgency, undermined the government’s message that things were getting serious, and implicitly told Ontarians it was perfectly okay to go finish their Christmas shopping. Little wonder that Google data showed a sharp spike in movement by Ontarians in the pre-Christmas week.  (CBC)

 

Wednesday January 6, 2020

January 6, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday January 6, 2020

Don’t lump all politicians in with scofflaws

Reading Spectator journalist Katrina Clarke’s report surveying local politicians about their activities over Christmas, you may have been struck first by the fact that one Hamilton-area politician did indeed travel.

Veteran Conservative Flamborough-Glanbrook MP David Sweet acknowledged to his leader’s office that he travelled to the U.S., first on business to deal with a “property issue,” and then later “for leisure.” But Erin O’Toole’s office didn’t know about the “leisure” part. Sweet “resigned” from chairing — of all things — the House of Commons Ethics Committee, the leader’s office reported Monday. And he has said he will not run again in the next federal election. Sweet remains in the U.S. at this point. 

O’Toole had requested, explicitly, that caucus members not take part in international travel over the Christmas holidays, so it’s little wonder Sweet’s career as a Conservative MP was quickly declared dead in the water. It’s an ignominious way to end a 15-year-career in politics. Twitter lit up with reaction, much of it lauding Sweet for his work but even more of it bitterly critical, such as John P. Soleas, who Tweeted: “Why are you still out of the country? You should’ve been flying back yesterday! Your constituents are staying home and abiding by public health guidance. If you can’t stay in the country when it counts why not resign today and relieve yourself of this heavy burden?”

Sweet and other politicians caught up in this angry storm are learning the hard way: This is no minor bit of bad behaviour. Travelling while the rest of Canada is locked down and suffering has tapped a vein of outrage and hurt. Read the letters from Spec readers and others across the country. Read about broken-hearted families who wanted desperately to see each other but couldn’t due to the travel guidelines. Parents of adult children who always see their kids and grandkids at Christmas, but couldn’t this year. People who lost loved ones before or during the pandemic and could not be with relatives for comfort and consolation. People who are used to gathering with families who had to settle for the Zoom equivalent this holiday season.

The collective reaction is not annoyance at the display, yet again, of a double standard between “them” and the rest of us. It’s more like the reaction of people who feel they have been attacked and wounded. Is it entirely reasonable? You can argue either way, but it is what it is. Public reaction on this issue is like a force of nature, and it won’t be dismissed or managed, as so many Canadian politicians have learned.

But here is something else worth considering. For the story mentioned earlier Clarke got responses from something like 20 area politicians, local, provincial and federal. (Several others have yet to respond.) But if they’re all being honest — and they would be very foolish at this point to be anything but forthright — the rest of them spent their holidays season the same way the majority of us did.

They spent Christmas and New Year’s alone, or Zoomed with friends and family. They hosted small outdoor gatherings, masked and distanced. Some had “garage gatherings” which in our view is questionable, but for the most part these elected officials are living with the same public health guidelines we all are.

As we survive this latest pandemic outrage, it is important that we make it entirely clear we expect those elected to represent and serve us to abide by the same rules they levy upon us. And to use common sense. But we should also be careful not to lump all politicians together with those who have abused the public trust. Most are playing by the rules, and the few who are not are paying the price. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Saturday November 28, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday November 28, 2020

The COVID that stole Christmas: How the pandemic is dismantling many of our holiday traditions

All across Canada, the Grinch is making his move — not in a one-night kleptomaniacal blitz, but a piecemeal dismantling of annual Christmas traditions as COVID-19 rules restrict what many Canadians look forward to about the holiday season.

September 12, 2020

As yet, the holiday season hasn’t been completely scrapped, although food and toy drives, visits with mall Santas, and annual Christmas festivals and parades have all felt the impact of stringent pandemic rules as provinces scramble to contain the second wave of cases.

At the Agassiz Senior Community, in Agassiz, B.C., just north of Chilliwack, the care home has asked the community to donate outdoor Christmas decorations to beautify the grounds and brighten the holiday season for the residents, turning it into a “winter wonderland,” according to a memo from the home.

With visits and other activities curtailed at care homes across the country because of COVID-19, the company said doing indoor festivities wasn’t a safe option this year, but at least residents could look outdoors and see some Christmas cheer.

Ian West, the vice-president, operations, of Park Place Seniors Living, confirmed any decorations indoors would need regular cleaning, making them unfeasible. The outdoor decorations was a way to make the best of the situation, he said.

“This is another way of getting the community involved in the home and the residents’ lives,” West said.

December 8, 2018

The Calgary Firefighters Toy Association, which has been providing toys to those in need since the 1940s, has cancelled its toy drive this year, saying it was a blow to the people who work on the annual initiative. They had already found a workaround to the indoor event, and were planning on hosting a drive-thru, but opted to scrap that given the latest — and strictest — COVID-19 rules that came into effect in Alberta this week.

“It was a major emotional blow,” said Mark Hagel, the president of the association. “There was a lot of emotional investment and a lot of time investment into the event this year.” A news release says they’re still looking for ways to get gifts to children.

“We do have to take into consideration the safety of our clientele, the safety of our volunteers,” said Hagel.

Another annual event, in Edmonton, the Festival of Trees, has gone virtual, instead of the local Christmas gala it normally is, to raise money for the University Hospital Foundation.

December 9, 2017

In Toronto, the 116-year-old Santa Claus Parade, which normally draws tens of thousands of people along the parade route, will go broadcast-only this year. A two-hour special is planned for the evening of Dec. 5th, with floats, musical guests and the traditional “celebrity clowns.”

Food drives have also been forced to make changes for their busiest giving season. The Edmonton Christmas Bureau is instead giving out grocery gift cards. In Ottawa, where the mayor hosts an annual celebration to raise money for the food bank, the event has been cancelled, although the city notes that Christmas lights will still go up at city hall.

Pandemic Times

As Martyn Bennett, a professor of modern history at Nottingham Trent University writes in The Conversation, Christmas has been cancelled in the past. After the English Civil War, for example, the government tried to ban Christmas. In some places, Bennett writes, people “celebrated Christmas rowdily,” and “young men with spiked clubs patrolled the streets,”  insisting shops remain closed for the holidays.

“Taking up arms and breaking the rules weren’t just about experiencing the fun of the season. Fighting against the prohibition of Christmas was a political act,” Bennett writes. (National Post)