Political and Medical Crisis in our Borders
On the roller coaster of emotion and despair generated by nearly two years of pandemic response trial-and-error, it can prove to be incredibly challenging and downright agonizing to find any source of optimism to cling to.
Daily anecdotes of citizens and first responders conducting drive-by salutes to healthcare workers at the onset of the pandemic have been replaced with the images of protesters on in front of hospitals in opposition to vaccination and public health measures. The memories of the Blackfeet Tribe in Montana sharing vaccines with their friends north of the border have seemingly been forgotten as neighbours clash over their views on the Restrictions Exemption Program. In short, it seems many of us have forgotten what it means to be Albertan – to support one another in our time of need.
While the 20’s have produced nothing normal to date, perhaps one of the strangest things for this writer is drawing on inspiration from a quote uttered by former Russian President, Boris Yeltsin while writing about Alberta in the 21st century. However, perhaps his words to his countrymen on the subject of a banking collapse can actually resonate more deeply today than one might expect.
“I understand that it’s hard for everyone, but one cannot give in to emotions...We’ll have to draw lessons from the current crisis and now we’ll have to work on overcoming it.”
Understandably so, the prefrontal cortex seems to have taken over when it comes to analyzing how best to respond to a pandemic that, one day, will finally come to an end – for real. That is to say, we have allowed our emotions to control how we receive pandemic information and how some have made pandemic-related decisions in the past year. However, we must continue to learn from the lessons the plight of our time has delivered and use that knowledge to get us closer to ending this one-in-a-lifetime crisis.
The first wave of this pandemic was out of the hands of governments across the world. The second wave taught leaders that a small spark of COVID-19 transmission can result in an even more substantial wave of infection if not managed properly. The third wave was a lesson in the danger of coronavirus variants and how much more contagious and fatal this disease can become. The severity of this current fourth wave was entirely predictable and mitigatable. We are in the position we are today because we failed to learn the lessons of waves-past, instead choosing to push forward a promise of the best summer ever.
In fact, some in government promised that Alberta would be open for good, mistakenly relying on the data of Great Britain in deciding to lift restrictions as they experienced lessened health system strain despite case numbers rising. In fairness to this government, there was reason for optimism this summer and the decision to ease restrictions was not entirely unreasonable. However, the issue with the fourth wave was a failure to take action and mitigate increasing hospital admissions in an effort to keep the promise of an open summer. But we are not here to dissect the fourth wave.
Division within the UCP Caucus
All of the above explains, in part, how we got to where we are today. Now, the governing party has shown public-facing cracks throughout most of 2021. Back in March, it was announced that Premier Jason Kenney would be the subject of a leadership review in the fall of next year during the UCP annual general meeting, about six-months out from the next anticipated provincial election. After a caucus meeting on September 22, it was announced that both the leadership review and AGM would be pushed forward to an earlier, yet-to-be-determined date in the spring of 2022.
This change was a result of growing internal and public frustrations brought on by Albertans once again being subject to stringent public health measures and now, a vaccine passport. Some MLAs have started to speak more openly about their disagreements with the way Premier Kenney has opted to manage the fourth wave. Former Minister of Culture, Multiculturalism and Status of Women Leela Aheer issued a call on her Twitter account for Premier Kenney to admit he was wrong and provide a plan forward. MLA Richard Gotfried also raised frustrations in a Facebook comment section.
During the press conference where new restrictions and the vaccine passport were announced, Premier Kenney apologized for moving from pandemic to endemic management, but he would not repent for his decision to reopen completely on Canada Day.
"I also think it's critically important to understand that at least in this society that you can't sustain serious intrusions into people's lives permanently. And so no, I don't apologize for this decision to relax public health restrictions in the summer supported by the data."
Frustrations seemed to be coming to a head this past Wednesday when the UCP met behind the closed doors of the McDougall Centre in Calgary. There was much speculation that MLAs would be tabling a non-confidence motion in Premier Kenney’s leadership; however, that reality never came to pass. Instead, we were left with the aforementioned leadership review news. With that said, multiple sources (including CBC News and the Toronto Star) indicate they’ve been provided information from those with inside information about the meeting that a confidence motion was indeed tabled, but ultimately withdrawn as there would not be a secret ballot.
The result – an accelerated leadership review process along with the 2022 annual general meeting moved from fall to spring. It appears that this year’s meeting (set for November 19-21) is still proceeding as scheduled. Of course, that is subject to change this far away from the event.
Cabinet Shuffle - Health and Labour & Immigration Swap Ministers
After the federal election was rendered yesterday’s news, the Premier’s Office announced that there would be a cabinet shuffle and that Minister Tyler Shandro would no longer be the head of Alberta Health. There was a great deal of speculation leading up to the brief swearing-in ceremony (as there always is, much of which never came to fruition).
When all was said and done, Labour and Immigration Minister Jason Copping was sworn-in as the new Minister of Health and Minister Shandro found a new home in Labour and Immigration.
While there was no press conference immediately following the swearing-in ceremony, Premier Kenney did address the reason for the shuffle during the post-COVID-19 update that evening. He put emphasis on clarification that this was not a demotion; rather, it was an acceptance of Minister Shandro’s official resignation as Minister of Health. He said that both parties agreed it was for the best to have fresh eyes on the portfolio.
“It has been a gruelling two-plus years for Tyler. I was there myself and saw he and his family being chased and assaulted by anti-vaccine protesters and all of that I know has taken a real toll on Minister Shandro.”
Of course, it cannot be overstated that this portfolio change is occurring during what may one day be referred to as one of the most critical moments in our province’s history. Minister Copping will be tasked with managing ongoing fourth wave of the pandemic along with tackling the challenges that have been exposed and amplified by COVID-19. It also is important to recognize that Minister Shandro is not transitioning into an ‘easy’ portfolio in Labour and Immigration. There continues to be instability in the province as negotiations with multiple unions and sectors are ongoing and the ever-worrisome prospect of a general strike occurring during a pandemic. His role will be to move the province forward and ensure the labour front is negotiated with in a fair and timely matter.
As ICU surge capacity begins to reach levels where the Critical Care Triage Protocol could be put into effect, there seems to be new spinning plates appearing daily, representing a new challenge for government in the process of managing the most trying time of this generation. We will continue to monitor the activities of government as we prepare for session to resume on October 25th, 2021.
