I was too busy making notes like I used to for live events of interesting forums like this one was to add myself to the speakers list.
Had I, I would have probably said how in my life I’ve organized for the Saskatchewan Green Party, I’ve also run a campaign for a Sask Liberals candidate, and I don’t think electoral politics will work to fix the issues. I’ve been much less involved in it following my temporary death and subsequence failure of the Greens to make a breakthrough.
There is the possibility that a rebranded NDP with a weakened Saskatchewan Party, because of a right-wing challenger party, could change the calculus that leaves us presently subject to a terrible right-wing party. That party doesn’t really care who lives or dies, it only sees dollar signs.
Leaked Saskatchewan disease modelling has hospitalizations headed for a record high next month. The SHA is asking the public to limit gatherings "in order to not overwhelm the health care system." Services like surgeries could again be affected. https://t.co/o6JAfLiriW
Thank you for clarifying the Premier's stupid, predictably stupid, comments while reporting them. It should help people understand he isn't being honest or careful. #COVID19SK
“I don’t know where the premier is getting his information and advice from to be saying that publicly. It just doesn’t have any science behind it, any data behind it, or any demonstrative practices behind it," said epidemiologist Nazeem Muhajarine.
You read this PPE shame before on my blog, but it was brought up in a mailing by local Conservative MP M. Kram.
“Never-Ending Blunders – Tons of PPE from National Stockpile destroyed”
Now, here are the facts:
“CBC News reported Wednesday that last year (2019), the government of Canada threw out two million N95 masks and 440,000 medical gloves when it shut down an emergency stockpile warehouse in Regina.
A spokesperson for the Public Health Agency of Canada, which oversees the stockpile, said in an email that the masks and gloves had been purchased in 2009 and “had passed the limit of five years for their use, as recommended by the manufacturer.” The masks expired in 2014.”
If you can remember 7 years ago, Stephen Harper was Prime Minister, and his government didn’t replace the masks which would have then expired 5 years later in the stockpile while Justin Trudeau was Prime Minister. Would they have thrown out freshly expired masks in 2019, instead of 5-year expired ones? Who knows? As it stands, each PM shares some blame for having Health Ministers not on top of emergency preparedness. So, why does Kram mail out a Liberal criticism list that mostly applies to his party as well?
Kram’s propaganda
“Failed to fund domestic vaccine production facilities”
“How did Canada lose such a national gem? In 1984, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, the greatest “privatizer” of our time, sold off Connaught Laboratories in two public issues, and it has since been resold, merged, side-swiped and wasted away to next to nothing. Said Liberal MP Jim Peterson at the time: “No industrialized country … would permit the takeover of its leading biotechnology firm.””
Meanwhile, the Saskatchewan Conservative Premier is in favour of locking up northern Saskatchewanians in their half of the province, but not locking out Albertan plague rats.
Alberta has reported 659 new cases of COVID-19 over the last three days, while Saskatchewan has reported 24 over the same period.
On Thursday, Moe announced further restrictions regarding northern travel.
The public health order restricts all non-critical travel in and out of the Northern Saskatchewan Administrative District (NSAD), which covers nearly half of the province but has a low population relative to the rest of Saskatchewan.”
If it can be done for northern Sask, it can be done inter-provincially too!
“In its latest COVID-19 update to physicians on Thursday, the Saskatchewan Health Authority reported that “uncontrolled intra- and inter-provincial travels is driving ongoing transmission and [facilitating] the speed of variant spread.”” –CBC
Geeze, it’d help if our Premier wasn’t a raging lunatic, hell bent on ignoring medical scientific advice, and just letting people (who aren’t northern Saskatchewanians) go where ever they please even if they *cough cough*, don’t feel well.
“Wasted millions on a feel-good “pandemic postcard” program”
It’s really effing ironic to be reading that from a tax-payer funded propaganda sheet with a printed cut-out postcard next to it, as Kram uses Canada Post on your dime to collect data for his insane party of hypocrites.
#ReginaCircuitbreaker now. SK Gov should be announcing tomorrow morning that people should go home tomorrow night, and stay there. But the government in this province is rife with corruption and incompetence in the political ranks, so an outside force has to push them.#YQR
To our surprise, the government took some action, still relying on delay and “recommendations” instead of actual enforcement:
Ridiculous! This is already too late yet doesn’t take effect for 5 days and only applies to Regina while the VsOC have already had weeks to spread all over SK and all that’s missing is the time for them to take hold and show up in testing. Unreal at how bad our govt is at this.
Since restaurants have supplies to use up, or can still use them for curb-side pickup and delivery, it isn't even going to benefit them to have another weekend of sales. It may make some of their staff, customers, or owners sick, or dead though.
It’s really disappointing that churches remain open, and restaurants aren’t closed today to in-person dining. The province and city haven’t alerted people using the cell phone emergency system even yet, not since early in the pandemic.
CTV: “Premier Doug Ford has apologized after accusing a First Nations MPP who got a vaccine in his home riding of ‘jumping the line,’ even though he was invited to get the shot to combat vaccine hesitancy.”
On Thursday, Premier Doug Ford accused me of “jumping the line,” and said I didn’t “belong” in Sandy Lake or Muskrat Dam. This kind of racial gaslighting has had a deep, painful and lasting impact on our people’s lives, MPP @solmamakwa writes.https://t.co/7cjvF37KCH
Perhaps as a result of those serious character flaws, Ford has been ineffective in Ontario at controlling COVID-19.
The headline: After 240 workers get #COVID19, Public Health orders Amazon to shut down it's Brampton facility.
The real headline: Corporation that made $21,330,000,000 in profits last year gets shut down because it's too cheap to provide #PaidSickDays for workers to stay safe.
Meanwhile in Saskatchewan, incompetent Scott Moe has done a terrible job, among the worst in Canada. Added onto his incompetence is the appearance of corruption.
It’s interesting that Shellbrooke area is on there.🤔 Mr Moe actually mentioned some of these towns in a news conference a few weeks ago.
Didn’t know Rosthern/Wakaw/Cudworth had more outbreaks than some of the larger centres in the province?
We know Moe’s political party takes money directly from Big Oil, but has a corrupt money motive been found for why his riding got early vaccines, or was there simply apparent vote buying going on?
A month ago I wrote the Premier, again asking him to resign due to his extreme incompetence. His response was to ignore that request and provide more examples of the same.
Surprised to hear back from the Premier, but of course he included a lie about the public health measures working well, when in fact they led us to the bottom of the pack in Canada in a disaster killing 100s. Didn't seem to address my request that he resign. #COVID19SK#skpolipic.twitter.com/IZ0i5UnEtA
— Saskboy from Saskatchewan (@saskboy) March 1, 2021
And it would have been half that much had we not insisted on a summer session.
This government hates accountability, full stop.
That’s bad any time. Now, with so much that’s gone wrong and so much at stake, it’s completely unacceptable. https://t.co/it2YB0BGUm
It’s no secret that your weak response to the pandemic has given us Canada’s most shameful second wave. Manitoba realized they were on track to be Canada’s disaster epicentre, and used an effective lockdown to return to just poor numbers. By avoiding an effective lockdown, like you managed in March and April 2020, you’re killing dozens, if not hundreds of people. You’re endangering our agricultural sector, our wild game, and the possibility that a vaccine will lead us out of this global emergency.
If you’re not willing to protect the lives and livelihoods of the people you’re elected to govern, you should resign and let someone more capable in your party do it.
Sincerely, John Klein Regina
CC Douglas Park MLA
===
Meanwhile in this crazy province where the Premier has already had to quarantine from exposure to the virus in a restaurant setting:
No! It doesn't matter that the #Sask gov't foolishly allows it. Because they think the economy is worth triple digit daily infections & 5-10 dead people each day. Do curbside pick-up. From local. Do not dine in. Do not go to a sports bar. Don't die. Stay healthy & alive. #covid19
— dr. jim bikes home & stays there (@JamesBicycle) February 7, 2021
Even if I watched #NFL (I don’t), and even if there wasn’t an NFL team playing with a racist name (there is), I’d boycott it for how they forced players to play a game during a pandemic. Every level of it is disgusting and inhumane.
And to the civil servant(s) enabling the Premier’s deranged propaganda:
It’s criminally irresponsible to encourage people to dine in restaurants during the 2nd wave of a pandemic. You’re actively harming people by legitimizing bonkers behaviour. I hope you can live with yourself later. Get help if not.
Scott Moe says he thinks Saskatchewan can do this. What is this? It’s BS. He thinks we’ll buy his BS. And he’s probably right that at least half of the people will.
Look at his consistent catch phrase:
The only time Saskatchewan flattened the curve was with a lockdown and school closures in March 2020. Since May the economy has been open, and schools opened in September and the curve hasn’t been flat since.
Moe on variant: “we know this is a more contagious variant.”
He says we need to continue what we are doing.
“The impacts of COVID are felt by all of us.”
“We can do this and we can do this together but we’re going to do it for the next couple of months.”
Translation: This government's inaction has allowed COVID to spread beyond any hope of tracing or control, and the "Minister for Health" doesn't want to even try.
There have been no completely effective reduction measures taken since April, and hundreds have died as a result. Yet Moe says this time, we can do this, we can avoid more infectious COVID-19 from spreading, by continuing the policies that FAILED the last year, while avoiding the policies that worked. He’s an idiot, or is a monster hoping his supporters are willing to forgive him as he tries the stupidest policies that have failed the world over. Hundreds more will die if political leaders don’t correct his maladjusted course.
Saskatchewan's hospitalizations have decreased from 220 to 202 in 7 days. That's 18 more spots available! Our restrictions are helping so much!
You know you live in a #petrostate when local city council exec votes to restrict fossil fuel sponsorship and 1) the Premier threatens the City’s budget and 2) the official provincial opposition has nothing to say about it. This is the #CultureOfSilence I have written about
Our last corrupt Premier had to slink away to work directly for Alberta fossil fuel companies after their direct payments made to his party which were then redirected to his bank account as a top-up party leader payment, caused a minor scandal. Fainting couches filled up.#skpolipic.twitter.com/aDS0Uz2AEr
I’ve friends who think Council is going too hard, too quickly. I think they’re not going hard or fast enough. They’re fighting the worst scourge on the face of the Earth short of ignorance and apathy:
OIL COMPANIES.
Building pipelines to replace tired old pipes is not a sound investment. The old pipes lasted for 50 years. Can you honestly envision people driving gas burning cars in 2070?
Taking oil money to pay for community projects that the government should fund, is a self sustaining problem. People will come to associate oil companies with the source of community infrastructure, instead of the provincially owned resource wealth that actually makes it possible.
Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff 