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Last year, on the occasion of the inauguration of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation by our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau was found taking a holiday with his family and enjoying the ocean waves in the West Coast village of Tofino. He wasn’t attending any commemorative events.
It really is difficult to know what to do on this national holiday. Should we follow his example and all go to the beach? Or is this a day of mourning? If that is the case, how much of the day should we spend in mourning? Should we spend an hour from 11:00 a.m. to noon and include a minute of silence? Is it alright to go to the beach afterward? Should we close all beaches to the public?
And that begs the question, what exactly are we commemorating?
I think the simplest explanation is to say we are mourning the children who didn’t come home from the residential schools. They lie buried in graves near the schools. It was not practical to send home their small remains due to the expense of transportation and probably the cost of embalming. If cremation had been done, then that might have changed the entire story because the remains would have been sent home. No, they were given a proper Catholic burial in the vicinity of the schools or churches. Neither the government, nor the schools, nor the families were willing or able to foot the bill to transport them home so now we have unmarked graves. Graves where the original wooden markers have disappeared over the years.
It seems that with this new holiday we will have a day of mourning for aboriginal children in perpetuity.
How many of the children who went to residential schools did not return? Did most of those who died, die of illness? Was the cause of each death investigated? Did any die a violent death? Who was responsible? Did some die as a result of deprivation or other reasons? One thing that has come of this holiday is this article and these questions, but the thought of repeating this every year is troubling. And the thought that efforts at truth and reconciliation haven’t happened in the past is simply not true. News articles bear witness to repeated reconciliation efforts. I think a maudlin preoccupation with abuse is a symptom of our age.
One can look at this from so many angles but first of all we have to admit that the Canadian government, in its wisdom, has for generations mandated that children from six to sixteen attend school, preferably the government-funded public school. Since it was impossible to have schools staffed by teachers in the regions where aboriginal families were scattered, a solution was found. Send the children to residential schools.
For generations parents have coughed up high tuition and boarding fees to send their children to residential schools. We actually call them boarding schools. They are reserved for the elite who can afford them. So separating children from parents is actually not a barbaric practice. But of course, these schools differ substantially from the primitive aboriginal residential schools and not only in terms of luxury. Parents of children in residential schools did not wield any kind of influence in the schools. The real difference between the two is choice. Parents choose to send their children to boarding schools. They are not mandated by the government to do so. Their children are not hauled away by government officials. That is the critical difference.
My immigrant forefathers reached agreements regarding schooling arrangements before arriving on Canadian soil, agreements that were subsequently ignored by the government. Many who would not comply were left with no recourse but to move to another country, and they did so. It was important to raise their children with their own values and without the intrusion of government. Their request to the Canadian government was to have their own teachers and to teach in their own language and this provision was denied.
Now we might say the government, at the time residential schools were implemented for aboriginal children, was being benevolant. Schooling, as well as room and board, were provided at no cost to the parents. But once again, the issue is that the will of the parents was not consulted. It was ignored. There was coercion and forced compliance. The government took it upon itself to replace the parent figure as the one who knows what is best for the children.
We are still up against this today. Parents who protest values they do want to see taught to their children in schools have their objections fall on deaf ears, or worse: they are outright ridiculed. I have witnessed this. Under pressure from special interest activist groups the United Nations mandates ideologies and our governments are compliant, or should we say complicit, in implementing this in a “we know better” approach. These activists carry on international surveillance to gauge compliance.
I am at a loss to know how we ought to behave on this holiday because it is essentially a Canadian holiday meant to point out the failings of our government to consider the wishes and needs of early inhabitants of this grand country. We are commemorating a mistake we don’t want to make again. Yet, in not so small ways, this mistake keeps being made. Government leaders think they know what is best and mess things up. In a few years we might see a Truth and Reconciliation Day for Truckers.
Community “events” are being planned. On Remembrance Day we commemorate sacrifices of honor made for our freedoms. In contrast, I find nothing to celebrate on the Day of Truth and Reconciliation and I’m not sure I want to risk attending these events.
Let’s remember that the Catholic Church is not to blame for being called to do the bidding of the government to educate, feed and house aboriginal children. Individuals who were there, who abused their role, should be held to account and efforts have been made to that effect, but I fear the time has passed now since the perpetrators of alleged abuses are no longer with us.
However, in terms of holding to account, there really is no excuse to continue to allow men with a penchant for young boys to be in positions of access to children within the Catholic Church or in schools.
I don’t want to offer excuses for anyone, but let’s remember that caring for large numbers of children who are away from their parents, around the clock, cannot be an easy task. And anyone who has lived a few decades has seen a tyrannical teacher. My first grade teacher ordered the students in the class who had run around inside during lunch hour to crawl around the circumference of the room, on their hands and knees, and one by one as they came by her, each would receive a strap. I can still hear the wailing and see the tear-stained faces. This was a public school, by the way.
I want to point out something that the media seems to be misrepresenting. There were no mass graves. There was no genocide. Genocide involves intent. Neither the Catholic Church, nor the Canadian government intended to wipe out aboriginal children. The intent was to educate. Some “survivors” have actually given testimony of benefits derived from an education. They would not describe residential schools as institutions of genocide. Yes, there was an abuse of power. But does that call for setting aside a national holiday?
When children died, whether of disease, or loneliness, or abuse, graves were dug for them and wooden markers with names were placed on the graves, according to Catholic tradition. The markers disappeared over the years as the graves were neglected, as I stated earlier. Aboriginal chiefs will tell you the graves are not a surprise. They have known about the graves. If we are talking about a Day for Truth, this should be part of the narrative.
Now we have set aside a day in which every person who settled in Canada, after aboriginals staked a claim here, is to share blame and be shamed for deeds in which they had no part. To me this is taking a very narrow view. I fail to see that anything positive will be accomplished by this holiday, because everyone, guilty or not, is set up to fall short of the required guilt sacrifice.
Canadians cannot leave the country by air or rail if we are not vaccinated because we are not allowed on a plane or train. We cannot even take a plane or a train to another province if we are above twelve years old and not vaccinated.
As I write there is a court case in progress in B.C. that will determine the validity of vaccine mandates for Health Care Workers. Our heroes suddenly became villains and this is a most cruel way to treat our caregivers. These were the women, primarily, many of them recent immigrants, who donned layers of protective gear and faced a frightening pandemic with an unknown outcome. The did not cringe. They did not draw back. Yet our government is cringing from them and treating them like lepers.
At least the fact that a court case on behalf of the Health Care Workers is allowed is commendable. However, think of how disturbing it is that it has come to the point where we are surprised we can have our day in court: B.C. court allows case against Henry’s COVID-19 vaccination order to proceed
Everyone is getting covid, vaccinated or not. Vaccinated are dying of covid, as well as unvaccinated. This is not a vaccine, by definition. It is a shot.
Right now if you get covid, you are recommended (not required) to stay home for five days. Meanwhile, my 12 year old grandson who lives across the border will have to isolate for 14 days–even if he tests negative for covid before and during his stay–just because he is crossing a border. Canadian federal regulations. And note that he still can’t get on a plane after his 14 day isolation! So due to all this he will have to miss a family reunion and possibly his last chance to see his great grandmother. Let’s add that he has had covid and recovered, so he is forced to take a vaccine for a disease he already had. This is bordering on criminal.
The benefits of vaccinating children are not proven to be significant while the risk involved with vaccination is real. If it were my choice, I too would not vaccinate children and the primary reason is because it is taboo to mention vaccine injuries. We are being controlled. Compelled speech. Only say the party line, the politically correct thing. How much of our taxes have gone towards vaccine ads? Let’s not even begin to talk about money spent on tracing and testing. One must admit this is a business to keep going, lucrative as it is, especially now that the vaccine is not working and an antiviral treatment is selling fast.
Does any of this make sense? Meanwhile airports don’t have workers. Why? Federal mandates. My son and his wife missed their flight due to long security check lines and they were by far not the only ones. They had to shell out an extra $700 to reach their destination last month.
Does freezing the bank accounts of people who gave to the truckers make sense? My husband met someone at a Pierre Poilivre leadership rally who had their bank account frozen for one month because they gave a $25 donation to truckers. This is why people are coming to Poilivre’s rallies by the droves wherever he goes. Truckers, in their cabs, were not spreading covid. There was no need for a last minute call to mandate vaccines for truckers. The whole protest could have been avoided if our government had behaved in a reasonable manner. It’s time our Prime Minister stops holding Canadians hostage.
I have for some time ignored all conversations about a New World Order and The Great Reset, maybe because I thought I had more important things on my mind. Maybe because I thought people were obsessing over the same old global dominance theory I’ve heard for decades. I didn’t want to get involved in talk by a bunch of people getting their knickers in a knot.
Now, very recently, I’ve begun to think I had better give this a listen.
I was alerted by a Western Standard interview of Kyle Kemper. For those of you who don’t who Kyle Kemper is, he is the younger, half brother of the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau.
I am particular about my sources and when I heard the half brother of Trudeau say that Klaus Schwab was proud of his protege, Justin Trudeau, and proud of how he, Schwab, had infiltrated the Liberal government, I sat up and listened. I started to look into the matter. Here is what I found. For your interest, the January 27, 2022 Western Standard interview of Kemper can be found here.
Klaus Schwab, is famously known for the phrase, “You will own nothing and be happy.” He has indeed written a book, published in July of 2020, early into the coronavirus pandemic, entitled Covid-19 and The Great Reset. In it he imagines possibilities presented by the pandemic—changes on a global scale. I have not yet finished reading the book but what stands out for me is the “opportunity” for global elites, banks and corporations to have a much greater role in government, globally.
A wikipedia search will inform you that Klaus Schwab is “a German engineer and economist best known as the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum.”
Klaus Schwab and Trudeau do indeed have a close relationship as is evident in this 2016 video clip. Schwab addresses Trudeau as he fantasizes about “a diverse world, characterized by plurality…it will be a young world, a digital world. Now who could represent such a world better than you, Prime Minister? We are very glad that at the beginning of this meeting you are talking to us, to represent a new, open Canada. I want to use this opportunity to thank our Canadian constituency which always has been a very loyal, and very much engaged, constituency, as a whole. But now, I think, with you… we can make sure that in the future we strengthen the cooperation even more with your country.”
I have observed how entities with money and global influence are gaining increasing leverage over our government. In the back of my mind I am thinking about how this might relate to the Canadian Truckers’ protest and Trudeau’s refusal to speak with the truckers.
A little bit about the World Economic Forum. This is from their website:
World Economic Forum Partners are leading global companies developing solutions to the world’s greatest challenges. They are the driving force behind the Forum’s programmes.
Our Partners engage in Forum Platforms to shape the future, accessing networks and experts to ensure strategic decision-making on the most pressing world issues.
On the WEF website I found a Jan 24, 2019 article entitled: António Guterres: Read the UN Secretary-General’s Davos speech in full. Guterres states the following:
There is no way governments or intergovernmental organisations alone can deal with climate change, can deal with the impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution or can deal with migration. We need more and more a multilateralism that also is able to incorporate the contribution of all these other sectors, and I think the World Economic Forum has an absolutely vital role to play.
On June 13, 2019, in New York, USA, The World Economic Forum and the United Nations signed a Strategic Partnership Framework. On the WEF website we read, “The UN-Forum Partnership was signed in a meeting held at United Nations headquarters between UN Secretary-General António Guterres and World Economic Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab.” Here is a further report:
The UN-Forum Partnership was signed in a meeting held at United Nations headquarters between UN Secretary-General António Guterres and World Economic Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
The partnership identifies six areas of focus – financing the 2030 Agenda, climate change, health, digital cooperation, gender equality and empowerment of women, education and skills – to strengthen and broaden their combined impact by building on existing and new collaborations.
Here is an article of interest: Who’s who at Davos Agenda Week. The meeting of the WEF was held in Davos, Switzerland in January 2021. The image of Klaus Schwab with Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China is quite compelling.
Speaking of corporate interests in government, I am wondering about the influence over the Canadian government of the Power Corporation of Canada which appears to have close ties to the People’s Republic of China.
I will leave you to do your own further investigation to satisfy your curiosity. In the meantime, I feel a little chagrined to be so far behind in my own information gathering just because I thought this was a “conspiracy theory.”
There is a Facebook page devoted to Pierre Poilievre and people on it are putting a great deal of pressure on him to become the leaders of the Conservative Party of Canada. This week the current leader, Erin O’Toole, was ousted for his weak support of the Freedom Convoy of truckers in Canada, at least that looks like the most apparent reason. He has also waffled on other Conservative positions, particularly during the election campaign, last September, when the Conservative party was defeated by the Liberal Party who gained a second minority government.
From a personal standpoint, I can think of a number of reasons why Poilievre should not become Conservative Party leader. I understand that he is probably the MP who has spoken most eloquently and voiced the most coherent arguments in parliament in opposition to the Liberal Party. He has a very good grasp of history, current affairs and government. Here are a few recent videos of Poilievre, to give an idea for those who may not be familiar with him. They do not represent…. The authoritarian left…. and Canadians are uniting…
However, here are the reasons why I do not think he should run for the leadership of the party, although I think he could potentially win the leadership race, handsomely.
From my observation, I think he has what it takes. He understands what needs to happen, has the ability to communicate this to the public as well as the will to see it happen. You ask, then why not?
Take the interview with Aaron Gunn. If he were Prime Minister he would not be able to do these kinds of informative interviews. He would have to take a combative or defensive stance as part of political posturing. Right now he is educating people about what is happening in government and in Canada. By becoming Prime Minister (of course I’m assuming he could win a Federal election) he would be elevated to another plane with very different expectations. His behaviour would change. There is no guaranteeing that the people who support him now would follow through if he was elected.
The fact is that the public needs time to adjust to change. People might not agree with the changes he proposes if they were suddenly implemented. Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper is an example of someone who had a great deal of foresight and implemented many positive changes but one of the things he was faulted for was for not taking the time to bring the people along with him.
The point is that large scale change needs to happen in the hearts of the people, first, otherwise they will just vote out the leader. Poilievre is doing this essential work of informing and bringing insight. And he is doing it without becoming the target as he would if he was Prime Minister.
It takes an incredible amount of time and energy to acquire a grasp of the myriad of concerns facing a country and then to articulate them with a far-reaching influence. Right now Poilievre is not hindered by the distractions of being leader of a party and can give interviews to people like Aaron Gunn. As a party leader he would not have the luxury of focus.
There is also the obvious fact that he would be a tremendous support to a good leader. Leaders need a team of powerful, capable, intelligent and articulate men and women behind them.
At the present Poilievre may be the one who is “preparing the way” for the next leader. Until he thinks he is ready, which doesn’t appear to be the case, I would side with him and continue to endorse what he appears to be doing very well–spreading a vital message and touching the hearts of the Canadian people.
I do not rule out the possibility that Poilievre could choose to embrace a broader leadership role, representing the Canadian people, in the future. Before that happens we may need to lay a new foundation for our country, one that involves recognizing the kind of leaders who have the interests of Canadians at heart. In the meantime, let’s not minimize the impact of his current role.
We’ve placed our trust in science. We’ve placed our faith in the government. And now we are here.
This morning I received the news that my uncle passed away in a care home. No, he did not die of Covid-19 or any of its variants. At 1:00 a.m. he was going to go out for a smoke, but was stopped by staff who told him it was too cold outside and he wasn’t allowed to go out. For as long as I can remember he has smoked outside without anyone telling him it was too cold.
My uncle is not one to respond mildly when provoked. An hour later, at 2:00 a.m. he was found deceased in his room. We are to believe he died of a heart attack.
In a country where we are accustomed to certain rights and privileges we don’t do well with someone removing rights we have had all of our lives. I’m now talking about the right to work, the right to travel, the right to sit in a restaurant of our choice.
Our Canadian Health Care system is in crisis and if we don’t pay attention we may ALL lose the right to medical care.
In Canada, the province of Quebec declared at the end of December that the province had “no choice” but to allow health-care staff who test positive for COVID-19 to keep working while infected. This is a direct quote from a Global News article.
Healthy, trained medical staff are not allowed to work while the health care crisis escalates.
Due to vaccine mandates created at the stroke of a pen, healthy, trained medical staff are not allowed to work while the health care crisis escalates. Imagine the impact of allowing up to 15% of our healthcare workers, those wrongfully dismissed, to come back to work.
There are Canadian citizens whose right to work in their field of training and medical expertise is being denied. They have been dismissed, along with numerous of other workers in government, banking, airline, hospitality and various other designations.
Take a moment to think about this and let this fact sink in. Don’t reason it away. We are allowing sick health-care staff who test positive for COVID-19 to keep working while infected.
Have we lost our minds?
The answer is, yes.
Jordan Peterson has painted a pretty clear and alarming picture of what he has witnessed happening in Canada, first hand, and warns us of the path we are headed down at break-neck speed. Read it here, National Post: Jordan Peterson: Open the damn country back up, before Canadians wreck something we can’t fix.
In some ways the Global News and National Post articles are saying the same thing: Canada is in crisis and our health-care system, along with our banking and airlines and other systems are failing due to emergency COVID-19 restrictions. The staff that could be working because they are still healthy, are not allowed to work, while the sick are mandated to work.
The two articles, however, offer opposite solutions. Peterson says, “open up the damn country.” The Opposition parties want to do more of the same…increase health measures…the things that have not been working. Peterson knows that there was a time before the current restrictions when things were working surprisingly well in Canada. There was food in stores. Airlines could be relied upon to provide travel, on time. Banks didn’t put you on hold for hours due to staff shortages. He still believes there is a possibility that we can make the necessary reversals and go back to that time.
We have long left the era of writing when journalists presented a mostly unbiased version of facts. No, along with the declaration of a pandemic came an edict that the vaccine was the only way out of the pandemic, as spoken by our own Prime Minister, and therefore it followed that this was the only message allowed to proceed from podium and pen.
I watched an interview of Elon Musk awhile ago. It was several years old and he was talking about the dangers of Artificial Intelligence. When questioned as to whether he was afraid of the potential risks of AI, his response was, not as afraid as he once was. AI is a risk in as far as the players who use it for nefarious purposes and fail to see the need to set up appropriate boundaries. Upon further inquiry Musk revealed why he was less afraid now. He confessed it was because he had become more fatalistic.
Musk, who undoubtedly is one of the most knowledgeable people on earth, was not happy about what he saw coming. However, upon seeing there was little to prevent these dangerous outcomes, his only remaining option was to resign himself to acceptance of a risk he knew was inevitable. Since his words of caution to the world were not being heeded, all he was left to do was to mitigate his own fear.
There is only one thing more ominous than misinformation. It is when those who have the truth remain silent or are silenced.
Because I am an optimist, I think we still have a very small window of opportunity for Canada to turn things around. Unfortunately many of the voices we need to listen to have been silenced or have self-censored. Like Musk, they’ve stopped speaking because no one is listening. They are watching the drama unravel.
Claiming we don’t have enough health care workers, when we do and we have fired them, is unacceptable deception.
I am a woman of faith. And I believe in a God of justice. The way I see it is that the Omicron variant is showing up the injustice of firing unvaccinated health care workers. Claiming we don’t have enough health care workers, when we do and we have fired them, is unacceptable deception. The people who could help us out of our dilemma, and I’m not only talking about health care, are facing insurmountable barriers set up by our government in conjunction with our health leaders.
Peterson points out a clear life lesson: There are no risk-free paths forward.
But there paths that are more just than others.
We have an option beyond trusting science and government. We can do the right thing and trust God with the outcome. The right thing is to love our neighbour and not discriminate against them based on their personal health choices. We can place a little bit of confidence in the high vaccinations numbers we have reached, because this is aiding in reducing serious illness among the vulnerable. But to place all of our confidence in vaccination is to fail critically in other areas which could prove to be more detrimental to our society than any current disease.
In the clinic I frequent I was told that everyone there got COVID-19 and recovered. All were vaccinated according to our government mandate. This shows us that we can live with risk. We can get sick and recover and continue to work.
As I prepared to write, I noticed this article in my feed, National Post: FIRST READING: Ottawa’s 180-degree turn on mandatory vaccination. I admonish our leaders to stop and reverse mandatory vaccination requirements. To fail to do so is to show a serious lack of insight and to put our country at such a risk as we have not yet imagined.
The following is from the Global News: Opposition parties push for emergency health committee meeting amid Omicron surge.
Ontario, Alberta., B.C., Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and N.B. have cut their quarantine requirements, which followed controversial advice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that quarantines could drop to five days from the previous 10-day rule.
“This is a balancing of the risks compared with the need to protect your critical infrastructure,” said Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, in a press conference on Jan. 5.
“Even with five days of quarantine, contagiousness is possible after that.”
Global News
Nothing is stopping the Omicron variant. Definitely not masks. Definitely not vaccination.
The Prime Minister of Canada is intentionally creating a crisis. Yesterday’s headline in CityNews Toronto was, Empty Canadian grocery store shelves could become larger problem.
All truck drivers entering Canada from the United States will need to present proof of vaccination to avoid a mandatory 14-day quarantine.
CityNews Toronto
The problem of empty grocery shelves could worsen over coming weeks due to the decision by Prime Minister Trudeau that all truck drivers entering Canada from the United States will need to present proof of vaccination to avoid a mandatory 14-day quarantine, starting January 15. This will potentially force thousands of cross-border truckers off the road. We rely on them for our food supply.
Mandatory vaccination edicts such as these are wrong for our country at this time, but, like Elon Musk, I will mitigate my fears if our government moves ahead with this disastrous plan.
I wonder if Peterson is right when he says, We are deciding, by opinion poll, to live in fear, and to become increasingly authoritarian in response to that fear.
When David met Goliath, he packed five smooth stones in his sling, but I would say he knew for certain that if the first one missed the mark, he was done. If we want to slay “Goliath” it is time to drop all but the most essential protective measures and take that one stone, called faith.
There are no risk-free paths forward. There is only one risk, or another. Pick your poison: that’s the choice life often offers. I am weary of living under the increasingly authoritarian dictates of a polity hyper-concerned with one risk, and oblivious to all others. And things are shaking around us.
Jordan B. Peterson
BC provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry reversed her promise not to implement mandatory vaccination and she needs to reverse her order again. The real problem for Canada’s Health Care system began back in October with this report as read in CTV News Vancouver:
“We’ll be implementing a new order that makes vaccination against COVID-19 a condition of employment across all health-care facilities in B.C.,” Henry said.
It’s time for a new order that puts life back to normal. The risk of serious disease is reduced to the point that we can now live with it and to prolong mandates will do more harm than good.
Yesterday I read an article about social media posts that caused alarm for a lot of people. Later the party concerned claimed this was only an April Fool’s joke, when confronted by RCMP. Here is the report:
The Osoyoos RCMP have addressed “alarming” social media posts that claim individuals will be canvassing door to door in the community seeking places for seasonal workers to stay.
Combine this with another article I saw this morning, and it does not seem so far-fetched, because if we don’t have farm workers in the fields in a timely manner, then our worst fears may come to pass–that the food supply chain breaks down.
This is urgent. And it’s not a joke. I hope those in decision making positions are paying attention.
It may be time for some of us who are out of work to learn farming skills. In my community, around this time of year, I begin to see busloads of mostly seniors of East Asian descent head to the blueberry fields. I seriously wonder how the blueberries will fare this growing season.
Each year I pray for rain in season and good harvests. This past year blockades, market closures and livestock epidemics have affected food supplies. The coronavirus is a significant threat, but we could be facing something even more devastating if we don’t have a harvest.
Right now Europeans are in urgent need of migrant workers normally arriving from Eastern Europe to harvest ripened crops (see article). “Send forth laborers” is taking on new meaning and urgency.
Seeing that South Korea is logging a notable success rate in controlling the coronavirus, I’ve tried to investigate what they are doing and to compare the actions taken to what is happening in Canada.
Several things stood out for me in the article, Coronavirus cases have dropped sharply in South Korea. What’s the secret to its success? written by Dennis Normile on Mar. 17, 2020.
Note the following quote from the article and read each sentence carefully. (Underlines are mine.)
High-risk patients with underlying illnesses get priority for hospitalization, says Chun Byung-Chul, an epidemiologist at Korea University. Those with moderate symptoms are sent to repurposed corporate training facilities and spaces provided by public institutions, where they get basic medical support and observation. Those who recover and test negative twice are released. Close contacts and those with minimal symptoms whose family members are free of chronic diseases and who can measure their own temperatures are ordered to self-quarantine for 2 weeks. A local monitoring team calls twice daily to make sure the quarantined stay put and to ask about symptoms. Quarantine violators face up to 3 million won ($2500) fines. If a recent bill becomes law, the fine will go up to 10 million won and as much as a year in jail.
In addition I read the following:
Legislation enacted since then gave the government authority to collect mobile phone, credit card, and other data from those who test positive to reconstruct their recent whereabouts. That information, stripped of personal identifiers, is shared on social media apps that allow others to determine whether they may have crossed paths with an infected person.
Note that people who test positive leave a trail of possible places where the people they have encountered may have been infected. For instance, if an infected person goes to the bank, then buys groceries, then goes to a physiotherapist, then gets their hair cut, all of those people who served them are at high risk. This kind of information is not being shared publicly in Canada.
I was reminded of this image.
Today Canada is at approximately 1000 infections. If we follow the trajectory of other countries, we could be at 10,000 in seven days, and who knows what happens from there.
Last week I published an article which I have now removed. In it I spoke of minimum, to moderate, to maximum caution and protective measures. I believe it is now critical to practice maximum caution and protection to prevent the spread of the virus, as we have been instructed. But if we want to be as effective as South Korea in stemming the spread of the virus then we may need to be willing to implement similar measures.
Insurance companies are refusing to cover travelers who do not return to Canada during this epidemic, by categorizing it as an Act of God. If this is the case, then the following may be a good meditation:
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and forgive their sins, and heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)
Tom Blackwell, February 3, 2020
Commentary
While the United States and Australia have banned Huawei’s next generation 5G systems as a threat to national security, former Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, in 2016, announced a $16 million grant for research around 5G development and the same fiscal year the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Canada’s federal funding agency for university-based research, awarded $6.9 million in grants to university researchers working with Huawei. The funding agreements are over four years.
Will Huawei be a future threat to Canada? What do the U.S. and Australia know that Canada does not know, or is choosing to ignore? Or do we just chalk their caution up to paranoia? I prefer to err on the side of caution when it comes to privacy issues and national security.
February 3, 2020 news article by Terry Pedwell
Commentary
The Liberal government is revising Canada’s broadcasting and telecommunications laws and it’s a good thing somebody is watching. As a blogger I am particularly interested in the need for freedom of speech online. The idea of licensing news sites does not sit well with me at all.
A report released last week, called “Canada’s Communications Future: Time To Act,” compiled by a panel of “independent broadcast experts” included the following recommendation, as posted in the article:
that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) or another regulatory body control licensing of all companies creating “audio, audiovisual, and alphanumeric news content.”
The article concludes by stating that,
The CRTC currently issues licenses to TV and radio broadcasting outlets but does not regulate content on digital outlets such as Google and Facebook, on websites or in print.
Let’s watch that it stays that way.
More information on the CRTC’s plans to regulate Netflix’s Canadian content can be found in a January 29 CBC article by Eli Glasner.
Tina Friesen 