A surge in coronavirus cases has pushed the healthcare system in the Canadian province of Alberta to the verge of collapse, as healthcare workers struggle against mounting exhaustion and a growing anti-vaccine movement in the region.
The province warned this week that its ICU capacity was strained, with more people requiring intensive care than any other point during the pandemic – nearly all of them unvaccinated. […]
Alberta has long boasted of its loose coronavirus restrictions – including advertising the previous months as the “best summer ever” as it rolled back those few restrictions. It has also been the site of North America’s highest caseloads.
To the extent that Canada has a Florida or Texas, Alberta is it. Right wing asshole and former Prime Minister Stephen Harper is from Alberta, and current Premier Jason Kenney is an anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage jackass who tried to crack down on immigration when he was a minister in Harper’s government. But there’s no Trump in Canada, so Kenney can say some words that no Trumper can ever utter:
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney on Wednesday introduced strict and sweeping new measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 as he apologized for his government’s handling of the pandemic.
The measures include a new program that requires people to provide proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test in order to gain entry to participating businesses and social events. […]
“It is now clear that we were wrong, and for that I apologize,” Kenney said.
The Canadian election is next Monday so part of this has to be a last-ditch, desperate effort for the Conservatives to appear somewhat reasonable. Current polling shows Justin Trudeau’s liberals picking up the majority of seats but still needing to form a minority government.
I don’t think Kenney’s apology, which was qualified because he later denied that loosening restrictions in July was a mistake, is that big a deal, but the fact that he even apologized is something I can’t imagine DeathSantis or Abbortoir doing. But who knows what 2022 will bring when both of them are up for election.
Raoul Paste
The number one thing you want in a government person is good judgement
He had his chance, now it’s time for someone else
Taken4Granite
Elton John and Bernie Taupin are a mixed bag for me, but IMHO this was one of their best songs.
Chief Oshkosh
@Raoul Paste: Yep. And the number two thing you want is an ability to learn and change behavior accordingly. Sounds like “The Premier” is devoid of the first and only C- on the second. Thanks for playing, please be sure to pick up your parting gift of the death certificate copies on the way to obscurity, Mr. Kenney. You flaming asshole.
Betty Cracker
Yeah, I can’t ever see RegeneRon admitting fault either. It’s still pretty bad here in FL, but our cases are dropping, so it looks like the wave has crested. DeSantis is waiting it out and hoping voters will forget by this time next year.
Just One More Canuck
@Chief Oshkosh: Kenney had disappeared for a big part of the summer, and was letting his chief medical health officer take all the heat
Patrianakos
@Betty Cracker: “Forget, hell.”
By the way, can you still access the FL Department of Health Friday reports? The last two weeks, they won’t download either on my tablet or my phone.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Between this and the Cal Recall “that guy who running against me just wants to spread disease and death among you” is a good election message.
jonas
“Wow! Is it election time again? Hey, whatever happened to Gramma Addie and cousin Ritchie? The rona? Last September? No shit! Oh, well…”…is probably *not* the way most conversations like this are going to go, but I guess DeSantis figures as long as he keeps his base in line and nobody primaries him on the right, he has time to come up with a way to gaslight enough people in the general to coast to another term.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Betty Cracker: There enough Independents plus Democrats to vote Death’Santa out? It’s pretty clear the Republicans view all the death and misery even among themselves as some kind of virtue.
PsiFighter37
Not to nitpick, but if Trudeau wins a majority of seats, he would not be forming a minority government. He’s on track to win a plurality of seats, although it could arguably be even weaker than his last government.
Calling the election was a dumb thing of Trudeau to do. Had he waited until the pandemic was much more fully under control in Canada, and he would have easily won a majority (IMO).
Betty Cracker
@Patrianakos: If you scroll past the monoclonal antibody informercials, you can get two-week-old data via PDF.
@jonas: That’s exactly the bet he’s making — he’s staked his political future on being anti-mask, anti-mandate, etc., and because it’s Florida, there’s a decent chance it will work, but who knows? I think there’ a possibility it could backfire.
Betty Cracker
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Theoretically, yes. I have no idea how it will shake out — too many factors in play, too weird a state to be predictable.
patrick Il
I know. Neither will apologize .
rikyrah
Prayers for them
call_me_ishmael
The funniest part of the whole Kenney saga in AB is that for the most part, the real heat being put on his government has been from the right wing. He’s been crazy and incompetent, but he hasn’t been crazy or incompetent enough for them.
Today proves that even loonies like Jason Kenney have a breaking point at which they can no longer deny reality, even if its only because the federal Tories need to look a little less insane to the average centrist voter.
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: I see similarities between Florida and Arizona: both magnets for the kind of retirees with enough money to set up a new life for retirement; no close ties to keep them where they are; and a sociopath-level indifference to the well-being of others, or even the very state they live in.
Not all are like that… but enough.
Daoud bin Daoud
Alberta is Canada’s Florida.
Kelly
I thought Alberta was Canada’s Texas. Oil and cattle.
germy
I thought all she did all day was rename post offices?
Ocotillo
I may be naive but I believe there will be marginal movement to the Dems with moms in these GOP states (TX & FL) over this issue. My hope is it is enough to finally just get over the hump after successive close losses to GQP.
OzarkHillbilly
Hmmm, strange way to spell “propaganda”.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@PsiFighter37:
Yeah the CBC aggregated poll does not look good for Justin, so I assumed minority govt. Seems like a poor time to call an election, but perhaps he assumed COVID would be even worse in the Winter.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@germy: Rename post offices and shit talk on social media was what I was told. Mind *blown*.
Roger Moore
@WereBear:
And for all the attention that’s been paid to Florida and Texas, Arizona has been substantially worse. Texas is at 206 deaths per 100,000 population- which is only slightly worse than the national average of 201- and Florida is at 229. Arizona is all the way up at 266, which puts it up with the Northeastern states that were devastated in the first wave. I don’t know why Ducey doesn’t have a nasty nickname like DeathSantis or Abbotoir.
lowtechcyclist
@Kelly:
Oklahoma might be the best comparison. Oil, cattle, and a much less diverse population than Texas.
brendancalling
My son regularly unloads about the idiots in Alberta, and how they’re dragging down the rest of the country.
Now, what’s interesting is that the very progressive NDP is making quite a bit of, um, progress in Alberta. Meanwhile, the Conservatives are also losing ground to far right parties, which may wind up costing the Cons in the election.
According to the boy—who is obsessed with politics, despises the Conservatives, and prefers the NDP but understands why the Liberals need his support— “Cons are losing ground to the PPC mostly [that’s the far right party, brendan]. NDP saw a small dip in support that’s going back up. So what probably happened was something along the lines of
-libs down in the polls
-ndp voters change their intention to the libs to not risk a con government
-cons dipped suddenly, NDP voting intentions rise.”
Also, the Conservatives and the NDP are losing ground to the Bloc, in Quebec.
Kelly
Gordon Lightfoot was very fond of Alberta in 1972
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV1rtBnCeiw&ab_channel=GordonLightfoot-Topic
Omnes Omnibus
@Kelly: Yeah, but if you could read his mind….
Jay
@brendancalling:
polling is pretty much worthless in Canada.
it’s highly slanted to “the olds”,
and to get a effective picture, you need to poll riding by riding, and get answers as to “why”,
In my current riding, I’m voting Liberal for the first time in my life, because the Liberal candidate has the best chance of defeating the Con. In the past, I lived in ridings where either Dippers won and represented, or had the best chance against Cons.
One also has to factor in a vocal minority hate, on both the irrational left and the insane right for Trudeau. They show up for polls.
lowtechcyclist
@Kelly:
I’ll see your Gordon Lightfoot, and raise you Ian and Sylvia:
IAN & SYLVIA ~ Four Strong Winds ~ – YouTube
Covered by Neil Young:
Neil Young – Four Strong Winds – YouTube
Just One More Canuck
@Kelly: Alberta is the Texas of Canada. Saskatchewan is the Florida of Canada
Baud
@Just One More Canuck:
Interesting. Saskatchewan doesn’t look like a wang.
smith
@Roger Moore: I’d guess FL and TX soak up all the attention because they’re just so darn big, and thus have a huge impact on national politics. That, combined with guvs who are happy to push the envelope alllll the way out. If you’re looking to crown a winner of the pandemic, though, you should also consider Gov Tate “Tater” Reeves of MS. His state has 304.5 deaths per 100k, only a fraction below NJ, and will in a day or so move ahead to become Covid Death Champion of the U.S.A. His assurance that those fine dead citizens were happy to meet Jesus ought to make him a contender.
Just One More Canuck
@Baud: No, but a lot of the people there do. My father decided that being shot at by the North Koreans was better than living in Saskatchewan
trollhattan
Kenn(e)y says, “Screw you guys, I’m going home.”
Michael Cain
@Roger Moore:
(a) AZ has two Democratic Senators and went for Biden in 2020. Attacking the Republican governor there doesn’t have the same cachet. (b) He’s term-limited out so won’t be running again. (c) Unless forced into it, the media and pundits ignore the Mountain time zone.
RaflW
@Betty Cracker: Unfortunately, and I think this will be true everywhere, to greater or lesser extent, is that there will be another wave. And another.
I’ve been very disappointed to see that the rate of new first jabs in Minnesota has been decreasing for several weeks now. And our wave isn’t even over, far from it. We need those Biden mandates (test-or-vax, but for god’s sake get the shot!) to kick in and kick butt. Still our only way towards normal-ish.
Doug R
Canadian Legend Stompin’ Tom Connors singing about the “wild Alberta rose” K.D. Lang:
https://youtu.be/x5ExF4nQ7T4?t=60
Spanky
Hey, Joni Mitchell is also from Alberta. Of course, all of these musicians got the hell out as soon as they were able.
Almost Retired
@Baud: It used to look like a wang, but it swelled up after getting the vaccine.
Kelly
Corb Lund is another fine Albertan musician.
RaflW
@Just One More Canuck: How’s the surfing in Saskatoon?
Omnes Omnibus
@Almost Retired: It minajed?
Mai Naem mobile
@Roger Moore: Doug Ducey has the evergreen nickname of Douchebag or Douchey
RaflW
@Michael Cain:
Lorena Bobbitter, umm, Lauren Boebert is working on reasons for some coverage of Mountain Time.trollhattan
@Spanky: True. Her performing began in the artistic hotbed of Saskatoon (one of the best city names).
Did not know until reading a biography that when young she was hospitalized with polio for months.
Parfigliano
@Betty Cracker: By this time next year we will be two mutations down the road to a far deadlier version of the virus.
Peale
Looking at Canada’s numbers….Alberta, you’ve managed to get yourself back to where you were in January! Good job. Saskawegians have done their part, too. Manitoba rocks, though. Not sure why.
brendancalling
@Jay:
You may well be correct (polls ain’t so hot here in the US either). I’m just quoting my kid who, as a Canadian, has better insights than I do.
PsiFighter37
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: He did not have to call an election until 2023. Most people think the true motivation is that he wants to stop other parties from endlessly investigating his government (which, since the Liberals are a minority, they cannot stop).
Dumb on Trudeau’s part, and given some of the things that has happened, it’s clear he is not the brightest bulb on the chandelier.
Ken
Yes, well, the virus gets a few hundred trillion votes on the outcome. Which reminds me of that Zen koan:
“What is the sound of one politician’s career going in the crapper?”
“Mu.”
Jay
@Peale:
outside of Regina, Manitoba is mostly rural, Indigenous, and used to disaster. It’s also not an extraction economy. People are a bit more sane.
btw, Albertistan is blowing up on the CBC.
Ken
@Peale: Hey, at least Tennessee now has two counties that aren’t the bruise-red “SEVERE” category on covidactnow.org.
Roger Moore
@smith:
I agree MS is the clear “winner” in the COVID sweepstakes. At least according to Washington Post, they’ve finally passed New Jersey for most deaths per capita, with plenty of people in their hospitals waiting to pad their lead. They’re particularly infuriating, because they’ve done so well at vaccinating for other diseases. They have the highest MMR vaccination rate of any state, but they’re very close to the bottom for COVID vaccinations. If they weren’t part of a cult eager to kill as many citizens as possible in the name of their God Emperor, they could have done so much more to stop the pandemic.
Taken4Granite
@Jay: Did you mean Winnipeg? Last I checked, Regina was in Saskatchewan.
Jay
@brendancalling:
like the US, Canadian media likes their horse race stories. A week ago even the CBC, let alone the Grope and Flail, were full of stories about how Trudeau was losing “the popular vote”, ( there is no “popular vote”, and then in paragraph 21, noting that the Liberals were projected to win more ridings.
Winning more ridings is all that counts.
Jay
@Taken4Granite:
yeah, Winterpeg. On my way to work, on crowded transit, with not enough sleep.
burnspbesq
@Betty Cracker:
The scary thing is that he very well might win that bet.
Not so sure about Abbotoir. He has the advantage of a lack of credible opposition, but also faces the disadvantage of having more than one deadly catastrophe on his record.
Just One More Canuck
@Doug R: The girls are out to bingo and the boys are gettin stinko
Jay
@PsiFighter37:
Trudeau’s problem is he’s the Liberal Party Leader, the “Big Tent Party”, underestimates that for Canadian wingnuttia he is Canada’s Hillary.
brendancalling
@Jay: “Grope and Flail,” that is HILARIOUS. Sharing that with the kiddo!
Cacti
Over in the western US of A, Covid-friendly, deep red Idaho’s hospital system is on the brink of collapse. All ICU beds are full, care is being rationed, and now they’re wanting to clog up the hospital systems of Washington and Oregon with the patients they made sick but can’t care for.
Fuck the motherfucking Republican death and disease cult.
Kent
I used to think Canada was a lot more sane and civilized version of the US, then Rob Ford happened and I had to re-evaluate.
I think the more accurate assessment is that Canada is basically what the US would look like if we had let the Confederate south go. The US would still have plenty of crazy right wing sections of the country, but they wouldn’t ever have a voting majority for the presidency or within Congress.
As for Alberta? I have been to Calgary and it seemed like a more civilized city than any city in Texas or Oklahoma. I have always thought that Alberta was more like Canada’s Colorado. With the Rocky Mountains on one side and lots of ranchland and grain production on the other side. Colorado used to be pretty red at one time too.
RaflW
@Mai Naem mobile: Not Doug Dookie?
burnspbesq
Speaking of great Canadian songwriters, this seems pretty apropos for Alberta.
https://youtu.be/kybkiiAKMOY
Kilo
@Just One More Canuck:
Having grown up there, I’d suggest that Mississippi is a better comparator.
Kilo
@brendancalling:
Dad???
rikyrah
@Cacti:
They should only be sent to their fellow Red States.
RaflW
@Cacti: Certainly an imperfect measurement, but on the Trump-preelection-rally index, Duluth MN scored fairly high. Now their ICU capacity is very stressed and they’re diverting patients.
Quite distressing as Duluth is actually a very lovely place, I have some dear friends who live there and another wonderful friend from further up in the Arrowhead region is in a Duluth hospital right now for cancer treatment.
Ugh.
Tony Gerace
@Raoul Paste: Apologizing for killing people??? Real men never apologize
Matt McIrvin
@Roger Moore: I recall that when Kieran Healy was collecting excess-death stats for 2020, it appeared from that that Arizona was actually THE state with the most COVID deaths per capita over the year–beating out the urban Northeast–but it didn’t appear so because about half of the deaths had not been attributed to COVID. Arizona was far from alone in undercounting that badly, however.
Just One More Canuck
@Kent: Rob Ford was by all accounts a good city councillor who lucked out when running for mayor by happening someone universally hated as his opponent (Furious George Smitherman). Ford got in over his head as mayor and his demons and illness caught up with him. Doug Ford is just a dick
@Kilo: That’s fair
Splitting Image
@Kent:
Not exactly. According to the poll cited in the OP, the three Nazi parties are polling at 43%, only a few percent lower than Donald Trump’s vote total in 2020. Three percent isn’t the big difference Americans seem to think it is. The federal districts are less gerrymandered in favour of the Conservatives and their allies, but they can count on nearly as many votes as the Republicans.
Canada probably used to be saner than the U.S., primarily because evangelical churches had less of a following, but that isn’t really true anymore. The Nazi movement probably has more too-good-for-Francis Catholics and fewer Falwell groupies, but there isn’t an awful lot of difference between those anymore. Also, the Bloc Quebecois is probably more aligned to Marine Le Pen than it is to Donald Trump.
The Conservative party’s slogan for this election, by the way, is “Secure the Future”, or as they announced it in August: “Canada’s Recovery Plan will secure the future for you, your children, and your grandchildren.” No dog whistles there. No sirree.
Ken
@Cacti: I wonder if a governor could issue an order that hospitals could not accept out-of-state transfers. Or a more specific one, that they cannot accept transfers of unvaccinated people.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: People have short memories. Here in Massachusetts, cases are dropping in the vacation areas but continuing to creep up everywhere else now that school has opened. Meanwhile, the terrible wave in most of the South has crested. At some point, the Northeast will appear worse off in terms of that week’s case rates (if not death rates) and the papers will be calling DeSantis a genius again.
laura
Here’s a fresh anecdote for the red state hospital column; my dear friend’s mother got sepsis from a boil and now has a fistula that needs a surgical cleanput and repair. She lives in a suburb of Houston and has a hospital right down the street but is instead awaiting a bed in a hospital near Albuquerque because Texas hospitals are filled to beyond capacity with covidiots. The plan is to transport her by plane and return by personal car after the hoped for surgery.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
hehe, “it’s to much of a bother” really sums up today’s MSM.
Eunicecycle
@Matt McIrvin: I’ve heard anecdotally that it’s getting difficult to get tested in Florida, especially PCR tests. Could that be the reason for the dropping numbers?
Doug R
@Spanky:
Loverboy is from Calgary, formed in Vancouver.
Nickelback is from Hanna, formed in Vancouver.
Peale
@laura: Yep. And Texas hasn’t peaked yet. The curve may be bending, but its still going up.
Betty Cracker
@RaflW:
Yes we do. I have no idea how it will play out since it seems like state-level officials like DeSantis and Abbott can throw sand in the gears endlessly to drag this out. At some point, the economy will go into the crapper. I guess that’s what they want so they can blame Biden.
They should be tarred and feathered.
Matt McIrvin
@Eunicecycle: Florida is definitely suppressing good data, but it also seems like the really big waves start to burn themselves out after a month or two, once the most susceptible people have all gotten COVID, and the case rates start to go down. Also, remember, vaccination rates in FL actually aren’t that low for the US, they’re kind of medium.
Doug R
@Kent:
We lived in Calgary for 8 years. Our daughter was born there. We got out because of schools and their thinking. There’s a glimmer of brilliance but it’s buried under their addiction to the (oil) pipe.
Edmonton keeps getting less and less Conservative-Calgary is even showing signs of waking up, it’s just there’s so many rural/small town supporters for the Cons. It’s so bad they’re moving people out of Red Deer to Edmonton and Calgary hospitals.
Daoud bin Daoud
@Kelly: Upon reflection, I must agree.
Kent
I am actually of mixed opinion on this topic. Spokane, for example, is the largest medical center between Seattle and Minneapolis. For decades, the Spokane economy and medical industry has been making tens of millions of dollars per year as the regional health care center for Northern Idaho and western Montana. Millions of tax dollars and hundreds of good-paying Spokane-area jobs exist because for decades, people have come from Idaho and Montana to seek specialty treatment in Spokane. And the giant Spokane hospitals have been directly competing (and winning) this business from the smaller and less well resourced rural hospitals in ID and MT.
The behavior of red-state MAGATs with respect to Covid has been utterly disgraceful. But at the same time, we actually have more of them here in WA and OR than exist in ID and MT. They aren’t as big of a percentage of the population here in OR and WA, but probably larger overall numbers just due to the population differences.
So while my gut reaction is to lock up the border and let the ID and MT MAGAts stew in a crisis of their own making. I’m not sure that is realistic or even reasonable. We have been doing better here in OR and WA, but not THAT much better frankly.
Obvious Russian Troll
@lowtechcyclist: Thanks to immigration, Alberta is more diverse than most people would give it credit for.
Per Wikipedia Texas in 2020 was roughly 73% white people while Alberta in 2016 was roughly 70% people of European descent (which mostly maps to its white population). Alberta has a significantly smaller population of African descent and a very tiny Hispanic population compared to Texas, but they have significant East Asian, South Asian/Middle Eastern and First Nations populations.
Of course this is much more pronounced in Calgary and Edmonton, which in turn have nothing on cities like Toronto or Vancouver.
But yeah. Fucking Alberta, man.
spc123
@Raoul Paste: Also proves the value of still maintaining some regulations (like common sense mask requirements in certain indoor locations and proof of vax, negative test for certain activities). Alberta has a high vax rate overall compared to a lot of the US (as high as many of our better performing states) but they went wide open on everything else.
Subsole
@Omnes Omnibus: I thought that was where you got three of them?
Roger Moore
@Matt McIrvin:
I suspect it’s more about people getting scared enough of COVID that they start wearing masks and social distancing, regardless of what their government tells them. If it were really because enough people got sick to get immunity, you wouldn’t expect to see another wave in a few months.
Cathie from Canada
@Spanky: No, she’s from Saskatchewan – Saskatoon, actually, her family still lives here I think.
Omnes Omnibus
@Subsole: Pronounced the same but spelled differently. Like threw and through.
Another Scott
@Roger Moore: R was substantially below 1 and falling in MS (and in my part of NoVA) for a few weeks. It’s been starting climbing up again recently.
The fact that we seemingly can’t crush the community spread to levels below previous baselines, and the baseline keeps moving up between waves, is very concerning to me. We’ve got to keep pushing vaccinations (and masking and all the rest). It’s going to be a long slog because as long as tens of millions are potential hosts we’re going to keep seeing waves in places around the country…
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
NorthLeft12
Kenney is an embarrassment even for the Cons. He helped secure a large majority for the Liberals in 2015 due to some of his jackass statements regarding Syrian refugees….which at the time the Conservative government was doing their best to stop from coming to Canada. They completely misread the Canadian public on that issue, and many others.
Just like your Republicans, Kenney is only listening to his base. He has been disparaging the federal government’s response from day one of the pandemic, and complaining about the impact on businesses and the economy over the human cost.
Typical conservative.
Ramalama
Aw just wait. I heard fuck-face Conservative dork, o’Toole (Erin of Tool) accuse that handsome man who actually turned my Quebec bloc voting partner to a Liberal – Justin – accused Justin of being too much ‘like an American.’
I know American consultants advise various political parties in Canada. I’ve heard George W’s lines come dribbling out of the mouths of Stephen Harpers mouth as well as his minions.
I’ve also heard many journalists and Canadian politicians (maybe the NDP and Liberals?) use Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” line as a thing that Canadians want.
Lots of cross pollination.
But the fact that one of O’Toole’s advisors is closely connected with the founder of the Proud Boys and then saying that Justin Trudeau wanted to be like an American is ripped right out of the playbook for the GOP. Which is to accuse your adversary of something you yourself are doing.
Yeah, Alberta is conservative. Maybe not yet bat shite. But “yet” is not really a good marker.