Thread by @sunnshiiny

So...

I thought I would give this a few days for people to mull over the KXL fiasco.

But Kenney also made one hell of an admission in his news conference on Monday January 18, 2021.

He confirmed that Jason Luan was telling the truth in November 2020.

Luan stated emphatically that the province was waiting until the capacity of hospitals was almost at maximum before the province would impose any additional measures. Amid public outrage, he backtracked and withdrew his comments.

ca.news.yahoo.com/cabinet-member…

You know how UCP (just like Trump) has so many scandals that it’s difficult to remember them all and it’s tricky to figure out which one to focus on first?

Well, that’s typical for UCP news updates. You never know how many scandals and dirty deals will be exposed.

This clip is the crucial reveal. A minute long. If you weren’t listening closely, you would have missed it.

Kenney outright admits zero transmission is NOT the goal. Unilaterally, he’s taken it upon himself to decide that death & illness is acceptable to preserve livelihoods.

Kenney calls his policy choice “minimizing the damage of restrictions on our broader social and economic health.

Kenney is literally saying he’s comfortable with some deaths as an acceptable outcome to preserve economic health and some livelihoods.

That’s what it means. There is no mistaking the interpretation.

For context, here is a longer clip. It’s unmistakable he’s admitting outright that he’s prioritizing livelihoods over some people’s lives.

Primarily those are deaths of LTC residents & those with co-morbidities.

But, more than just the oldest & weakest are contracting & dying. Children, young adults and middle aged adults are also contracting covid. Some of them are dying. Many recover but will have life long health implications.

Kenney’s decided those are acceptable risks to take.

I don’t remember being consulted on what the acceptable death toll would be, or whether it’s acceptable to plan for extreme stress on healthcare to perpetually sit just below implosion, or the emotional toll on our province’s medical personnel & hospital workers. Do you?

That’s because we weren’t consulted. We were never given the opportunity to voice an opinion on the acceptable risks of opening back up after lockdown. It was decided for us by the premier, the Health Minister and the UCP cabinet. Without consultation.

Plenty of anti-masker demonstrators & Dominionist Christians voiced their opinions. Plenty of employers, business owners and large corporations have voiced theirs too. Apparently they’ve caught the ear of UCP MLAs.

They’ve also chosen to exercise their “liberty” vs save lives.

Thus, the official Covid policy for Alberta is to allow transmission of covid until the point just before the hospitals become overwhelmed. Then impose temporary partial restrictions to slow the spread (not stop it), then open back up again. Repeat until fully vaccinated.

Kenney revealed the official policy in his Covid update that was almost fully devoted to KXL and him grandstanding about Canada US relations and his utter disappointment in the sovereign nation of USA making a policy decision of which Kenney didn’t personally approve.

KXL is dead. Deal with it. Canada’s relationship with the US does not hinge on the viability of a pipeline that’s been cancelled once before (by Obama) and revived by the fascist dictator Trump, because he had personal financial liability and stood to benefit.

But how many caught the reveal of Kenney’s & UCP’s priorities? The acceptable risk of LTC deaths, thousands of sick residents, overwhelmed hospitals barely able to cope, long term health problems that could have been avoided, children as vectors to carry disease home?

Few.

So what is “Acceptable Risk?” How is it determined.

How does one decide who lives and who dies, who is unworthy of measures to avoid risk, who gets protection from disease transmission?

There are several models. We can only hope Kenney used one.

gns.cri.nz/Home/RBP/Risk-…

I appears fairness to LTC residents at the end stages of their lives was not a consideration. They seem to have the highest risk. Certainly children’s long term health wasn’t seriously considered. Nor was the risk to those with co-morbidities. But UCP voter base’s were.

It seems high risk to expose children to a deadly disease when we don’t know the long term side effects. Those with co-morbidities will just have to suck it up and remain on lockdown. Anti-mask & liberty voices are louder & livelihoods > or = the average Albertan’s lives.

Here’s another risk assessment tool from the Project Management Institute.

Businesses have one priority. Profit. In business models there is no room for consideration of human life, just shareholder profits. Covid is a big risk to profits.

pmi.org/learning/libra…

There’s literally not even a mention of the human cost in most business risk assessment guides I viewed. Any that mention human impact is in relation to cost benefit analysis. It’s completely void of empathy for human beings. Sickness, loss, grief, stress. Not even a mention.

But I did find this fully researched recommendation for governments about health and economies. The authors recognize the tendency to prioritize the economy over health.

The medical field does not recommend placing livelihoods over people’s lives.

today.duke.edu/2020/08/priori…

To protect the economy, public health must be the priority.

There is abundant evidence in these two articles.

Kenney told Alberta on January 18th that whether we approve or not, some of us will die so that livelihoods and profits continue.

nature.com/articles/s4159…

Kenney has zero intention of aiming for zero infections. Not on his radar.

Why would he? His base supporters would be livid. They continue to make profits, or intimidate the rest of us by refusing to follow covid measures and flaunting mandatory masks.

Deaths of old people are an “acceptable risk.” Co-morbid casualties are unfortunate but yet acceptable. And kids, let them figure out how to cope with 60 years of poor health ahead of them. Kenney and the UCP caucus will be long gone by then.

Maybe UCP is doing us all a favour. According to some Dominionists, the return of Jesus is imminent. So preserving life is unnecessary. It’s either the Rapture or you’re already safe from covid. God wills protection from biblical plagues for believers. If it’s your time, rejoice.

Jan 29,2021, Kenney confirms his plan does NOT include zero covid. We have several months before enough vaccinations can be completed for herd immunity.

This isn’t a marathon it’s sadistic torture.

It’s the tyranny of a minority who scream the loudest & understand the least.

Here is Kenney’s speech January 29, 2021.

Hospitalizations are now the preferred measure of covid management success in Alberta. As long as we don’t overwhelm hospitals, all is good. We can learn to live with Covid. Why would anyone want zero cases.

A short 6 week lockdown would severely reduce covid to the point that testing, tracing and isolation would be possible.

But why would we punish businesses and those requiring a paycheque for food and rent/mortgage. It’s not like the feds sent funds to cope through rough times.

The majority of govt spending during Covid has been on boosting the profits of multinational corporations. While cuts to healthcare budgets are made to pay for those profits.

And all those deaths? People with one foot in the grave anyway. Acceptable losses.

We are at the mercy of a political party with an ideological agenda. Remove democracy, replace it with ordered liberty (a form of autocracy), and impose Austrian economics, laissez faire libertarianism and squash all dissent and resistance.

And don’t forget the religiosity being imposed by removing secular, science and research based, objectivity in education and social services and programming and replacing it with biased, Dominionist Christian, socially conservative proselytizing.

As I watch Alberta being transformed from my home that’s become a prison, I’m mystified by those who can’t see what is going on.

But then I remember the indigenous have been requesting help for centuries, POC have been judged by skin colour for the whole existence of Alberta.

We see what we want to see and human beings normalize the conditions they are forced to endure.

Our provincial government has approved and implemented policies that will kill some, sicken many, and they’re using covid to rob Alberta blind.

Health and safety is given no more consideration during Covid, than when promoting KXL or approving selenium pollution in headwaters and rancher’s grass lands.

And we just roll over and take it.

Where are those citizens who can see this for what it is? There are a few.

We can’t organize to resist because we’re all stuck in isolation from one another. Going slowly into mental distress from lack of socializing. Some less slow than others.

Today I watched a video that horrified me. People are dying in such large numbers in California that there is nowhere to store the corpses. Families are left with their dead to decay at home because no one has the capacity to retrieve or store them. I’m terrorized and alarmed.

Kenney’s covid strategy mirrors US Trump Administration strategy.

Is this going to be Alberta with the new variants being more deadly and more contagious?

I’m afraid we are heading in that direction. The thought literally sickens me.

I don’t want to die and miss raising my sons. One is on the cusp of manhood. One is still a tween.

But I’m terrified I won’t make it through this year because of my co-morbidities and having a husband who works in essential services.

It doesn’t help that a tyrannical provincial government, hell bent on maintaining covid at a level that gives them cause to keep a public health emergency active, so they can ensure they have minimal resistance to transforming a democracy into a libertarian dystopia like Russia.

Nor does it help that 4 years have been spent researching what is happening and providing document after document and analysis to demonstrate what’s happening with no more motivation for resistance now than in 2017.

I’m perplexed. Dumbfounded. Profoundly saddened that fascism has been so easy to install and so many haven’t noticed yet.

What will it take?

Any trained epidemiologist will not recommend opening up restrictions when the new variants are so deadly and far more dangerous.

But that’s what we’re doing in Alberta. Relaxing restrictions. Keeping kids in school, opening restaurants for dining, allowing exercise businesses to open.

Meanwhile the feds are shutting down Canadian airlines. Begging people to stay home.

But Alberta is open for business. Cautiously, like that’s going to make a difference.

I wish I were one of the blissfully ignorant. I wish I didn’t know what is happening.

I’m traumatized knowing what is coming. And powerless to change it.

I don’t know how much longer I can watch this refusal to acknowledge truth, facts, science, reality.

What difference have I made in dedicating 12 hours per day for 4 years of my life to documenting this carnage?

Maybe one day someone can compile it and make an Anne Frank style book warning of the absolute ease an entire population can be led down the garden path to annihilation and extermination of the weakest.

Because I’ve failed to make a difference now.

We are less than a decade to climate catastrophe. The economy is shot and wealthy libertarians want austerity cuts which will kill even more people. A disease ravaged the globe and ideologues are using it as a weapon to sadistically isolate & torture the citizens in their care.

If you look out your window it seems like nothing has changed. But our entire way of life, belief systems and the rights & freedoms guaranteed as human beings are being eroded daily.

Yet we get up every morning and behave like nothing has changed. Obedient to the end.

I’m not giving up. I’m just fed up with those who continue to perform the same routine everyday and expect it will all work out.

It won’t. We are heading for disaster. Calamitous global disaster.

We could have stopped it, but we were too busy to pay attention.

I knew it was a long shot to make change. I tried and will continue to try.

But damn I’m frustrated with humanity right now. When we move into the next phase, I won’t try to wake people up anymore. The next phase is beyond the point of no return.

It would be cruel to persist at that point. Why remove blinders to impending disaster? That point is not far away.

Might as well let the blissful enjoy their delusion.

At least some will have joy in their life. I don’t have joy anymore. How I wish I could feel joy again.