Thread by @charlesadler

"The main reason why large parts of the country, including Ontario and Quebec, are repeatedly being put into severe lockdowns compared to other comparable, developed countries is due to

the chronic lack of surge capacity in our hospitals, due to a combination of decades or provincial & federal gov't underfunding and administrative incompetence." Nobody I know inside the system denies Lorrie Goldstein's observation. It's not some ideological twit's talking point.

I'm not big on vaccine hesitancy, refusal or resistance. Nothing in my record shows me faking respect for the decision not to get vaxxed, unless a serious doctor is advising their patient against it because of health issues. But let's tell the whole truth.

Truth isn't left or right wing. It's just the truth. The reason we need to lock down more than most other countries is because there has been hesitation/refusal/resistance to properly fund our hospital system. If food distribution in Canada operated like our hospital system,

most of us would have to travel long distances to a handful of supermarkets, where we would line up for hours. Once inside we would find very little selection on half empty shelves. This pandemic has forced us to look at our ancient, tired, and creaky hospital system.

The virus has delivered an MRI of the system and the scan tells us the patient is sick-ill equipped for 2022 and beyond. Everyone I talk to with very little knowledge of the system's architecture is stunned to discover that even in our most densely populated regions,

ICU capacity isn't in the thousands. It's only in hundreds. A long long time ago I was doing TV News full time. I had a side hustle as a country deejay, every Sunday in Toronto. I called myself Billy Nelson. One my favorite tunes that I never tired of, was by Willie Nelson.

"My Heroes have always been Cowboys." Well for the last couple of years my heroes have been Health Care Workers - HCWs - They have been worked to the bone physically and emotionally. And no matter how exhausted they are, mainly because we haven't hired nearly enough of them,

they continue to be disrespected in the worst way - a miserly lack of gratitude from us. The gratitude deficit is plain for any curious eye to see. But it needs to be said that right now the most blatant, flagrant & vulgar lack of gratitude is the decision not to get vaxxed.

The decision to remain unvaccinated is not being made in a vacuum. The poor choice that creates a burden on our Health Care Heroes, is too often driven by another poor choice -becoming a dupe for disinformation peddled by religious charlatans, political hustlers, & media whores.

As angered as I want to be about the unvaccinated and the parasites who feed off them, the issue continues to be a distraction from the larger issue that arrived long before the virus. We don't have enough health care professionals and equipment - we don't have enough capacity.

Right now we have hockey being played in empty arenas. Empty arenas, empty schools, empty restaurants, empty work places. It's the world's worst reality show, written and produced by a virus that won't break and a hospital system that's broken.

I love my country. I adore my fellow Canadians. I don't hate my government. But I hate living like this. We stand on the shoulders of generations who braved bitter winters, isolation, disease and drought. They busted through mountains of rock to build railroads and highways.

Canadians have fought wars where we always punched above our weight. We have been too brave to be this timid. We have to stop starting our national conversation with the worst yarn ever! Let's stop repeating these words. "Canada has the best health care system in the world."

We don't. Saying so won't make it so. Don't take it from me. Just listen to the sounds of empty, the sounds of silence. Let's take a look at the great big hole in our social safety net. Let's be brave about looking around the world with an open mind.

There is no lockdown more lethal to a country than the shuttering of the national imagination. Let's look at the whole world and learn from the best. Canadians succeed when we lead with curiosity, generosity and humility. Let's never lock down the best of who we are.