Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Dr. Hinshaw has sweeping powers to stop COVID-19 and she isn't using them
65 Plays4 years ago
University of Calgary law professor Lorian Hardcastle joins us to talk about her controversial piece on Dr. Hinshaw and why Hinshaw needs to exercise her powers to stop the death and destruction that COVID is wreaking. We also talk about what the government of Alberta needs to do get this disaster under control
If you like this podcast and you want to support it go to https://www.theprogressreport.ca/patrons and become a monthly patron!
Links:
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to The Progress Report
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to The Progress Report on the Harbinger Media Network, presented by Passage, the online journal of left Canadian thought and opinion, which you can find at readpassage.com. But here on the network you can hear great shows like The Alberta Advantage, with a recent episode on a subject close to my heart, Ukrainian Nazis, and I've also been enjoying Kino Lefter's James Bond series, Gun Barrel.
00:00:20
Speaker
So, you know, join us.
Building Community Against Right-Wing Media
00:00:22
Speaker
We're building a community that's challenging right-wing corporate media dominance from coast to coast, and you can get access to exclusive shows and other supporter-only content at harbingermediainetwork.com. Now, onto the show.
Interview with Lorraine Hartcastle
00:00:46
Speaker
Friends and enemies, welcome to The Progress Report. I am your host, Duncan Kinney, and we're recording today here in Amiskwichiwa, Skigan, otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta, here in Treaty Six territory. Lorraine Hartcastle is a law professor at the University of Calgary who specializes in health law. Lorraine, you recently wrote a very spicy and provocative piece for McLean's that we're here to talk about today. Welcome, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me.
COVID-19 Crisis in Alberta
00:01:11
Speaker
So before we get into the details of your story, I think it's worth foregrounding kind of where we're at right now, uh, with regards to the COVID 19 pandemic and just how bad the situation is on the ground here. So recording this here's the like the morning of November 19th.
00:01:29
Speaker
We now have more than 10,000 active COVID-19 cases in Alberta at the moment. The amount of COVID infections where the source of the infection is unknown is north of 85% in the past week.
00:01:44
Speaker
which again is very scary. Contact tracing at this point is effectively broken. We're getting reports from contact tracers that they are working on positive cases from two weeks ago. And as we have read and heard from many professionals, effective contact tracing is a linchpin of an effective COVID response and it just isn't working right now.
00:02:01
Speaker
Our hospitals are nearing and at some cases are at their breaking point. Our ICU bed capacity, the metric that Dr. Hinshaw initially held up as the key indicator of how a real handling the pandemic is north of 80% at the moment. There's also the very real possibility that even if those beds exist, there just simply might not be the workers, the nurses, the doctors, the support staff to actually provide those people the care that they need.
00:02:28
Speaker
We have active outbreaks currently in 12 hospitals, but also 312 schools, 67 long-term care or supportive living sites, five separate oil sands facilities. We're at 443 deaths, and perhaps most troubling of that, we've seen a steep increase in deaths recently. A quarter of those deaths have come since November 1st.
00:02:54
Speaker
And doctors, healthcare workers, emergency experts, the guy from Calgary specifically, they're begging for a two to four week circuit breaker lockdown before our healthcare system gets overwhelmed. I think we can agree, Lorian, that things are bad.
00:03:10
Speaker
And your piece was actually a breath of fresh air. You're saying that this terrible, incompetent COVID response from the Alberta government doesn't have to necessarily be this way, that Dr. Hinshaw has tools at her disposal to improve the response and save lives. So why don't you walk our audience through the thesis of your piece?
Legal Powers in COVID Response
00:03:31
Speaker
Sure. So, so before getting to the thesis, I mean, I think it's important to say that in an ideal world, the government would be managing this well hand in hand with public officials and it would be a cooperative response because I think
00:03:46
Speaker
In that way, you're marrying together democratic concerns with having elected officials make decisions with the best available science. And so if that was happening, that piece wouldn't exist. And frankly, if things weren't as dire as they are, that piece wouldn't exist. I wouldn't ordinarily dream of suggesting that a public health official who is walking a difficult line between
00:04:13
Speaker
trying to work with the politicians who are in charge, but also to have her decisions reflect science. I wouldn't ordinarily call something like that out, but in this case, we really are in a dire situation. And so the thesis of the piece is that elected officials have chosen to give to Dr. Hinshaw the power to take basically any action necessary
00:04:42
Speaker
to suppress this disease outbreak. And that was their democratic choice in giving that to her. Some provinces subject certain medical officer decisions to ministerial approval. They didn't do that in Alberta. Some provinces more clearly divide up responsibilities between government and chief medical officers, and they don't do that. And so the thesis of the piece is that from a legal perspective,
00:05:12
Speaker
she could issue an order contrary to government wishes. Now, of course, there'd be the political side to manage of that, which I think we're going to get into, but the thesis of the piece is strictly legally. She keeps telling the public that her role is an advisory role, and that is in the legislation as well. But under Section 29 of the Public Health Act, which she has relied on to make all of her orders, there is this very generic power
00:05:42
Speaker
to do anything necessary to limit the spread and that sort of thing. So you're saying that potentially Dr. Hinshaw has the legal power given to her under the legislation that gives her job and her power. She has the ability to, for instance, issue a two to four week circuit breaker lockdown, even if the government doesn't want that to happen.
00:06:03
Speaker
She could. I think if she went that far, I think certainly the government, you know, she may lose her job, but it would be, oh, if the government truly didn't want that, then they could pass legislation to undo her decision. And then it would be on them. You know, it would be, they'd have to own and wear that decision. But theoretically, she could under the law pass that.
00:06:29
Speaker
But she could also do other things under the law that I think maybe wouldn't be as likely to lead to her getting fired or the government passing legislation to override her decisions. For example, something like a mask mandate is a purely public health decision. There really aren't economic consequences. And so despite their, if she ordered a mask mandate province-wide, despite their wishes, I'm not convinced they would fire her.
00:06:57
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, everything is political and her position especially is political given the importance of the COVID response to the government of Alberta. But there was a section of your piece that drew a lot of ire, even got the hackles of post-media columnist Don Braid up. I'm just going to read this section of your piece aloud now and just walk through a bit of a reaction to it. Sure.
00:07:24
Speaker
Quote, but perhaps the saddest case is Dr. Dina Hinshaw, who has done little to check Alberta's gung-ho premier, Jason Kenney. He has staunchly refused to impose restrictions, instead telling partygoers to knock it off and adopting a, quote, personal responsibility, unquote, approach to public health.
00:07:40
Speaker
Meanwhile, Alberta hit a record-breaking 919 cases in a single day and called off contact tracing outside of high-priority settings such as hospitals, schools, or continuing care. A letter signed by over 70 doctors asking for a two-week lockdown to damp down the cases and allow contact tracers to catch up was ignored.
00:07:58
Speaker
While Dr. Hinshaw expressed, quote, concern and made recommendations, he seems unwilling to rock Kenny's boat. In her words, the chief medical officer of health is not a decision maker, but rather is just a, quote, advisor and someone who recommends. Not only is this wrong, but it is dangerously foolish.
00:08:17
Speaker
I think that is the part of your piece that Don Braid kind of quoted back to Dr. Hinshaw in a press conference and now the UCP is lighting their fire on fire saying, oh my God, people are going after Dr. Hinshaw. But you stand by this, right?
00:08:36
Speaker
Yeah, I do. I mean, look, I didn't want it to get to this point. I didn't want to write that piece. I would prefer the government respond to this properly. I don't love the idea of calling out someone that I know is in a difficult position. But at the same time, she's really been made the kind of face of decision making here. Even if she sees herself an advisor, she's the one sitting on the news, the press conferences telling us what we should be doing.
00:09:05
Speaker
And it concerns me that she, you know, the press conference is saying, well, we've we've now imposed an order to limit gatherings to 15 in certain areas, because I think that tells the public that it's safe to gather with 15 people and to gather with as many different groups of 15 people as you like, because that's the law. And I think I think if if the government is departing from her recommendations, then it's
00:09:31
Speaker
It's concerning to me that she's saying them. Like if that's a political decision to allow people to gather with as many groups of 15 as they like, then I think it would be better if it came from Chandra or Kenny.
00:09:41
Speaker
because then people would take it with a grain of salt. When it comes from her, my concern is that people now think it's safe to just hang out with 15 people all the time and it's not. There's no public health evidence to suggest that that's a safe number of people. I think I take her point that we're also concerned with mental health and with isolation and those issues, but I think that a smaller number, say five,
00:10:06
Speaker
would deal with that isolation issue and me deal with the concern that if you're at home in a domestic violence situation and you're not seeing anybody else, then it would go undetected. But 15 is a lot of people, especially as we're coming into the Christmas party season. And so I think it's concerning that she gets on those press conferences and says things that seem to me to probably come from a political place, but I think the public doesn't necessarily understand that.
00:10:33
Speaker
And I think they think that if she's saying something, that it's entirely science-based. And at this point, it just doesn't look that way.
00:10:41
Speaker
I think you framed an essential kind of problem here, right? Which is that Dr.
Political Use of Dr. Hinshaw
00:10:46
Speaker
Hinshaw is being used by the UCP to give a veneer of like science and authority to a lot of political decisions, right? And the decisions that have been made by this UCP government to reopen and to the things that they've done in regards to reopening.
00:11:07
Speaker
They brag about how little restrictions they've imposed. Those are political decisions. They've been very clear that they believe that the economy is the most important thing here and that they need to get the economy going again.
00:11:20
Speaker
And then when you trot out Dr. Hinshaw to talk about how you're reopening and how these decisions are going to be implemented, these in fact, a lot of these decisions are in fact political decisions and not like, even if we accept Dr. Dina Hinshaw's like, I am simply in a science advisor, a medical advisor role, which we obviously don't. But even if we accept that, she is taking a political,
00:11:45
Speaker
role in the kind of government's rollouts that I think is a little unseemly.
00:11:51
Speaker
I completely agree. I think that I would much prefer a situation where you have Minister Chandra saying, look, here's the choices that we've made and these choices balance economics with medical science. And then for her to get up after that and say, you know, that's what the government is willing to impose from an economic perspective. And those are important issues as well. But what I'm telling you is that here is my best scientific
00:12:20
Speaker
opinion on what you should actually be doing. And I think that the public needs that kind of messaging, because then they understand, well, just because the bars are open doesn't mean I should necessarily frequent them. Or just because I can go to the gym doesn't mean I have to, or I should go in the middle of the day when it's busy. I think if there was one side telling us
00:12:42
Speaker
You know, this is the provincial strategy that takes into account economics and health and everything else. And then she was purely giving her best scientific opinion to the public. The public trusts her. And I do think that even if she was recommending something that maybe was stricter than the regulations, they may be willing to follow that just because of the
00:13:05
Speaker
the high level of trust that I think she really enjoyed until quite recently. I mean, I think I'm not the only one saying that the things I'm saying, there's definitely some cracks in the facade, but I think at least then the public would understand better. But I think when she says something, they don't understand that there's, some people don't understand that there's political issues that have been weighed against the science.
00:13:30
Speaker
I mean, I think she's put a huge hole in her own credibility and her own standing with Albertans by going out and defending these ultimately incredibly political decisions from using her voice and using her imprint and veneer of authority.
00:13:45
Speaker
and scientific expertise. And it's hard to come back from that and pieces like yours. And then you have pieces like yours on top of it being like, it doesn't have to be this way. Our response can be better. There is a person with the power to save lives. And that is why a piece like yours, I think was, I mean, why I thought it was a necessary piece and why I enjoyed reading it, which is that like we simply Dr. Hinchas simply doesn't have to accept what is happening. She has the power.
00:14:14
Speaker
And she is simply choosing not to use it, right? That's right. And as I say, even short of her issuing legal orders that go against the government, I mean, there are other ways that I think we could structure this to make clear what's political and what's not.
00:14:33
Speaker
And, you know, as I say, having the minister make announcements about restrictions and then having her, you know, give the purely public health information. And I think that might be a way of dealing with that short of her making orders. But, you know, it's getting dire and she does have the power to make orders. So I think that's certainly on the table. And in particular, orders like masking or gathering limits that have no effect on the economy
00:15:02
Speaker
seem very much within her wheelhouse because there's no weighing of economic factors, of political factors in masking. There really shouldn't be. And that's one that really concerns me because we're coming up on the holidays and you have people who live in Calgary and Edmonton and other places with lots of cases and they're going to be traveling home to their small towns
00:15:27
Speaker
that don't have the health infrastructure to see an influx of COVID cases, and because they don't have any COVID cases, don't have mask requirements.
00:15:36
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I'm really terrified of what our case counts are going to be like between January, you know, 10th or January 5th to January 10th. You know what I mean? Like we are going to see another huge spike, right? And it's, it's, it's scary. And it's going, I mean, we think it's bad now, but it is going to get worse. Laurie, I know you, you wrote a provocative piece about a popular public figure. You probably expected that there was going to be, um, you know, some response and some pushback.
00:16:05
Speaker
But I think post-media columnist and a notable former scab Don Braid, he came out kind of like writing a piece, essentially responding to your piece. Even in one of the press conferences actually asked a question to Dr. Hinshaw about your piece, and I'm just going to play that audio right now, and then we can react to it. So let's just roll that tape. Dr. Hinshaw, there was an article in McLean's magazine just last week, which is of
00:16:33
Speaker
rather fiercely critical of you. It's surprising to see actually, but the argument that was made was that you and all the other medical officers felt across the country have many powers that you're not using because you're in the thrall of provincial politicians. And I, first of all, I'd like to ask if you, if you have read it and if what your response is, whether you have read it or not.
00:16:59
Speaker
Thank you for the question. I have read the article and my response would be that my job description is very clear in the Public Health Act and the Public Health Act in Alberta says the Chief Medical Officer of Health shall monitor the health of the population and make recommendations to the Minister of Health to promote and protect the health of the population and to prevent disease and injury.
00:17:21
Speaker
So the fact that the job that I am doing is making recommendations is absolutely in line with my legislated role. And I can promise Albertans that I have always, in every recommendation I've made, considered the full health of every person in this province. COVID is a concern and the other health needs of Albertans are also a concern. And I strive every day to do my best for every single Albertan.
00:17:53
Speaker
Okay. So, so you wanted me to react to that. So I guess the first thing I wanted to address is, is, is what you said about, um, you know, I, I probably knew this, this was going to cause controversy and, and I did, and it made me really uncomfortable. I mean, um, prior to this, uh, article, you know, generally speaking, the views on my opinion work and, you know, various op-eds and commentaries I've written have really been on party lines that, you know, the UCP doesn't like what I'm writing, particularly about things like private healthcare.
00:18:22
Speaker
But generally speaking, health professionals and others tend to like it. And so I did know that this was going to alienate and draw criticism
00:18:32
Speaker
from some people that had previously said they liked my work or I knew they liked my work. And I actually had a moment the day before this article was accepted for publication when I said to a colleague, I kind of hope this doesn't get accepted because I'm not a person that intentionally writes provocative things because I like attention. And so I knew this was going to attract criticism. And I did get a couple of hateful emails and tweets.
00:19:01
Speaker
Um, you know, a lot of the, the people who normally support my work for silent, which, which I think speaks volumes. And so, um, yeah. And so I didn't do it because, um, because of that. And, and actually I don't like that. It makes me uncomfortable. Um, and hearing that interview, it made me uncomfortable, but it needed to be said, like, you know, if the numbers were.
00:19:22
Speaker
a quarter what they were, a third what they were, if we were back where we were in July, I wouldn't have even dreamed of writing that. So I guess that's the first kind of framing piece. With respect though to her specific answer to that question, she is talking about, it's either Section 13 or 14 of the Public Health Act, which does talk about her having an advisory role, and that's absolutely correct.
00:19:43
Speaker
But she also has the power to issue orders under Section 29. And if her role was merely as an advisor, then it would be the government writing public health orders, not her. But if you look at all of the orders that have been issued to date, it says under Section 29 of the Public Health Act, I have the authority to do anything necessary to prevent the spread of communicable diseases, and here's what I'm doing.
00:20:10
Speaker
Um, if, if she's purely an advisor, then she shouldn't be the one making orders and we shouldn't see her on TV every day. It should be, or if she's on TV, it should be in an educational kind of function, not in a here are my legal orders function.
00:20:27
Speaker
If it's that she just advises and the government makes legal, makes the legal decisions, then they should be the ones at the press conferences. And so you can't really have it both ways that she merely advises, but then somehow she's the face of this and the legal decisions come from her desk with her signature.
00:20:46
Speaker
And I mean, some of these Section 29 orders are notable, right? Like the limit to 15 people in a social gathering. That was in an order issued by Dr. Hinshaw under Section 29 of the Act. The order issued by Dr. Hinshaw that changed the rules of engagement around how many kids in schools? I can't remember the exact specifics of that order, but I remember it was very controversial at the time. It was kind of changed at the last minute about
00:21:15
Speaker
about kids in schools, that was an order from Dr. Hinshaw that was done again, you know, by her under section 29 of the act. She has the power to issues these orders is what you're saying. And she has used this power, but not in a way that has ever kind of not in a role or a way that has ever kind of gone against the government in any kind of fashion, right?
00:21:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's absolutely right. But again, if the government wanted to make her decision subject to ministerial approval, they could have put that in the legislation. And some provinces with respect to emergency orders do that. So some people say that her doing this would be undemocratic. And I do see their point to some extent that a bureaucrat stepping over the government does raise those concerns.
00:21:59
Speaker
At the same time, though, it was a democratic decision of elected officials to not really circumscribe her power under Section 29 and to have her be the one issuing these orders, as opposed to them being orders in counsel from the government or regulations passed by the government.
00:22:18
Speaker
And fundamentally, people are dying, right? She is a doctor. You know, we are getting close to the point of like of a New York or of an Italy where people are just going to start dying in hospital hallways because there just simply isn't enough people to take care of them. And there is a there is a moral and ethical kind of boundary or frame on which to act here. And again, we're not necessarily at that point. But when we do get to that point, I hope Dr. Hinshaw realizes that she has tools available to her.
00:22:46
Speaker
Well, and you're absolutely right. I mean, apart from the Public Health Act, as a physician, there are certain ethical duties that come with that job. And when you're having conversations with patients, for example, and getting their consent to particular treatments, you have an obligation to provide them with
00:23:09
Speaker
accurate information. And so obviously, this is a different role than that kind of doctor-patient relationship. But the kind of similar ethical issues arise of providing truthful and as scientifically accurate as possible information. And so I think maybe there are those ethical issues starting to arise. And one wonders if perhaps she does have a line in her mind where
00:23:37
Speaker
this will have gone past her ethical line and she might speak out. And there have been many resignations in the US of health officials in response to some of the government's efforts down there. So I think certainly there's a precedence for speaking up.
00:23:56
Speaker
And at the same time that your piece came out, CBC Calgary came out with a piece with the headline, former Alberta chief medical officer of health says job involves walking political tightrope.
Challenges Faced by Dr. Hinshaw
00:24:07
Speaker
And the deck of this piece kind of lays that out. Dr. Jim Talbot lists three options if you disagree with government, quit, be fired or work behind the scenes. This piece, I think brings up a lot of the same arguments that people who disagree with your piece bring up.
00:24:22
Speaker
And, uh, and before we get into it, I think with respect to Dr. Jim Talbot, uh, he was never, even though he is a former chief medical officer of health, he was never the chief medical officer of health during a deadly global pandemic that the government botched the response to. But I think, uh, you know, his government can be response, his, his arguments can be summed up like this. Hinshaw has got to do what she's told, or she'll be fired. And Hinshaw is working her very best behind the scenes.
00:24:46
Speaker
Um, I mean, what were, what were your thoughts on this piece and on those two kind of like counter arguments specifically? Yeah. So, so certainly I read the piece and, um, I think maybe the difference, one of the key differences between our piece and that piece is that ours was really focused on the legal powers that, that exists. And we really didn't get into the complex and a political position that she's in, uh, where she directly reports to government, but then also has these, has these legal,
00:25:14
Speaker
and illegal powers and ethical duties. I think his piece gets more into that political tightrope. I don't think that's an unfair metaphor at all. I think she is in an incredibly difficult position. And I do think he's correct that
00:25:33
Speaker
I mean, maybe I see a riff on one of his options. So his options are quit. And I think we've seen that in the US. Some of the public health officials have quit because they disagree with what the government is doing and just can't deal with it anymore. So there is some precedence for that. I think they get fired is the one that I might riff on a little bit because I think there's maybe things that she could do, as I said earlier, maybe passing a masking order
00:26:03
Speaker
Passing an order limiting gatherings because those don't have really any effect on the economy and those are pure public health orders And so the government may not fire her over those But but it is a risk It's always a risk that if you exercise these powers in a way that the government doesn't like that you can That being fired is a risk. So I accept that that's that that's true I do think he's probably correct that she's she's working behind the scenes I mean, I don't I don't think that she's
00:26:33
Speaker
fully on board probably with what the government is doing. And so she's probably giving them recommendations that maybe don't always align with what they're actually doing. And I think maybe she sees that as, well, if I work behind the scenes, nobody worse than me is going to be put into this job.
00:26:49
Speaker
For some amount of time, that's probably a fair approach. But there gets to a point where what the government is doing is just so contrary to science and people are dying that I just think that you must feel compelled to do something, whether it's speak out or issue a legal order or quit or something. I think there must be a line when we've just departed way too far from science that you just can't stand behind what the government is doing.
00:27:19
Speaker
I mean, in regards to the getting fired thing, I mean, Jason Kenney can read a poll. He knows that his government's response to COVID-19 has been incredibly poorly received. Leger just received a poll. And I think 39% of people approved of the government of Alberta's response to COVID-19, whereas every other government in Canada I think was like plus 60 or plus 65.
00:27:43
Speaker
you know, they know that they fucked this up and that if they were to fire the public face of their response to the COVID-19 pandemic, they know that they would face even more appropriate for doing that. And, you know, I guess the other thing is that like the working behind the scenes point is like, one, it's totally opaque. We have no idea, right? We simply do not know. And based on the results,
00:28:11
Speaker
I don't know if you can make the argument that her working behind the scenes has been incredibly effective because our response is the worst in the country. Oh, you know what I mean? Like, like I can just like point to the daily update and say her working behind the scenes has got us this far. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think the other thing too is, is this idea that's kind of out there that if, if she, if she were fired or she quit or whatever, that they would put in somebody worse.
00:28:41
Speaker
Well, I think that the public, though, might not trust that worst person. And so we might not be worse off. Like, I don't know if we're worse off having her in this role and people trust what she's saying and probably shouldn't. Like, you shouldn't trust someone that's saying you can gather with 15 people at this point.
00:29:00
Speaker
But if the if the UCP were to fire her and put someone else in I think the public would would see that person's recommendations for what they are They would see them as political recommendations and would take them with the appropriate grain of salt so in some ways we might not actually be worse off with a yes, man that the that the UCP appointed if if she weren't in that role and
00:29:24
Speaker
Yeah. Like I'm sure it could get worse. Uh, but like at the end of the day, if she was to be either removed or she resigned or whatever, I think that person would be rightly viewed as a, as a stooch and.
00:29:36
Speaker
And I think that this government's COVID response, the eyes of this response in the view of the public would be even further diminished, even further diminished, which is like, and it's already quite low. So I think that's the kind of like, you kind of run through the decision tree on those three
00:29:55
Speaker
arguments that Jim Talbot makes, right? Quit, be fired or work behind the scenes. And it's probably a hard decision for Dr. Hinshaw to make, but I think when you look at work behind the scenes, it simply hasn't been effective. And so quit or be fired are really the options on the table.
00:30:15
Speaker
And that's really what we explore is that, is that get fired option that, you know, what can you legally do that might result in you getting fired, but maybe there's less, you know, there's lesser versions of that or less restrictive things that you can do that wouldn't actually get you fired. So, so I think that's the one that we're really, we really pushed on in the piece. Yeah.
00:30:35
Speaker
And so finally, I think you and I have kind of spent the past half hour roasting the government for their failure to respond to this pandemic effectively, and rightly
Proposals for Pandemic Management
00:30:45
Speaker
so. I mean, it's been an incredible fuck up. People are dying, like I said, a quarter of the deaths we've seen from COVID-19 over the course of this pandemic have happened in the past 18 days.
00:30:56
Speaker
There was a day recently where 20 people died in one day from COVID-19. Just tragedy is literally unfolding around us. But if we were premier of Alberta, what would we be doing to address this pandemic? And I think it's worth talking about the possibilities of how we would make
00:31:14
Speaker
our lives better because it's, it's easy to bitch, but I do want to put solutions out into the world. So, so Lauren, why don't you lead us off? If you were in charge, what are a couple, just pick three things that you would do off that off. There's, I know there's lots of things we would do, but keep it focused to a couple of top level things. Well, so, so, so you frame it as if I were the premier of Alberta, let's assume I'm not the current premier, because if I were the current premier, there's everything is, everything's going great. But if I were, if I were some other premier of Alberta,
00:31:41
Speaker
I think one of the things they really need to get on top of is the holidays that are coming up. And people are going to be going to parties and then they're going to go home and visit relatives all over the province and potentially in other provinces as well. And I think they need to get a handle on that. And to me, as I said before, a province-wide mask rule I think is crucial to that because you're going to small towns
00:32:11
Speaker
that don't have any cases and potentially bringing your cases from the city. But I also think the gatherings, we can't have, and really it'll start around next weekend, weekend after, people will start attending Christmas parties. And I think the government needs to crack down on those gatherings to scale the number back and to do some enforcement.
00:32:32
Speaker
At the beginning, I didn't kind of like this idea of people watching each other and snitching on each other and that sort of thing. But I think these Christmas parties are really just going to be a huge problem. So I think that's one area that they need to get on top of. Another area is this ongoing issue in continuing care. I mean, these people are not, just because these people are older and are towards the end of their life expectancy. And we heard Kenny make some comments at one point that sort of
00:33:02
Speaker
seem to diminish the fact that people in their 80s were dying from COVID because
00:33:09
Speaker
That's sort of the average life expectancy anyway. But these are not disposable people, and they're suffering in these facilities. We have a facility in Edmonton that it's somewhere around 90% of the residents have tested positive. There's going to be a whole slew of deaths coming from that. And I think that it's just tragic the way that that's been approached. And if it's a matter of ramping up inspection,
00:33:38
Speaker
If it's a matter of kicking out the for profit operator and putting a government operator in place, like they can't just let these
00:33:46
Speaker
let these continue and sort of throw their hands up and treat it as inevitable that once COVID is in these homes, it's just going to ravage them because that isn't the case. I mean, there's evidence from Ontario showing that when COVID gets into a long-term care facility, the amount of residents that it affects and the mortality
00:34:10
Speaker
is linked to whether it's a for-profit facility or not. And so clearly there are things that can be done once COVID is in to limit mortality and to limit its spread. And the government just has to get a handle on that because these aren't disposable people just because they're old. So maybe those are two big things.
00:34:29
Speaker
Yeah, let me just jump in with a couple. We can just kind of keep going back and forth, but I think paid sick leave is absolutely, absolutely important, right? We heard Hinshaw in a press conference the other day saying, whatever, nine or third, I can't remember the exact number, but some percentage of people, and a not insignificant percentage of people going to work with symptoms because they have to, because they need to make money so that they don't starve or become homeless.
00:34:53
Speaker
Paid sick leaves, so when you get sick and you have to stay home, because you have to stay home when you're sick now, remember, you need to be paid. You require money to flow to you if you are sick and you are staying home, because again, you need to not starve to death and you need to not be out on the street homeless.
00:35:13
Speaker
This government has firmly resisted paid sick leave. I think they've referred people to a small federal program that I think gives people $450 a week or something. Not enough. I think the immediate two to four week circuit breaker lockdown that's been proposed by numerous health professionals and emergency experts and healthcare workers is an immediate step that can be taken to halt the deadly upward spiral that we are in when it comes to case counts.
00:35:42
Speaker
Again, if you're going to do that, you're going to have to pay people to stay home. I think the government says, oh, we couldn't possibly do a circuit breaker lockdown because of the costs. The costs of not having a circuit breaker lockdown is that your healthcare system starts failing, people start dying in hallways. The cost of giving people $500 a week or $800 a week, whatever it is, to stay home is going to be less than what the long run human cost is going to be.
00:36:10
Speaker
And I'll do one more and then you can jump back in. And that's all hands on deck with contact tracing. The contact tracing system is broken and it is an absolutely incredibly important part of having an affected COVID-19 response. We are essentially flying blind right now. We have no idea where our COVID cases are actually happening. We have data from the past. We don't have data from now.
00:36:30
Speaker
something like 80 some percent of all cases in the past week are coming from unknown exposures. So you're going to have to second people from other government departments. You're going to have to literally actually start hiring people. They've talked for the past weeks about hiring 400 new contract tracers. They have like 22 job applications on the AHS website that have contact tracing.
00:36:50
Speaker
in the job description. It is time to damn the torpedoes and start hiring people en masse because there's training time, there's police check time, there's just getting integrated and up to speed time. Even if you were to hire 400 contact tracers tomorrow, they probably wouldn't be on the phones until the middle of December. Your turn. Go ahead.
00:37:10
Speaker
Yeah. So riffing on a couple of those, I mean, I think that some of these things actually are really in the government's interest. I mean, I think they seem to have created this false dichotomy between the economy and on the one hand and public health on the other, but some- Lockdowns on the other. Yeah.
00:37:27
Speaker
Some of the things that you propose actually are in their interest. And so, for example, you highlighted the paying people to stay home versus the human cost of infection, but there's also the economic cost of infection. And treating people in an ICU on ventilators for weeks is really, really expensive.
00:37:51
Speaker
And so in some ways, I mean, I'd love to see an economist sort of take this on and number crunch this, paying people X number of dollars weekly to stay home when they're sick, or paying people to stay home during a two week lockdown. One wonders if that's not actually cheaper than the health care costs that will result. And, you know, for a government that loves, you see, apparently, I mean, the war rooms suggest otherwise, but from a government that purportedly loves saving money and doing what's most economically efficient,
00:38:21
Speaker
I think they need to do that analysis and it may actually be in their best interest to do this. The other kind of riff on a lockdown that I'm seeing floated that I think is interesting
00:38:34
Speaker
and I think is certainly something that should be on the table, is there some discussion of having a lockdown, letting kids out of school a week early and having sort of a 10 week or 14 day clear before Christmas because people are going to see their relatives anyway, whether it's safe or not. And this would, you know, the idea is that this would compel them to do that safely.
00:39:00
Speaker
And then the other thing I might say is building on your, your sort of plea for them to fix this contact tracing problem. I think, um, not only is it, is it essential for, for the purposes of obviously limiting the spread and bringing case numbers down, but the other thing is, is that if this, if this government wants to avoid total shutdowns of the economy, which it obviously wants to do, one of the best ways to do that is through effective contact tracing.
00:39:29
Speaker
Because one of the reasons that a total shutdown is on the table is because we don't know where cases are coming from, and we can't trace them and stamp them out. If contract tracing was very efficient and people were finding out right away, and we were able to stop cases right away, and we knew where the outbreaks were coming from, then we could actually potentially be quite safe.
00:39:54
Speaker
with something less than a total lockdown with much more targeted protections. But the bar closes a few hours early and kids can't play hockey. We don't really know how good the science is for that because we don't know where people are getting cases from. And so you can't have evidence-based targeted measures if you don't know where the cases are coming from. So we need that contact tracing both to limit infections
00:40:22
Speaker
but also to have better public health measures in place. Yeah. And to riff on one of your first points about long-term care, the private versus public long-term care, yeah, nationalized long-term care tomorrow with no compensation.
00:40:33
Speaker
The private for-profit long-term care facilities that exist, again, have proven themselves to be negligent in keeping people alive during a pandemic. You have every incentive to simply shut them down and take them over and give the people that are working their good government unionized jobs and to remove the profit motive from that industry because there was an incident in Winnipeg where
00:40:57
Speaker
Uh, six, six ambulances were called to a Rivera owned home. And it was, it was literally a fucking horror show. People were like dead, you know, undergoing lividity and like, and rigor mortis, like outside on, on stretchers. And Rivera, Rivera owns the facility in Edmonton. I talked about earlier with the 90% positive cases.
00:41:19
Speaker
They also own the site, the facility in Calgary, that was the site of Alberta's biggest outbreak in the summer, Mackenzie Town. And they also own the home right now in Ontario that has one of their largest case counts. And they own the facility in Mountain Royal in Calgary that has a bunch of cases.
00:41:40
Speaker
Yes, some companies seem especially egregious. Anyway, I'll let you, sorry, I interjected that. No, no, you're totally right. Rivera is one of the worst actors and you're right to highlight them. And when you start making the arguments for nationalization, you do need to talk about the worst actors because otherwise people will say, well, what about this and what about this? Well, it's like, I don't care. You know what I mean? I mean, another thing that they could be doing tomorrow, the government could do tomorrow in Alberta is just bringing the federal COVID app. It's a travesty that that hasn't
00:42:10
Speaker
arrived yet. It seems to be pure obstinance and hatred of government of Justin Trudeau. I really have no other way to explain that one. And you brought up students earlier and kind of letting them out a week earlier. I think that one is correct. And other jurisdictions have been doing that. But I think something that could be done when students come back.
00:42:30
Speaker
is to hire more teachers and to spread students out and then have school and other facilities that aren't schools and then take some of the arguments that were made by the Alberta NDP and their plan on their safe school reopening plan, which is actually quite good. Those need to seriously be considered as well because I think it's undeniable that schools are driving a lot of infections since they've reopened.
00:42:52
Speaker
Yeah, I think you're right. The school situation is concerning. And I think a lot of people unreasonably fixate on the mortality. And you'll hear some people say, well, it's not really worse than getting the flu or those sorts of things. And people die from that too. But I think you're right. I think the schools concern me both as a source of transmission, but also because we don't really know the long-term health effects of COVID. And we're starting to see
00:43:21
Speaker
some evidence that it's not good, but I especially worry about it at a really young age, how contracting COVID might affect you in the long term. And so that concerns me about schools. And I think you're right. We have all of these facilities that either are closed or should be closed.
00:43:41
Speaker
massive gymnasiums in fitness facilities and that kind of thing. And it seems to me that you're right, that we can hire more teachers. Or if you have a classroom that's spread out between two big gymnasiums, let's say at a city-owned fitness facility, well, you can have a teacher in one room and an educational assistant in the other, and they can kind of tag team. There's other things we can do that I think would
00:44:11
Speaker
would spread kids out more and maybe protect them better. I've also heard that there's ventilation problems in lots of schools. So I think the school one is a big one and one that the government really didn't act very quickly on. And the minister of education is largely unseen. People are wondering where she is in all of this. You really don't hear a lot from her apart from
00:44:37
Speaker
Yeah, schools are fine to run with some additional precautions. And I think it is concerning. And you're starting to hear about schools that can't even run because so many teachers are, you know, they don't have enough teachers to teach. Yeah, they're in quarantine, right? Sublists, yeah. So I think the schools are a big issue. And I think the schools, we really have to get a handle on that in order to
00:45:03
Speaker
to keep the economy running, which is something the government obviously wants. But I also think that you have to have schools running safely or you're just going to continue to exacerbate the gendered aspects of this pandemic. You know, there's all sorts of studies showing how the children being out of school disproportionately affects women in their and their careers. And, you know, especially, you know, if you're talking about two weeks, three weeks, maybe that's not such a career disruption. But when you're going on
00:45:30
Speaker
eight months, nine months, 10 months. There's huge career aspects to that. Agreed. I think there are a couple of other really big ones that I think we're going to close on here, and this would broadly being stop with the ideology.
Critique of Healthcare Policies
00:45:47
Speaker
This government has picked fight with doctors, has laid off healthcare workers, is in the midst of privatizing the system of the healthcare system. They're in the midst of building the largest private hospital in history, like in Canada.
00:46:00
Speaker
Uh, you know, stop the privatization of healthcare and invest in more public infrastructure and invest in more healthcare workers and build more slack into the system. Because if there's one thing that this pandemic has shown, it's that running your hospitals and your healthcare system efficiently, quote unquote, uh, is bad when things like this happen, because then there isn't the human resources, any infrastructure needed to handle these shocks to the system. And you, you want your healthcare system to be able to handle a shock as we've seen.
00:46:29
Speaker
And ultimately, I think the goal here, and this is an open debate, this is a debate within the pointy headed COVID community, is management of COVID versus a COVID zero goal. And I think the COVID zero goal is ultimately where our focus needs to be.
00:46:50
Speaker
right? The COVID management is just like, oh, with targeted measures and with the right data and the right measures, we should be able to manage it until we get a vaccine. And in my view, that simply means that we're just sacrificing people's health and their lives. Because again, you make a great point about, we just simply don't know what the long-term implications of having COVID are, what it does to your brain, what it does to your other organs.
00:47:14
Speaker
your lungs, your heart. There are some scary stories coming out about just like, just these wacky things that are happening to otherwise healthy people that have recovered, quote unquote, from COVID that are either dropping dead or severely impacting their quality of life and their ability to function. And so the COVID zero goal is ultimately where our focus needs to be. What do you think?
00:47:37
Speaker
Yeah, I absolutely, I absolutely agree. I think, I think, um, we've seen, and we've seen better results from countries that have had that mindset. I mean, New Zealand is seems to be constantly held up as a, as an example of a country that managed this well. And, and really that seemed to be their, their approach, I think.
00:47:56
Speaker
You know, the other sort of long-term thing I would say in addition to this sort of COVID zero idea is that I think that COVID has exposed a lot of cracks in the healthcare system that maybe were there before, but weren't just weren't so visible and a lot of cracks in, um, just generally our social system and how we treat vulnerable groups. And I think, you know, long-term it would be a shame.
00:48:20
Speaker
if we didn't learn anything from COVID and didn't fix some of these societal problems that COVID has merely illuminated, but that were there all along.
00:48:31
Speaker
Agreed. Lauren, thank you for coming on the show. We really appreciate you taking the time. And for your piece, your piece was really good too. It'll obviously be in the show notes and we encourage people to read it if they haven't read it already. Lauren, what's the best way for people to kind of like follow along with your work and your takes on the world and now is the time to kind of plug yourself and anything else that you have to plug?
00:48:52
Speaker
Sure, so certainly I can be followed on Twitter at laurian underscore h. My last name's too long to have all the characters in there, so it's laurian underscore h. And that's, of course, a place where you can find some of the commentaries I'm doing on the health care system, so shorter op-ed pieces. But that's also the place where you can find my more scholarly, peer-reviewed staff, which has been on the back burner, but certainly there's
00:49:22
Speaker
pieces in the pipeline that will appear there. Awesome. And folks, if you like this podcast and you want to keep hearing more podcasts like it, one thing you can do that really helps us out is to share this podcast with your friends. Word of mouth advertising really helps us out. And so please, through whatever means you think is best, get this podcast into the ears of other people who you think need to hear it.
00:49:48
Speaker
The other big thing that really helps us out and helps keep this, not just this podcast, but the whole independent media project of the Progress Report going is becoming a donor and joining the 250 other folks who help keep this independent media project going. And so to do that, you go to theprogressreport.ca slash patrons. You put in your credit card and contribute. We would really appreciate it. Like I said, Jim and I really like having a roof over our heads. We like eating food and your donations make things, make that happen.
00:50:15
Speaker
Also, if you have any notes, thoughts, things you think I need to hear, things you think I messed up on, I'm very easy to reach. You can reach me on Twitter at Duncan Kinney, and you can reach me by email at DuncanK at ProgressAberta.ca. Thanks so much to Cosmic Family Communist for our theme. Thank you for listening, and goodbye.