I wrote a column yesterday for TVO about Ontario's rather lacking plan to open the schools (the elementary school part of the plan being the main problem). I'm getting some interesting responses. There's two big things people are still either unable or unwilling to accept. +

I've had like a dozen people write me to tell me that COVID doesn't really kill kids. Yes, I know that. When we realized that, I could sleep again. I'd been afraid for my own. But, I mean ... schools are full of adults too. They aren't just child warehouses. +

Indeed, as @zchagla recently told me in an interview, the adults are going to be major risk factors for transmitting to each other. That's as much a problem for infection control as kids infecting the adults. They adults will infect each other. And some of those adults will die.+

So please, whatever your views on opening the schools, don't waste my time by noting that not many kids will get sick or die. That's not the challenge and child mortality is, at this point, basically a red herring. It's not a serious rebuttal to concerns about the schools. +

The next problem with all the arguments I'm getting it that they seem to be coming from people who have never seen Ontario politics before, and particular haven't seen Doug Ford in action.

Newsflash, folks: Ford crumples went pressured. He's all bluster. +

The odd thing he's actually been willing to see through despite opposition just make this more obvious: he retreats when he meets resistance. That's been a recurring theme throughout his premiership.

And that's just like political pressure. People being mad at him. He folds. +

So now imagine how a Doug Ford-led government is going to hold up under pressure when he has millions of freaked out parents, revolting teachers, mobilized unions and a small stack of teacher corpses at his feet? +

I have two young kids. I DESPERATELY WANT THEM IN SCHOOL. They need to be there for THEIR sake. And because of how badly I want this to happen, I want a plan that I think has a chance of succeeding, not in some world where computers make the tough calls, but in this one. +

And in this world, Doug Ford, a man who spent his first 18 months retreating from almost ever controversial position he dared take, is going to be the guy getting blamed for deaths.

Think about that, and ask yourself if you think his plan will work.

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