Read on Twitter
Wow...my own hashtag :)
Thank you all so much for your support, and for the many kind messages and emails.
It's neat to wake up to a 1-2 thousand more twitter followers and all this kindness.
Thank you all so much for your support, and for the many kind messages and emails.
It's neat to wake up to a 1-2 thousand more twitter followers and all this kindness.
But again: this is not about me. I'm one voice of many, and I'm not going anywhere. Much of the most useful work I've done in Ontario over the past year has been informal advice to friends who have reached out, and that's not going to change whether I'm on tables or off tables
But understand: Ontario's pandemic response has been a mess. As other Canadian provinces have struggled they've learned and adapted.
Doug Ford has had abundant access to good guidance; he's ignored much of it. We saw this manifest in the "crossing of streams" as Ontario overtook Quebec...we now have the largest COVID-19 epidemic in Canada.
The situation in the GTA and Windsor have been particularly difficult to control. We know that this disease has disproportionately hit disadvantaged people of colour in the province; we know it has amplified in industrial facilities that have apparently been "untouchable"
So an Ontario Proud-style hit piece? It's a great distraction.
But keep your eye on the ball: there are billions of dollars of unspent Federal pandemic relief dollars unspent by Ford et al., even as they disparage the Federal role in the pandemic response.
But keep your eye on the ball: there are billions of dollars of unspent Federal pandemic relief dollars unspent by Ford et al., even as they disparage the Federal role in the pandemic response.
There are thousands dead in Ontario, most in long-term care homes. Our LTC Minister is generally MIA and seems unaccountable.
Our ICUs are full to the bursting as myself and others said they would be; we have a wave of burnouts coming in skilled ICU personnel, particularly nurses (journalists, want a story? That's a story).
We have a Minister of Education who hasn't taken the most basic step of all (reducing class sizes to 15) to prevent COVID-19 from amplifying in communities, notwithstanding advice from within his own Ministry as well as outside experts.
We have a government sitting on billions of relief funds as public schools in Toronto don't have enough HEPA filters to go around.
We have a vaccine rollout campaign being run inexpertly, with a single physician, a single pharmacist, no nurses, and nobody with a public health background on the taskforce. Vaccination was a time-sensitive task, and they blew it. Healthcare execs before seniors.
Folks close to the Premier, on the vaccine task force, in senior leadership roles in health, being busted for Caribbean junkets at the height of the pandemic.
Yeah, there's a lot to distract from. It can be me this week, someone else next week.
Yeah, there's a lot to distract from. It can be me this week, someone else next week.
Keep your eye on the ball. With the US moving back towards competence and public health leadership under Pres. Biden, it's going to be a lot harder for Ontario to look good by comparison.
Measures Pres. Biden is introducing (fast) are those that many of us in Ontario have called for since last summer.
Don't let them distract you. Hold Ford to account for his many failures. For protecting his longterm care home owning friends rather than you.
Don't let them distract you. Hold Ford to account for his many failures. For protecting his longterm care home owning friends rather than you.
And thanks again for your support.
I'm not going anywhere.
I'm not going anywhere.
