Quick thread about vaccine politics in Canada — very big picture, looking at both feds and provinces.

I've been writing/speaking a lot about vaccines lately (duh). And every time I do, angry people come out of the woodwork to insist that I'm not being hard enough on someone. +

Personally, I think the feds could have done better on vaccine procurement. Probably not A LOT better, due to issues beyond their control. But better.

I also think the provinces have been objectively bad at making the most of what was made available to them.*

(I know the situation in my home province of Ontario best of all, of course, but it seems to generally hold true across much of the federation.)

So yeah, there's a lot of blame to go around. And who you blame says more about your politics than the facts.

But! +

Problems with procurement of vaccines, and distribution of what's available, aren't political problems. And if you conceive of them mostly in those terms, you're screwing up. And possibly part of the problem.

The issue with vaccine shortages is that Canadians are going to die. +

I'm not telling anyone how to think or vote. You do you. Democracy, yay. But I am telling all of you to stop thinking of this as primarily yet another partisan issue. There's blame enough to go around, but never lose sight of what the real issue is: vaccines will save lives. +

And until we have enough vaccine to protect the most vulnerable first, and then the rest of us — young people can still clog up the hospitals even if we'll ultimately survive, folks, which we all keep forgetting — these delays are going to mean avoidable suffering and death.

+

So hate Trudeau, love Trudeau. Hate Kenney, love Kenney. I don't care. But stop treating this as some dispute over a transfer program or a construction project bogged down in too much red tape.

Canadians are going to die because we don't have vaccine. Delays mean more death. +

And if you don't remember that when attacking your foes, and PARTICULARLY when defending your preferred party, then you are a bad person and should stop doing that and hopefully grow up a bit.

Thanks!

(Reposted this last tweet to correct a meaning-obscuring typo. My bad!)